canadian masters 2018-2019: Theodore ushev
Wed. November 14, 2018
Arts Court Theatre
2 Daly Ave. (Level 2)
The Canadian Film Institute’s Canadian Masters series is an annual celebration of excellence in Canadian filmmaking, featuring extensive onstage interviews, special screenings, and audience discussions with some of the greatest names in Canadian film history.
For our 2018-2019 season, we are honoured to present three extraordinary Canadian masters of the moving image: Theodore Ushev (November), William D. MacGillivray (January), and Nettie Wild (March).
We are also proud to be partnering with Carleton University’s School For Studies In Art and Culture’s Film Studies section. For over four decades, Carleton Film Studies has produced some of the most important and influential film scholars, critics, and curators in Canada, and has also played a key role in the development of film culture generally in our nation.
We would like to acknowledge that the land on which this event will be held is part of unceded Algonquin territory.
TICKETS:
General Admission: $13
CFI Members, OAG Members, Seniors, Students, Children: $9
CFI Ambassador Members: FREE
Tickets are available online or at the door.
We accept cash, credit, and debit at our box office.
Your ticket gets you into both events, Interview and Retrospective.
THEODORE USHEV
“Animation is not just a mechanical movement of a drawing; it is creating life and all its flawed beauty.”
-Theodore Ushev
“Theodore Ushev’s astonishing animation is a kinetic collage of graphic artistry, psychological mystery, emotional intensity, ideological uncertainty, and musical alchemy. A swirling, kaleidoscopic collision of darkness and light, sound and silence, chaos and order, Ushev’s passionate and exploratory animated films constitute one of the most assured, authoritative, unsettling, and impressive bodies of work in contemporary Canadian moving image arts.”
-Tom McSorley, Canadian Film Institute
Born in Bulgaria and having come to Canada in 1999, Theodore Ushev has emerged as one of the most inventive and significant Canadian moving artists. We are honoured to have him as our first Canadian Masters guest artist of this second season of the series.
The Program
Theodore Ushev in Person: Interview
Wednesday, November 14, 2018, 7pm
Arts Court Theatre
Canadian Film Institute Executive Director Tom McSorley will conduct an extensive, career-spanning onstage conversation with Theodore Ushev, looking at his film works, his ideas about animation, cinema and media, his artistic process, and his move from his native Bulgaria to Canada two decades ago. In English only.
Theodore Ushev in Person: Screening
Wednesday, November 14, 2018, 8:30pm
Arts Court Theatre
RETROSPECTIVE: THEODORE USHEV 2006-2018 | 74 minutes
Theodore Ushev will introduce and participate in a discussion with the audience after the screening of this retrospective selection of ten of his short films, including his Oscar Nominated animation, Blind Vaysha, as well two new works never before screened in public.
PROGRAM
Retrospective selected and curated by Theodore Ushev.
THIRD PAGE FROM THE SUN
2014 / 5:56 minutes (Bootleg version)
A commentary on the fragility of culture, this film updates the concept of the palimpsest.
BLOOD MANIFESTO
2014 / 2:20 minutes (Director’s Cut)
Blood, identity, and animation.
BLIND VAYSHA
2016 | 8 minutes
The dark fairy tale of a little girl who sees the past with one eye and the future with the other.
TOWER BAWHER
2006 | 3:46 minutes (GOR Remix version 2017)
Constructivist-style abstract animation set to “Time, Forward!” by Georgy Sviridov.
LIPSETT DIARIES/LES JOURNAUX DE LIPSETT
2010 | 14:00 minutes
A descent into the maelstrom of anguish that tormented Arthur Lipsett, a famed Canadian experimental filmmaker who died at 49.
APOCALYPSE IS BEHIND THE CORNER
2018 | 5 minutes
World Premiere! The very first screening of this brand new work!
KRISTINE, WAVING FROM THE TRAIN
2018 | 15 minutes
Ushev’s new live action short!
VIVALDI: WINTER
2017 | 9 minutes
Animation inspired by the ‘Winter’ section of Vivaldi’s famous ‘Four Seasons.’
SOMNAMBULO
2015 | 5 minutes
A surrealist journey through colors and shapes inspired by the poem Romance Sonambulo by Federico Garcia Lorca.
AZ MANIFESTO: ANIMATION AS A WEAPON
2018 | 5 minutes
Animation accompanied by a live animator!