Full Videogenizah; passages from the lublin book graveyard
16mm, optical sound, B&W/Colour, 2018
Passages retrieved from the lublin genizah, a ruinous non-archive where the sacred is slowly being released from it's corporal form.
days of doubt
16mm to HD, B&W, Runtime: 22:00, 2017
"This black-and-white, beautifully shot short is striking. Without a word of dialogue, the visual language is rich with much represented both on and off camera. Moments of an elderly duo's daily routines are imbued with significance as each mundane task, from washing a body to a leather bag, is performed with a kind of watchful silence and dedication. The care of the familiar and the ominous tension of passing time coexist precariously in the spaces Nagler creates here. In response to a question about a wounded bird trapped in the cluttered house, he recalls an old superstition that sees such an event as an ill omen or a portent of death, a connection he only realized later, but is one that underscores the film's weight."
- Rose Scoville,
Carbon Arc Cinema
"days of doubt is a profoundly moving black and white exploration of space from Solomon Nagler, the prominent Canadian experimental filmmaker. Although the film does not feature dialogues, its visual language speaks louder than words. The focus of the film is the quotidian of an elderly duo, the rituals of which the film approaches with a respectful silence and dedication. Nagler views the bodies as well as the spaces that these bodies occupy. Perhaps this tranquillity is misleading? Days of Doubt is a delicate, graceful visual meditation."
- Kaunas International Film Festival, Lithuania
"The everyday life of a couple at the twilight of their lives. In the slowness of their gestures, their bodies, lies still an incredible beauty."
- Festival Les Inattendus, Lyon France
Screenings:
LE FESTIVAL DU NOUVEAU CINEMA - Montreal, QC; THE HALIFAX INDEPENDENT FILM FESTIVAL, KAUNAS FILM FESTIVAL - Lithuania, FESTIVAL DES INATTENDUS - Lyon, France; 34TH HAMBURG INTERNATIONAL SHORT FILM FESTIVAL.
skin of the cit-y
16mm, B&W, Runtime: 07:00, 2016
Framed by poet Robert Lax' sculptural texts, skin of the cit-y wanders through mills and factories surrendering to the elements, deteriorating in solidarity with the isolated Maritime cities that erode beside them. Contact printed in-camera, the film material stares back, layers view-planes and duration while dreaming in light....
Screenings:
LE FESTIVAL DU NOUVEAU CINEMA - Montreal, QC (2012); THE HALIFAX INDEPENDENT FILM FESTIVAL; ANTIMATTER FILM FESTIVAL, Victoria, BC, (2016); RENCONTRES INTERNATIONALES - Paris (March 2017); LE FESTIVAL INTERNATIONAL DU COURT MÉTRAGE - Saguenay (January 2017); ULTRAcinema - Mexico City; SYROS INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL, Greece; FESTIVAL DES CINEMAS DIFFERENTS ET EXPERIMENTAUX - Paris
Black Salt Water Elegy
16mm to HD, B&W, Runtime: 16:00, 2010
A short film that weaves together original and archival material to create an ethereal narrative texture, Black Saltwater Elegy intimately links the discordant threads of a popular history of dispossession (Africville) with the solitude of its protagonist's graveyard-shift fantasies. After opening with disquieting archival footage of the demolition of Africville, the film shifts to an austere observational portrait.
A palatable sense of the duration of midnight work slowly shifts into subtle gestures that hint towards choreographed events. Eventually, a breech occurs as the protagonist fuses with an emergent dreamscape, where ruined landscapes and the resurrection of an extinct community intertwine. Using the protagonist's disembodied point-of-view, the audience floats above a reconstructed Africville, one forever present, nesting in a bed of saltwater fog…
Selected Screenings:
TRAVERSE VIDEO, Toulouse, France (2012) -FESTIVAL DES INATTENDUS - Lyon, France (programmed for 2012); PARALOEIL - Rimouski, QC (2011); THE EUROPEAN MEDIA ARTS FESTIVAL - Osnabruck, Germany (2011); THE CARBON ARC CINEMA - Halifax, NS (2011); LE 12em ME FESTIVAL DES CinemaS DIFFERENTS ET EXPERIMENTAUX DE PARIS - Paris, France (2010); LE FESTIVAL DU NOUVEAU CINeMA - Montreal, QC (2010); THE ANTIMATTER FILM FESTIVAL - Victoria, BC (2010); THE ATLANTIC FILM FESTIVAL - Halifax, NS (2010); LUMEN 4321 (Curated by AndrHabib) - Caraquet, NB (2010)
Distribution:
The Collectif Jeune Cinema, Europe
The Winnipeg Film Group, Canada
j.
