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School for the Contemporary Arts fonds Aikenhead, Christopher
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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/

Oasis in the Desert

"A documentary look at storefront fundamentalism on Vancouver’s skid road. Shot in black and white by Ronald Precious, [the film] is a five minute portrait of Melinda Thorne, a black Chicago missionary who ministers to the down and outs in our own city." [Michael Walsh, "Student film mood: Calmness supplants revolution," ca. 1973 article]; "(Filmmaker's first 16mm documentary film, shot in Double-X and Plus-X Negative.) The film deals with the work of one woman, Malinda [sic?] Thorne and her efforts to relieve some of the loneliness and despair experienced by those living in Vancouver's Skidrow." [Spring Arts Festival, March 11-April 8, S.F.U. Film Workshop Productions 1973, program]. Precious (director) continues to work in film: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0695731/. He was also part of primary film crews during Greenpeace's early days (1975-79): http://rexweyler.com/greenpeace/greenpeace-history/characters/.