Part of Fall 2009
Finnish filmmaker Sami Van Ingen returns to Toronto to premiere his new 35mm film Just One Kiss – The Fall of Ned Kelly with a live musical soundtrack performed by local band Picastro. An interpretation of the world’s first full-length feature film, The Story of the Kelly Gang (Charles Tate, 1906), which has since disappeared, Just One Kiss combines the surviving storyline and part of the 17 minutes of restored material with appropriated footage to re-create this seminal film.
Sami van Ingen (b. 1964) makes experimental films and installations based on the moving image. One of the main characteristics of his work is an examination of the cinematic apparatus itself and the boundaries within it. His works have been screened in many national and international festivals and venues over the years. Collaborators include filmmakers Philip Hoffman and Bruce Bailly as well as composer Petri Kuljuntausta.
Despite living in Finland, Sami van Ingen has deep roots in the Canadian film community. His artistic friendship with Phil Hoffman began in the late eighties and has been a key to both of their filmmaking practices, culminating in the collaborative 1995 film Sweep. van Ingen’s work has been influenced both by documentary and experimental traditions (his great-grandfather was Robert Flaherty) and by his own observations of culture exchange as coloured by his childhood growing up in both India and Finland. The roots of perception and the possibilities of the film camera in creating and investigating vision are at the core of his work.
Picastro is: Liz Hysen, Nick Storring, Brandon Valdivia, Stephanie Vittas, Anthony Saunders. Previous: Owen Pallett, Rachel McBride, Evan Clarke, catl, Kurt Newman, Zak Hanna. www.myspace.com/picastro
