All Events
Upcoming
Journey with us down the rabbit hole for a rare 16mm presentation of ALICE, a surreal & unsettling adaptation of the Lewis Carroll classic by maverick Czech animator, Jan Švankmajer.
Through his signature style for the absurd & grotesque, Švankmajer crafts his own nightmarish vision for the tale amid a reliquary of decaying antiques and disheveled sentient taxidermy.
Preceding the feature are two ominous & claustrophobic short films, one an earlier work by Švankmajer, the other a mesmerizing abstract black & white animation rendered in lithographic crayon by Amy Kravitz.
2026
Join us at Honey Dip for a trio of films chronicling the music & mayhem of Toronto's original punk rock scene of the late 1970's, featuring THE LAST POGO, Colin Brunton's landmark concert film documenting the celebrated 1978 show at The Horseshoe Tavern with performances by The Scenics, The Viletones, Teenage Head, The Cardboard Brains, The Secrets, The Mods, & The Ugly.
Also included is Ross McLaren's (1953-2023) CRASH 'N' BURN, with its gritty & grainy documentation of Toronto's first (and short-lived) punk venue of the same name, featuring The Diodes, Dead Boys, The Boyfriends, as well as additional performance footage of The Viletones and Teenage Head.
Preceding both is an anarchic experimental short by beloved Toronto punk starlet & former film processor, Suzanne Naughton, who passed away earlier this year.
Films by Ruth Peyser, Paul Vester, Jan Kounen, Andrea Gomez, David Anderson, Vince Collins, Darko Marković, Peter Foldès, Martha Colburn, Jeff Carpenter & Mary Lambert.
Animated FRAMES returns with an intoxicating array of abnormally crazed curiosities by some belovedly deviant luminaries of offbeat animation. We invite our local oddballs and degenerates to converge for a memorable evening of rabidly unhinged rarities, traversing through the frenetically feral psychoses and euphorically serene fever dreams of these artists' uncompromising creations.
Films by Ruth Peyser, Paul Vester, Jan Kounen, Andrea Gomez, David Anderson, Vince Collins, Darko Marković, Peter Foldès, Martha Colburn, Jeff Carpenter & Mary Lambert.
Animated FRAMES returns with an intoxicating array of abnormally crazed curiosities by some belovedly deviant luminaries of offbeat animation. We invite our local oddballs and degenerates to converge for a memorable evening of rabidly unhinged rarities, traversing through the frenetically feral psychoses and euphorically serene fever dreams of these artists' uncompromising creations.
FRAMES returns with a brand new offering of offbeat, unusual and subversive animated shorts from around the globe. Join us at HONEY DIP for another evening of rare and impeccable oddities presented entirely on 16mm film!
This month's selection will feature numerous favourites on loan from our friends at Le Cinéclub Film Society of Montreal's jaw-dropping archive of independent & artist-made animation.
FRAMES presents a unique offering of independent, obscure and experimental animation projected entirely on 16mm film. Our thanks again to Honey Dip for providing their ideal loungy atmosphere for another casual evening supplied with craft-beers, snacks & cocktails.
These informal events provide audiences the opportunity to experience some incredible artistry from around the globe minus the cold stare to shut up & sit down. We’ll have dozens of reels to choose from featuring a variety of vibrant visual styles to explore & enjoy, including numerous rare gems on loan from other collectors.
FRAMES is elated to welcome Toronto-based duo ZEPHYR for a meticulously crafted performance for analog film & synthesizers.
FRAMES welcomes Chicago-based archivist & programmer Ben Creech to present a curated selection of experimental short films from the PICTURE START collection.
FRAMES is thrilled to continue our monthly collaboration with HONEY DIP, presenting a wild selection of independent & experimental animation on 16mm film. Join us for another impromptu marathon of memorable obscurities and peculiar classics sourced from our own stash as well as other regional collections.
While we casually await winter's thaw, FRAMES has been invited back to HONEY DIP (@honeydipbar) to present another marathon of animated gems on 16mm film.
Join us for an enjoyable evening combing through our vast collection of beautifully offbeat independent & experimental animation from around the globe. As always, no set program and no repeats from previous instalments. We'll have dozens of reels within reach and invite audience input to assist with selections.
Join us at HONEY DIP (@honeydipbar) for a whimsical selection of endearingly offbeat curiosities, NFB nostalgia, quirky Québécois classics, mesmerizing abstractions, and impressionistic visions created in pastels, ink, oils and sand.
2025
YOUR EYES ARE SPECTRAL MACHINES - 16mm Performances by Luis Macias
FRAMES is thrilled to welcome Spanish filmmaker Luis Macias to London for a presentation of his unique & innovative expanded cinema performances for multiple 16mm projectors.
