Eve Majzels

A completely hand-made historical micro-epic about the final minutes in the life of Winnipeg's doomed Second World War hero, Andrew Mynarski (1916-1944). Combining wartime aviation melodrama with classical and avant-garde animation techniques (including stop-motion, silhouettes, bleaching, scratching, hand-painting and rubbing letratone patterns directly on the celluloid) Mynarski Death Plummet is a psychedelic photo-chemical war picture on the theme of self-sacrifice, immortality and jellyfish.

A nightmarish premonition prompts the sudden return of a man named Doveed to his hometown where he confronts the neglect of its past and his own spiritual crisis. In the wake of a childhood friend’s suicide, he re-enters a religious community that is locked in a lingering standstill, ruined by the brutality of repression, and lost in the shadows of collective guilt. Ten years in the making, this film is loosely based on the tragic events that rocked Winnipeg’s Jewish community in the late ‘80s and ‘90s when the principal of prominent Jewish academy denied allegations of sexual abuse. This film is dedicated to Daniel Levin, one of the alleged victims who came forward with accusations, and who later committed suicide at the age of 17.

On a moonlit street corner, a Parisian waif sits dejectedly on a doorstep, mournfully clutching a dogless leash.

A hand-painted film in which shapes representing film camera and projector shutters move in unshutter-like ways. The process of filmmaking relies on the continual and consistent revolutions of these pieces of machinery but here they create their own rhythms. (This film was commissioned by the Winnipeg Film Group's Cinematheque for its 25th anniversary, Silverscope)