Winnipeg Invades Strange Beauty

Just a quick shout out and congratulations to the “disproportionate number” of Winnipeg filmmakers playing at this year’s Strange Beauty Film Festival in Durham, NC.

The Winnipeg contingent of Strange Beauty consists of Leslie Supnet’s Spectroscopy, Ryan Simmons’ Diankinetics, Kevin Kelly’s 367 Years in Montreal, Aaron Zeghers with I See a Light and The Story of Thomas Edison, Jaimz Asmundson’s much talked about The Magus, and former Winnipegger Clint Enns’ Connecting with Nature.

Durham, North Carolina’s local paper the News & Observer reported on Strange Beauty yesterday, and the festival’s co-director Joyce Ventimiglia remarked on the large Winnipeg brigade.

“‘I don’t know how that happened, it’s really weird,’ she said with a laugh. ‘We got a few submissions from a filmmaker in Winnipeg last year, and I guess he told all his friends. They must have quite a vibrant experimental film scene in Winnipeg.'”

The Winnipeg invasion on Strange Beauty was also noted by Mike Everleth on his absolutely stellar underground film blog Bad Lit.  In this article, Everleth gave special attention to Asmundson’s The Magus, which he also named Bad Lit’s 2nd runner up for Movie of the Year.

Some highlights from beyond the Winnipeg perimeter at this year’s Strange Beauty include two films by animator Jodie Mack, a three-screen 16mm program by Durham’s own Tom Whiteside, and a live original score to the 1921 animation Dream of the Rarebit Fiend: The Pet by the band Felix Obelix.

Among the films singled out by the festival’s co-director Joyce Ventimiglia was Kudzu Vine by Josh Gibson. “It’s just so visually stunning,” Ventimiglia said. “The way it’s shot is just so incredible, so meticulously done.”

Strange Beauty runs from Feb. 16 to 18 and is chock full of amazing experimental, independent and underground films.

~ by cineflyer on February 17, 2012.