a collaboration with Quebec filmmaker Alexandre Larose
16mm, B&W, Runtime: 06:30, 2009
"This film poem is a sombre, atmospheric reflection on fate. Larose and Nagler dig into the orphaned trash cans of cinema archives and transpose these old celluloid stories into a new light, interpreting the found images into a poem on need, affection and solitude"
- Videoex Festival in Zurich Switzerland
Selected Screenings:
CENTRE POMPIDOU (Program: Le CJC de 1971 2011: 40 ans de collectif) - Paris, France (2011); EXiS EXPERIMENTAL FILM AND VIDEO FESTIVAL - Seoul, Korea (2010); 10 E FESTIVAL DE LE Cinema DIFFERENTS - Paris, France (2009); THE EUROPEAN MEDIA ARTS FESTIVAL - Osnabruck, Germany (2009); ANTIMATTER UNDERGROUND FILM FESTIVAL - Victoria, BC (2009); SALON DES EDITEURS INDEPENDANTS - Paris, France (2009); PARATAXIS, EXCENTRIS - Montreal, QC (2010); VIDEOEX FESTIVAL - Zurich, Switzerland (2010); GIMLI FILM FESTIVAL - Gimli, MB (2009); LA 38EME EDITION DU FESTIVAL DU NOUVEAU Cinema - Montreal, QC (2009); JIHLAVA INTERNATIONAL DOCUMENTARY FILM FESTIVAL - Czech Republic (2010); FUTURE FILM FESTIVAL 12TH EDITION - Bologna, Italy (2010); TRAVERSE VIDEO, 13 EDITION - Toulouse, France (2010); $100 FILM FESTIVAL (Winner Best 16mm Film) - Calgary, AB (2010); MEDIA CITY FILM FESTIVAL - Windsor, ON (2010)
Distribution:
The Collectif Jeune Cinema, Europe
The Winnipeg Film Group, Canada
Notes on Gesture
16mm, B&W, Runtime: 04:30, 2007
A Visual essay of indexical failures that examine the bliss of ineffable gestures…
Selected Screenings:
PRARIE SCENE FESTIVAL, NATIONAL ARTS CENTRE - Ottawa, ON (2011); PACIFIC CINEMATHEQUE - Vancouver, BC (2009); LA 37EME EDITION DU FESTIVAL DU NOUVEAU CINEMA - Montreal, QC (2008); ANTIMATTER UNDERGROUND FILM FESTIVAL - Victoria, BC (2008); AURORA FILM FESTIVAL - Norwich, England (2008); CSIF $100.00 FILM-FESTIVAL - Calgary, AB (2008), 10EME FESTIVAL DE LE CINEMA DIFFERENTS - Paris, France (2008). SHUTTER2THINK FILM FESTIVAL - Terrace, BC (2008)
Distribution:
The Collectif Jeune Cinema, Europe
The Winnipeg Film Group, Canada
Fugue Nefesh
35mm, B&W, Runtime: 29:00, 2007
A survivor of the Holocaust and an impoverished aboriginal boy have just died. United in their displacement, they become caught up in the flux of transmigration. A nomadic fugue, they wander timelessly among the naked souls of Winnipeg's desolate North End.
Selected Screenings:
MUSEE DE LA CIVILISATION - Quebec City, QC (2010); GIMLI FILM FESTIVAL - Gimli, MB (2009); MONTREAL UNDERGROUND FILM FESTIVAL - Montreal, QC (2008); FESTIVAL SIGNES DE NUIT - Paris, France (2008)LA 36EME EDITION DU FESTIVAL DU NOUVEAU Cinema Montreal, QC (2007); ANTIMATTER UNDERGROUND FILM FESTIVAL - Victoria, BC (2007); FESTIVAL DE LE Cinema DIFFERENTS - Paris, France (2007)
Distribution:
The Collectif Jeune Cinema, Europe
The Winnipeg Film Group, Canada
untitled3 (stone killer)
Video, B&W, Runtime: 5:30, 2006
The colonial division between landscape and body has been rejected, and the politics of a new topology, one concerning a failed geometry imposed onto Canada's Great Plains has emerged. This film is a Portrait that has been sketched into an infinite horizon, where a body becomes one with the landscapes it has fallen into.
