The Power Plant

Cinenova is a non-profit womens’ film/video distributor based in London, UK. Cinenova is a source of very specific knowledge, a network and cultural community that engages directly with feminist film and video practice, and with the question of how to make this knowledge more publicly accessible. We are very pleased to present a series of events that access, activate and animate the Cinenova collection here in Toronto under the banner of Cinenova: All Hands on the Archive.

This inaugural event will see New York-based artist Emma Hedditch curate a screening from Cinenova’s vital collection of film and video. A member of the Cinenova Working Group (a collective of volunteers responsible for the ongoing operation of Cinenova), distribution, social movements and political activism are not just the subject of Hedditch’s practice, but also its form.

“Coming to Toronto for the first time this year, and thinking about which films from the Cinenova collection I could show, I wanted to try to find out more about what had been produced in Toronto and connect to film- and video-makers living in the city. I saw this as a way to discuss directly with the makers some of the conditions for producing work in Toronto, and the support for their work in general both from the state and among their communities and peers. I was also curious about how their work came to be distributed by Cinenova, which is based in London, England, and what this means for them today.

Ronna Bloom is a poet, teacher and psychotherapist who lives in Toronto. Ronna's video I Feel Hopeful About the Future (1986, 11 min.) tells of personal memories and the nature of memory – how it's kept and how it can be challenged by the conflicting memories of others. It is one of only a few experiments that Ronna made whilst studying Fine Art at the Slade School of Fine Art in London in the early 1980s. Midi Onodera has been producing, directing and writing films for over twenty years. The Displaced View (1988, 52 min.) traces a personal search for identity and pride within the unique and suppressed history of Japanese-Canadians.

Both makers will be present, and there will be a discussion following the screening.”

– Emma Hedditch

The newly published catalogue for The Power Plant exhibition Coming After will also be launched at the event and available for a special price.

Photo: Midi Onodera, still from The Displaced View, 1988. Courtesy the artist.