FRAMES is proud to present a 16mm screening of Jack Chambers’ seminal final film, The Hart of London (1970), an elegiac meditation densely layered with ephemeral images from our regional past intertwined with visceral and evocative symbolism.
Films by Faith Hubley & Ishu Patel
FRAMES is pleased to present Faith Hubley's psychedelic watercoloured magnum opus, THE COSMIC EYE. In part a compendium of past projects by renowned and prolific independent animators Faith & John Hubley, excerpted and woven together into a free form, non-linear celebration of the human condition.
Films by Barbara Sternberg, Lucas Haynes, Deborah Stratman, Phil Solomon, Michael Robinson, Louise Bourque, Charlotte Pryce, and Robert Todd.
Films by Greta Snider, Ralph Arlyck, Nicolas Rey, Naomi Uman, Don Shebib, & Richard Kerr
2024
Join us for a rare 16mm presentation of renowned independent animator Bill Plympton's (@plymptoons) surreal hand-drawn musical extravaganza, THE TUNE (1992).
Films by Daïchi Saïto, Karen Holmes, Amy Halpern, Peter Lipskis, Chris Welsby, Ellie Epp, Mike Stoltz, Sophie Michael, Gary Beydler, and Pat O’Neill.
This one hour program is comprised of experimental works which utilize unconventional editing techniques, offering unique glimpses of time condensed to manipulate movement within layered planes of reality, creating pulsating spatial patterns and hallucinatory visual intensities.
Films by Red Grooms, Ed Ackerman, Daina Krumins, Zbigniew Rybczyński, and Suzan Pitt.
FRAMES outdoes itself with this extra special program of personal favourites and outlandish oddities, among them some of the most memorably recognized and celebrated cult-favourites of experimental animation. DO NOT snooze on this exceptionally unique opportunity to witness these wonders projected on 16mm film.
In partnership with Western University's Film Studies Program, FRAMES presents a 16mm screening of Greta Schiller & Robert Rosenberg's landmark 1984 documentary, Before Stonewall, a passionate cultural history of America's Queer activist community and the fight for liberation during the first half of the 20th Century.
Preceded by two short films by the legendary filmmaker, Kenneth Anger (1927-2023).
ANIMATED FRAMES returns with an eclectic selection of abstract experimental short films by Paul Glabicki, Jennifer Reeves, Yona Friedman, Doris Chase, Len Lye, Sonia Bridge, Alexander Stewart, and Jeff Scher.
With works spanning half a century, this program includes an array of vibrant and vividly textured gems to compliment the culminating centrepiece of the program, Paul Glabicki's staggeringly expansive hand-drawn maximalist minimalist masterpiece, Film-Wipe-Film (1983).
In partnership with All Things Film, FRAMES will present a selection of artist-made 16mm works from our collection, the majority of which have been acquired directly from the filmmakers themselves within the past decade.
FRAMES is passionate about introducing local audiences to both contemporary & historical works and maintains a meticulously curated archive of film prints, ephemera and research material. This program offers a survey of some of the gems we possess though rarely exhibit outside of a private setting.
2023
A playful selection of experimental cinema aimed at introducing the medium to new audiences.
Projected entirely on 16mm film, this program has been curated by FRAMES Film Series and was initially presented upon invitation in Montreal by la lumière collective under the title: PREMIERE VUE, the first instalment in their ongoing series inviting Canadian filmmakers and programmers to select works for young audiences.
Featuring short films by Dirk de Bruyn, Henry Hills, Chick Strand, Gary Beydler, Frank & Caroline Mouris, Barbara Hammer, Jeff Scher, and Jodie Mack.
A fun & quirky selection of short films by Paul & Menno De Nooijer (Netherlands), James MacSwain (Canada), Karen Aqua (USA), Gil Alkabetz (Israel), Jan Lenica (Poland), Ed Ackerman (Canada), Ferenc Rofusz (Hungary), Sally Cruikshank (USA), Michaela Pavlátová (Czechoslovakia), André Leduc (Canada), Joanna Priestley & Joan Gratz (USA)
A selection of works by filmmakers exploring ancestry from places of origin through the language, customs, myths & rituals of hallowed sites and historical remnants of familial lore to personal reflections on immediate members through the voices and faces of loved ones remembered.
Charlie Egleston & Philip Hoffman will be in attendance to introduce their work.
Featuring animated short films by Frank & Caroline Mouris, Sara Petty, Madi Piller, Bernard Longpré, Tatsuo Shimamura, John Whitney, Sky David, Ellen Besen & Lonny Baumholz, Daniel Suter, Robert Breer, and Barbara Hammer.