Selected Screenings:
IN THE MOOD FOR TODAY (Curated by Macu Moran) - Madrid, Spain + New York, NY (2010); BORN TO BE A STAR (Curated by Marianna Milhorat) - Chicago, IL (2010); LUMEN 4321 (Curated by Andre Habib) - Caraquet, NB (2010); MUSEE DE LA CIVILISATION - Quebec City, QC (2010) 27TH FESTIVAL TOUT-COURTS - Aix-en-Provence, France (2009); THE 13 TH LIFT SALON DE REFUSE, TORONTO MOVEMENT ON SCREEN - Manchester, England (2007); THE EUROPEAN MEDIA ARTS FESTIVAL - Osnabruck, Germany; FESTIVAL DE LE Cinema DIFFERENTS - Paris, France (2006); EICV -15IEME EDITION (Winner Prix de la Meilleur Realization Visuelle) - Montreal, QC; VIDEO DANSE LA CINEMATHEQUE QUBECOISE Montreal, QC; ANTIMATTER UNDERGROUND FILM FESTIVAL - Victoria, BC (2006); AURORA FILM FESTIVAL - Norwich, England
Distribution:
The Collectif Jeune Cinema, Europe
The Winnipeg Film Group, Canada
The Sex of Self-Hatred
16mm, B&W, Runtime: 9:00, 2004
It's 1903, and Otto Weininger, Vienna's most infamous self-hating Jew has decided to kill himself in a room containing Beethoven's deathbed. He has just published his first book Sex and Character, and has yet to witness an acknowledgment of his self-assured genius. Haunted by the damning statements within his own book, he holds a gun to his head, and takes a leap towards the great unknown.
Selected Screenings:
OFNI FESTIVAL - Poitiers, France (programmed for 2012); ETNA - Paris, France (2011); DOBIALAB - Trieste, Italy (2011); Cineathque de Toulouse - Toulouse, France (2011); Cinema Nova - Brussels, Belgium (2011); LICHTBLICK KINO - Berlin, Germany (2011); CENTRUM SZTUKI WSPEŁCZESNEJ ZAMEK UJAZDOWSKI - Warsaw, Poland (2011); KINO CYTRYNA - Łodź, Poland (2011); MUSEE D'ART CONTEMPORAIN DE ZAGREB - Zagreb, Croatia (2011); BROOKLYN UNDERGROUND FILM FESTIVAL - Brooklyn, NY (2005); BOSTON UNDERGROUND FILM FESTIVAL - Boston, MA (2005); CSIF $100.00 FILM FESTIVAL - Calgary, 2 AB (2005); FOREMAN ART GALLERY OF BISHOPS UNIVERSITY - Quebec City, QC; FESTIVAL DE Cinema DES 3 AMERIQUES - Quebec City, QC (2004); SINGAPORE INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL (2005); ANTIMATTER UNDERGROUND FILM FESTIVAL - Victoria, BC (2005); MINI-PROJO SCREENING STUDIO 303 - Montreal, QC; THE LAUSANNE UNDERGROUND FILM FESTIVAL - Lausanne, Switzerland (2005); FESTIVAL Cinema DIFFERENTS - Paris, France (2007); 4EME FESTIVAL SIGNES DE NUIT - Paris, France; GIMLI FILM FESTIVAL - Gimli, MB (2005); INTERNACIONALNI FESTIVAL - Sarajevo (2006); MONTREAL UNDERGROUND FILM FESTIVAL - Montreal, QC (2006); THE HARBOURFRONT CENTRE - Toronto, ON; PESCARA FILM FESTIVAL - Pescara, Italy; 8TH INTERNATIONAL SHORT FILM FESTIVAL EINKLAI- 4 city tour in Lithuania; SPREAD VIDEOART PROJECT - Shinbashi, Tokyo; CENTRE POMPIDOU (Program: Eemain, dE l'aube - Paris, France; CINE POBRE - Gibara, Cuba; FABULOUS FESTIVAL OF FRINGE FILM - Durham, ON (2007); THE iLLUSEUM - Amsterdam, Holland (2008); SAN FRANCISCO CINEMATHEQUE - San Francisco, CA (2010)
Distribution:
The Collectif Jeune Cinema, Europe
The Winnipeg Film Group, Canada
perhaps/We
16mm, Colour, Runtime: 11:00, 2003
"Like a world seen in sleep - a paradox of wakefulness and delirium, part lucid dream, part sunshine through sleep-heavy lids - the treated footage in Solomon Nagler's perhaps/We follows a cycle, with motifs of the ever-present twilight in a steel-blue Warsaw set against what could be (but probably isn't) archive footage, of an old woman asleep on a day-bed and an overgrown, forgotten Jewish Cemetery. Found sounds and field recordings join scratched records to create a soundtrack as plaintive as Nagler's manipulated film stock, a lone voice introducing and concluding the film: I float/ Above the world/ In my sleep/ In my dreams / And every time I dream, I loose half my body. A rumination on loss and memory, or memories half-forgotten, whilst perhaps/We isn't figurative, it offers and account of humanity, peopled by ghosts - undoubtedly the ghosts of the Holocaust: mournful yet never peevish, never mawkish."
- Adam Pugh,
Programmer Aurora Film Festival, Norwich England.
