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School for the Contemporary Arts fonds Windsor, Chris
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Ivory Founts

"An 18-minute parody on the business of making movies in Canada. Actually a film-within-a-film, it represents itself as a documentary in the making of Oblivion, an awful film that has met with surprising critical success. Oblivion, shot in color, is unreeled as part of the surrounding documentary, shot in black and white but printed on color stock to give it a hint of tint. The film is actually a Workshop group project and in it the group‚Äôs own fascination with film, its possibilities and its paradoxes get a thorough, if light-hearted going-over." [Michael Walsh, "Student film mood: Calmness supplants revolution," Province?, ca. 1973]; "Aikenhead is an alumnus of the Ontario Arts Council‚Äôs film apprentice program who is now studying at Simon Fraser University. Ivory Founts was a funnier and more sophisticated filmmaker-making-a-film film than any other I have seen. This type of approach seems mandatory at student film festivals. I was uncomfortable that he won top prize, but his film worked. He put into it just about every clich?©d image of the filmmaker imaginable. It was a fun film." [Kirwan Cox, "Opinion: The Canadian Film Festival," Cinema Canada, October/January 1973/74, no. 10-11, pp. 76-77.]; "(This film was produced as a Group Project for 16mm Workshop, shot in Eastman Colour Negative 7254, 4-X Negative, Double-X Neg, and printed on colour print stock.) The Filmmaker‚Äôs notes for this film:
"Sometimes, above the gross and palpable things
Of this diurnal sphere, his spirit flies
On awful wing; and with its destined skies
Holds premature and mystic communings:
Till such unearthly intercourses shed
A visible halo round his mortal head". - Keats" [Spring Arts Festival, March 11-April 8, S.F.U. Film Workshop Productions 1973, program] Won the Norman McLaren prize (for best film of the festival) at the 5th Canadian Student Film Festival, Montreal, 1973. [Cox article]; Participated in the International Student Film Festival – "Cinestud ‘73" in Amsterdam, Netherlands." [SFU News Release, 25 March 1974]. Director Aikenhead continues to work in the film industry: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0014589/

After Friday

"Just how much can one man take?" [SFU 74/75 Film Workshop Showcase program]; "I can't quite pinpoint why but this film felt stiff and nervous, part of it was some rather stilted acting from Richard Ouzounian, with lots of long pauses. There was some good photography. The opening scenes of the film were very effective, black and white still shots showing the brother as he is released from prison are interspersed with quick color cuts of the former inmate going into an arcade. There is also a fairly well paced chase scene, as an unknown gunman pursues a janitor via ancient elevators. The movie attempts to show the build up of fears which culminate in the madness and defeat of the inmate's business man brother, but doesn't quite succeed because of the inadequacy of the acting, trite dialogue and awkward scenes." [Handwritten notes (author unknown), 21 May 1975, in arrangement & description section of F-232 collection file]