Films by Kathy Rose, Robert Breer, Dirk de Bruyn, Norman McLaren, George Griffin, Adam Beckett, Robert Dvorak, Jim Trainor, & Amy Lockhart.
Inspired by the creative oeuvre of London, Ontario-based artist Angie Quick, this 16mm program seeks to interpret visual and thematic parallels between the painter's oils on canvas and the moving images of nine avant garde filmmakers exploring the photochemical medium.
A strange and dark selection of international animated short films by Caroline Leaf (Canada), Dušan Vukotić (Yugoslavia), James Duesing (USA), Wolfgang & Christoph Lauenstein (Germany), Jan Švankmajer (Czechoslovakia), Jeff Carpenter & Mary Lambert (USA) and Jacques Armand Cardon (France).
Join us Friday, January 27 at 7pm for the first instalment of ANIMATED FRAMES, @FramesFilmSeries new monthly 16mm film screening series featuring independent, obscure and experimental animated works from around the globe.
2022
In commemoration of #WorldAidsDay, @FramesFilmSeries presents CONFESSIONS, a selection of works by the prolific American filmmaker Curt McDowell (1945-1987), whose provocative and endearingly irreverent short films embrace the outlandish in a salacious celebration of early 1970's queer underground cinema.
Featuring a recurring ensemble of family & friends, these outrageously bawdy and memorable low-brow delights depict an array of outcast degenerates in a series of subversive broken dream melodramas and campy musical routines.
Preceding the films will be a short presentation by Regional HIV/AIDS Connection (RHAC)(@hivaidsconnect) highlighting their educational outreach and community resources.
Join us, Friday Nov. 11, at 7pm for this 40th Anniversary screening of BLACK WAX, a music documentary and performance film featuring American jazz poet, Gil Scott-Heron (1949-2011) and his 10-piece blues/funk/soul fusion group, The Midnight Band.
A lifelong activist and advocate in the African American community, Gil Scott-Heron's songs are equally as relevant today, confronting subjects of injustice and indignation in the Reagan era through lyrical explorations of poverty, drugs, gun violence, migration and political neglect.
Filmed on location in the streets of Washington, D.C. and on stage at the former Wax Museum Nightclub, this remarkable concert film offers a glimpse of the enduring musical icon in his element.
Three transfixing wonders of barrage-collage found footage filmmaking guide us down a hypnotic trip through fictitious(?) alternative histories & over-stimulating maximalist psychedelia, culminating with Craig Baldwin's influentially renowned, batshit brilliant end times gonzo extravaganza.
This one hour programme of works explores themes of discordant domestic spaces and the underlying unease that resides beneath an otherwise wholesome veneer.
Notions of memory & nostalgia anxiously intertwine through painterly impressions imbued in the frayed emulsions of decaying home movie footage paired alongside depictions of familial recollections bordering on psychodrama.
Presented in partnership with Brown & Dickson Bookstore, we commemorate International Workers Day (May 1st) with a 16mm presentation of the landmark 1976 labour rights documentary, Union Maids, a collaborative film project recording the stories and recollections of three women involved in the struggle for worker's rights and the founding of the Congress of Industrial Organizations, a multi-racial labour union in 1930's America.
This significant historical work will be preceded by the rarely seen NFB short, The Working Class on Film (1975), which offers a glimpse of more than forty years of social-minded documentary from both the UK's GPO Film Unit and The National Film Board of Canada.
The program features several recent works (Lineage (for Norman McLaren) (2019, 4 x 16mm), de rerum natura (2019, 3 x 16mm + video), Home Means Never Having to Say You’re Sorry (2021, 4 x 16mm), alongside some of his best-known projector performances (including the seven-projector show-stopping Last Light of a Dying Star (2008/2011)).
He will also include a sampling of recent essayistic videos, presented as live-narrated documentaries. These works take on a range of topics from the forbidden pleasures of men crying (Historia Calamitatum (The Story of My Misfortunes)) to the racial politics of font choices (The Comic Sans Video) and the real spaces of the virtual economy (Amazonia).
A selection of works by historical and contemporary avant garde Canadian filmmakers, this programme offers a glimpse into the vibrant landscape of moving image artistry in Canada.
Inspired by the recent release of the extensive compendium book of the same title, edited by Barbara Sternberg and Jim Shedden, which features essays & profiles by Michael Zryd and Stephen Broomer tracing the various figures, film scenes, co-ops and movements from the 1950's to the present day.
