Trinity Square is excited to be partnering with Toronto’s small gauge film festival, the8fest, to present the program SPACE—Building for Society.

Saturday, 28 January 2017
9 PM
SPK Polish Combatants’ Hall (206 Beverley Street, Toronto ON)

The 8fest presents films from Toronto, across Canada and from small-gauge creators and communities around the world. Showcasing the over 70-year history of small-gauge film—from artists’ works in the form since the 1950s and ’60s, to its wider cultural use in home movies, instructional loops and beyond—the8fest provides a forum for filmmakers who want to show their work on small-gauge and for people who want to see this work in its original formats. The 8fest is committed to keeping the exhibition of small-gauge film a viable presentation medium.

A full schedule of festival events can be found here.

For its 10^th year, Trinity Square is partnering with the8fest to present the program SPACE—Building for Society.

The politics of the use of space continues to mold urban landscapes close to home, and further afield. 31 December 2016 marked the end of an era in Toronto when Honest Ed’s, a landmark discount store, closed its doors after 68 years of operation. The Annex neighbourhood will not be the same again.

SPACE––Building for Society takes you on an excursion to different locales and motivations be they alarmist, cautionary, observational or revolutionary. Come join us for an exhilarating trip through the decades and become party to monumental spaces, featuring the following artists and films:

Michal Maciej Bartosik
Space (2003)

Swing, separate, occupy, restore, connect. Whether it’s brutalist, minimalist or oppressive, space influences our actions, aspirations and expectations. Little Current Swing Bridge can separate or connect us, confuse or exhilarate, open or close.

Lisa Danker
Beneath a Glass Floor Lobby (2016)

A short essay film reflects on recent archaeological discoveries dating back to 600 AD in the rapidly growing coastal city of Miami, Florida. Architectural remains of a once-thriving native Tequesta village excavated at the city’s so-called birthplace on the Miami River suggest that the settlement was permanent, built on and near the water. Recordings from public hearings weave citizens’ concerns about city planning with the filmmaker’s voiceover asking the viewer to think about what may be at stake in failing to adequately preserve and honour both the recent and ancient past.

Vid Ingelevics
Between Home and Dome (2016)

Montreal’s Expo 67 represented one of the most important artistic experiments of the 20^th century more than three thousand films were produced for this event. Using the home movies of retired Boston-based engineer Wesley Foote as its inspiration, Between Home and Dome contrasts Foote’s own documentation of his experience at working in Montreal in the lead-up to Expo 67 with accounts of home life in the city from his wife, Linda Foote, and their children.

Philip Monk
Tango Tange Scramble (1987)

Calling himself “definitely an amateur,” Monk has shot less than a hour of film in his life—and all in the 1980s. Here Monk is in Tokyo during the Black Thursday stock market crash when Japan financially ruled the world.

Graham Hollings
Hollywood Forever (2003)

Using the Hollywood Forever cemetery as a backdrop (this cemetery figured prominently in Kenneth Anger’s Hollywood Babylon [1959]), Hollings recounts his visit to Outfest, LA’s big queer film fest. Pigeons sit on grandiose monuments, flying down to snack, as Hollings talks about the perks of visiting an LA film festival.

Tess Elliot
Olympia (2015)

Tess Elliot’s first film, Olympia, is shot on the grounds of the Olympic Stadium in Berlin, Germany. The historic site was the location of the infamous Leni Riefenstahl film from 1938 with the same title. In Olympia, the stadium remains in the periphery, as the film takes us through the interior of the bell tower across the grounds from the stadium, and up to the tourist viewing deck.

Tom Mitchell
Home Town (Speke, Liverpool) (1974)

In the space of a few years (c.1945–1950), Speke mushroomed from a pre-war census of 400 souls to 25,000 people. The so-called Garden City idealism never progressed beyond the drawing board. Houses were built and then the money ran out: schools, shops, churches, community centres, all took up to a decade to finish off. Speke was anything but “self-contained.”

Terrarea (Janis Demkiw, Emily Hogg, Olia Mishchenko)
Fan Area (2017)

A drawing is formed from a ceiling fan and furniture in the domestic space of friends.

Kika Thorne
October 25th + 26th, 1996 (1996)

During the Metro Days of Action, a 150′ long building was inflated using the air vents in front of Toronto’s Nathan Phillips Square. The October Group action references both public institution and temporary home to protest the erosion of this city.

Project by the October Group who consists of Adrian Blackwell, Cecelia Chen, Daniel Diaz Orozco, Kenneth Hayes, Barry Isenor, Mike Lawrence, Christie Pearson, Kika Thorne, Weibke von Carolsfeld, Derek Wang and everyone who helped us install, who picketed and played.

Petar Boskovic
Ripples and Tides (2016)

A contemplative glimpse at the natural landscape of South Bruce Peninsula, Ripples and Tides offers a momentary recess to breathe in the aesthetic pleasures of sundown.