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Super Cinema

Splice This! SUPER8 film festival at the Tranzac Club (292 Brunswick), Friday-Sunday (June 21-23). $8/evening. 416-927-1278. See Rep Cinemas, page 91, for complete schedule. Rating: NNN

Rating: NNNNN


The average length of a film in the Splice This! Super8 Film Festival is four minutes. That’s how long it takes for the opening credits to roll by in a Hollywood film.

What can you accomplish in four minutes? A hell of a lot if you don’t screw around. Point your camera in the right place and keep it simple.

Splice This! celebrates what’s becoming an obsolete technology now that digital video has become the medium of choice of low-cost filmmakers.

The irony is that super8 is growing increasingly popular, which is what happens when a technology gets a retro tag and filmmakers decide it’s cool to get back to their roots. (I know super8 aficionados will be spitting mad at that last statement.)

More movies means better movies. Programmer Laura Cowell has put together a weekend of films not only from local lights like Kelly O’Brien, Scott Treleaven, Robert Kennedy, Roy Mitchell, Christy Garland and John Porter, but also from international contributors out of Germany, Spain and the UK.

Check out the Super8 Super Hero program (Saturday, 9 pm), which features in-your-face do-gooders, and the final-night blowout program, Remedy (Sunday, 7 and 9 pm), with films by almost 50 artists.

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