dreamscapes retrospective offers films that enter into mysterious landscapes, October 19

Collaborators Cameron Mackenzie and Suzanne Friesen screen three short works that illustrate their approach to filmmaking as a poetic art form

By Gail johnson

Cineworks Independent Filmmakers Society and SFU School for the Contemporary Arts co-present dreamscapes on October 19 from 6 to 8 pm at Djavad Mowafaghian Cinema – SFU Goldcorp Centre for the Arts

COLLABORATORS CAMERON MACKENZIE and Suzanne Friesen approach filmmaking as a poetic and evocative art form. At dreamscapes, they’ll explore the event’s namesake, mysterious landscapes open for personal reflection and interpretation, in a retrospective of three short films.

Post-screening, Mackenzie and Friesen will be in attendance to discuss their films in conversation with Luis Alvarez, program oordinator for Cineworks Independent Filmmakers Society.  

Friesen is a Vancouver-based Canadian/Polish cinematographer and filmmaker based whose work has been shown at the Polygon Gallery, The Edge, and Flatlander’s Studio as well as at the Sundance Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival, and Vancouver International Film Festival, among others. Shortlisted for the Lind Prize in 2021, Friesen received a 2022 Leo nomination for the feature Be Still in the category of Best Cinematography in a Motion Picture. She’s is an Instructor at Capilano University’s School for Motion Picture Arts.

Mackenzie, a locally based film and video editor and filmmaker, studied visual arts at the University of British Columbia and film production at SFU’s School for the Contemporary Arts. His work has screened at events and galleries such as Vancouver International Film Festival, FIN Atlantic International Film Festival, Julien Dubuque International Film Festival, Vancouver Queer Film Festival, and the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria. As a resident filmmaker at The Cinematheque and recipient of BC Arts Council's Early Career Development Grant, he has created short films and filmmaking workshops for youth to promote an appreciation for film as an empowering form of artistic self expression. He currently works as a commercial film / video editor while continuing his independent filmmaking and editing practice.

On the dreamscapes program is 2019’s “Venusian”, which the pair co-directed, wherein “love’s liberation from physical and temporal realms are examined through painterly, surreal compositions and the characters' alien relationships with each other and their environments”. In “The Constant Evening”, directed by Mackenzie with cinematography by Friesen, “images of past and present intertwine as a troubled man reenacts intimate memories of his former lover with a naive and mysterious young stranger”. “Tu” (2020), directed by Friesen with production design by Mackenzie, takes its name from the Polish word for “here”. It takes the shape of a visual poem to explore “a meditative respite from the human condition” as it formally investigates the relationship between viewer and medium via temporal stasis and “play back”.

More information is here.

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