IFCO Workshop -
TIME, MEMORY and PERSONAL CINEMA
with experimental-documentary filmmaker
and Concordia professor
RICK HANCOX
Prize-winning independent filmmaker and teacher Rick Hancox comes to IFCO April 1 st
to host a unique, all-day workshop on the creative challenges and rewards of
Personal Filmmaking. He will devote special attention to questions of time and
memory in this kind of cinema, something he has taught for many years - both
at Sheridan College in the 1980's,
and currently at Concordia University in Montreal, where he teaches film production and a course
entitled, "Film, Time and Memory" in the Communication Studies Department. Hancox
will share innovative techniques of temporal
manipulation and ways of representing memory, gained through the making of films such as Home for Christmas (1978), Waterworx: A Clear Day and No Memories (1982), and Moose Jaw:
There's a Future in Our Past (1992), which are part of the collection of the National Gallery of Canada. He will also
show and discuss the film he is working on now, All that is Solid, exploring his thoughts and feelings regarding the death of his father. Hancox has been recognized for the influence he has had on
the development of personal and experimental documentary film in
The workshop will consist of screenings, discussions, a participatory exercise in subjective 16mm camera work,
handouts of relevant articles and information, and more.
Throughout the day the following questions will be addressed in detail: - What
is personal cinema? What do these 'experimental documentaries' look like? -
Why make a personal film? What is gained and
lost? Can it be relevant to others? - How
does one get started on a personally rewarding project? How about sustaining the motivation necessary to see this
challenging form of filmmaking through
to completion - possibly for public
exhibition?
- Is
there a satisfying intellectual side to making personal films? Are our sense of
time and personal memories are a
product of the social order? How can questions like this be translated cinematically in ways that are engaging to an
audience?