Selected Screenings:
NUIT BLANCE (Program: Chroma Dance) - Montreal, QC (2010); LONDON JEWISH MUSEUM - London, Jewish Museum (2010); LIVETONFILM, THE WINNIPEG CINEMATHEQUE - Winnipeg, MB (2009); CSIF SURREALISM IN FILM PROGRAM - Calgary, AB (2008); THE iLLUSEUM - Amesterdam, Hollan (2008); INTERNACIONALNI FESTIVAL - Sarajevo (2006); IMAGES - Toronto, ON (2004); THE TELLURIDE INTERNATIONAL EXPERIMENTAL FILM EXPOSITION - Telluride, CO; IMAGES FILM FESTIVAL - Toronto, ON (2003); THE 42ND ANN ARBOR FILM FESTIVAL - Ann Arbor, MI (2004); THE EUROPEAN MEDIA ARTS FESTIVAL - Osnabruck, Germany (2003); THE FESTIVAL TOUS COURTS - Aix-en Provence, France (2004; FESTIVAL DE LE Cinema DIFFERENTS - Paris, France (2007 + 2004); THE LAUSANNE UNDERGROUND FILM FESTIVAL - Lausanne, Switzerland (2004); THE BOSTON JEWISH FILM FESTIVAL - Boston, MA (2004); AURORA FILM FESTIVAL - Norwich, England
Distribution:
The Collectif Jeune Cinema, Europe
The Winnipeg Film Group, Canada
Canyon Cinema, United States
untitled2 (the last jew of edenbridge)
Video, B&W/Colour, Runtime: 5:00, 2002
A hand-processed/colour-manipulated portrait of the last member of a Jewish farming colony in Central Canada who guards over the precious relics of an indealistic past.n destruction and creation.
Selected Screenings:
BREATH/LIGHT/BIRTH: SPIRITUALITY IN EXPERIMENTAL CINEMA (Curated by Heidi Philipps), WINNIPEG CINEMATHEQUE - Winnipeg, MB (2010); FESTIVAL DE LE Cinema DIFFERENTS - Paris, France (2005); THE VANCOUVER NEW MUSIC FESTIVAL - Vancouver, BC (2003); THE ATLANTIC JEWISH FILM FESTIVAL - Halifax, NS; THE MONTREAL JEWISH FILM FESTIVAL - Montreal, QC (2003); THE NEW YORK JEWISH FILM FESTIVAL AT LINCOLN CENTER - New York. NY (2003)
Distribution:
The Collectif Jeune Cinema, Europe
The Winnipeg Film Group, Canada
untitled1 (prayerielandescape)
Video, B&W/Colour, Runtime: 5:00, 2004
Isolated dreams of broken cars falling through the horizon…
Selected Screenings:
FESTIVAL DE LE Cinema DIFFERENTS - Paris, France (2005); THE VANCOUVER NEW MUSIC FESTIVAL - Vancouver, BC (2003); ANTIMATTER UNDERGROUND FILM FESTIVAL - Victoria, BC (2003)
Distribution:
The Collectif Jeune Cinema, Europe
The Winnipeg Film Group, Canada
ReRuin
16mm, Colour, Runtime: 10:00, 2001
"Which ever word you speak you owe to destruction."
This Hand-processed film explores the intimate relationship between emulsion manipulated sound and image.
Selected Screenings:
The Pleasure Dome, Toronto , Manchester International Short Film Festival, Gimli Film Festival Festival De Le Cinema Difference, Paris, France
Distribution:
The Winnipeg Film Group, Canada
A Treatise on Prairie Mysticism
16mm, B&W/Colour, Runtime: 26:00, 2001
An experimental dark comedy about an aging prairie poet who tells the fantastical tale about the birth of her muse.
Selected Screenings:
NSI Film Exchange 2002; WFG Program , LIFT Salon de Refuse Toronto , The Calgary $100.00 Film Festival , The Gimli Film Festival
Distribution:
The Winnipeg Film Group, Canada
Doc1.doc
16mm, B&W, Runtime: 16:00, 1999
A work using the basic dramatic skeleton of a Greek tragedy while hanging rancid bits of comtemporary meat on the bones. Fashioned in the school of prairie surrealism, revolving around the theme that "The gods don't know how to cook".
Selected Screenings:
Boston Underground Film Festival, Vancouver Underground Film Festival 2002 ,Winnipeg 19 Touring Show of New Winnipeg Film film/video , Festival De Le Cinema Difference, Paris, France
Distribution:
The Winnipeg Film Group, Canada
M.O.Y.
16mm, B&W, Runtime: 03:00, 1998
A film shot in three sequences, each sequence corresponds to one of the letters in the title of the film. The title M.O.Y. gets it's meaning only from the actions within the film narrative itself, and lacks any meaning outside the film.
Selected Screenings:
Local Heroes NSI Film Festival - Winnipeg
Distribution:
The Winnipeg Film Group, Canada