⇤ Return

about the artist

"Solomon Nagler’s film work twists and turns through the uncanny topological spaces between abstraction and representation, negation and affirmation, place and placelessness. Allegorical by design, Nagler’s vision is composed of fragments of recognizable reality commingled with the raw matter of hallucination and nascent form. In Nagler’s work, vision is both a phenomenological and historical entity; a damaged engagement with time, space, and the archaeologies of memory and film. Stories of migration and refuge take suggestive shape, often against and within the vast expanses of the Canadian prairies. In Nagler’s cinema, ethical engagement has to be equal to the task of the precariousness of life in transition. Home is temporary; home is a refuge."

- Scott Birdwise, Programmer, Canadian Film Institute

"…working on the borders of narration and abstraction, Nagler’s films invite us to explore the inner-selves of the characters he presents. Landscapes and symbols are continually mixed up, raising questions of identity and internal memories. It seems as though, removed from the smooth surfaces of beings, we can touch their true selves…"

- Sarah Darmon, Collectif Jeune Cinéma Paris

"Directly from the Winnipeg Film Group, Solomon Nagler’s triptych shows, in its dark and fascinating photography, how cinema can descend from pain, from the unspeakable – and be utterly, blackly resplendent. His elegies go deep into the Hebraic taboo of representation, and deliver us some of the most intimate and poetic images of our times."

- Gabriela Trujillo, PHD Candidate, L'Université Paris Panthéon Sorbonne

"Nagler’s films run the gamut from inscrutable images to highly stylized narratives, mixing documentary and fantasy elements. Even if you can’t piece together what’s going on, the films have a dramatic, unsettling resonance — they stick with you in ways that mainstream films can’t."

- Peter Hemminger, Fast Forward, Calgary Alberta

Nagler's films have been featured in Retrospectives at the Winnipeg Cinematheque, Excentris Cinema in Montreal, the Festival de le Cinéma Different in Paris, The Calgary Society of Independent Filmmakers, The Canadian Film Institute in Ottawa, Robert Heald Gallery in Wellington, New Zealand, The Artist Film Workshop in Melbourne, Australia and the Cinematheque Quebecoise. His work also includes 16mm celluloid installations that engage with experimental architecture in galleries and public space. These works have been exhibited at the Toronto International Film Festival, 8-11 Gallery (Toronto), Artspace Gallery (Sydney, Australia), Send and Receive Festival of Sound (Winnipeg) and The Halifax Independent Filmmakers' Festival. Originally from Winnipeg, Solomon Nagler is co-founder of WNDX: Festival of the Moving Image in Winnipeg and currently lives in Halifax where he is a professor of film production at NSCAD University.

Contact the Artist