2021
Thursday (Oct 28) & Saturday (Oct 30), we'll be screening 16mm films by Greg Curnoe & Jack Chambers as part of McIntosh Gallery's ongoing exhibition at TAP Centre for Creativity in downtown London, Ontario. Register in advance to ensure a seat!
From whimsy, to weird, to wtf; this selection of animated oddities features bizarre eccentricities and gorgeously debased curiosities from around the globe!
2019
Join us at Brown & Dickson Bookstore for an evening of films profiling small press publishers & sellers of 20th century avant garde literature & poetry.
Please join us at Brown and Dickson on Friday, November 22 at 7pm for a 16mm screening of Kay Armatage's 1987 film, 'Artist on Fire: The Work of Joyce Wieland.'
This screening will be held in collaboration with FRAMES film series in support of the upcoming print issue of Femme Art Review.
Shattering Appearances: Films by Teo Hernández
Curator Andrea Ancira García will be present to introduce and discuss the films featured in the programme. Her publications on the life and work of Teo Hernández will be also available in French & Spanish.
In collaboration with the Department of Visual Arts & Artlab Gallery at Western University, LOMAA welcomes Toronto-based filmmaker Barbara Sternberg to introduce and discuss a selection of her 16mm films spanning the past two decades.
TAP studio resident Sebastian Di Trolio will project a selection of 16mm films from his on-site archive which profile (primarily) Canadian artists through first hand interviews, exploring their processes and revealing the passions with which they infuse in their artistry.
This free event is being presented in conjunction with 'Culture Days', taking place in TAP's black box theatre with one hour screenings commencing at 2 pm, 4 pm and 6 pm
Greta Schiller & Robert Rosenberg | 1984 | USA | 87 minutes
Before Stonewall pries open the closet door--setting free the dramatic story of the sometimes horrifying public and private existences experienced by gay and lesbian Americans since the 1920s. Revealing and often humorous, this widely acclaimed film relives the emotionally-charged sparking of today's gay rights movement, from the events that led to the fevered 1969 riots to many other milestones in the brave fight for acceptance.
Experience the fascinating and unforgettable, decade-by-decade history of homosexuality in America through eye-opening historical footage and amazing interviews with those who lived through an often brutal closeted history.
Frenkel Defects is a traveling program of workshops and screenings that attempt to form in its audience imperfect ideas of film. It takes the ordered sequence of thoughts and feelings we hold about the medium, and disrupts them or deforms them. These imperfections are not the same for each individual. They are not a prescription of a specific idea of film. They are an opening to new and unique sensations of wavelengths and frequency. An exposure on the mind and body to particles of light, for only fractions of a second, but nonetheless imparting a latent image within us to be developed. The title of the programme references the chemical phenomenon that permits photosensitivity to occur.
2018
+ other colourful creations by JODIE MACK
Presented in collaboration with McIntosh Gallery, this screening features a selection of New Hampshire-based artist Jodie Mack’s quirky and colourful hybrid-animations, inviting audiences to partake in her stunningly vibrant visual experiments. The centrepiece of the programme is a whimsical stop-motion animated rock opera performed by the artist.
+ films by Chick Strand & Julie Murray
Malena Szlam's Super 8 &16mm films traverse the realms of dream and memory, capturing ethereal imagery of light reflection and refraction pulsating through the camera. The richly saturated colours convey otherworldly visions, transmuting the landscape to a point of near abstraction.
This programme was chosen by the filmmaker and includes selections of additional work by two influential filmmakers that inspire and inform her own practice, presented here in dialogue alongside her own artistry.
+ films by Chick Strand & Julie Murray
Malena Szlam's Super 8 &16mm films traverse the realms of dream and memory, capturing ethereal imagery of light reflection and refraction pulsating through the camera. The richly saturated colours convey otherworldly visions, transmuting the landscape to a point of near abstraction.
This programme was chosen by the filmmaker and includes selections of additional work by two influential filmmakers that inspire and inform her own practice, presented here in dialogue alongside her own artistry.
Newmarket-based filmmaker Daniel McIntyre is to introduce his 2014 work ‘Lion’, a series of seven short works which unfold as a personal odyssey retracing the filmmaker’s maternal lineage through regions of Ukraine scorched by radioactive fallout from the Chernobyl disaster. The film is both a reflective journey of self-discovery as well as a lamenting inquiry into the past, traversing a forever scarred landscape in remembrance of those afflicted and displaced. The artist will be in attendance.
2017
A selection of experimental video works by artist Sky Hopinka, bridging themes of indigenous culture through the exploration of landscape and personal identity, often focusing on the ancestral language of his elders, of which Sky is among only a handful of his generation to be fluent and active in its study.
An evening of visceral and provocative handmade films that explore bodies, acts of the solitary, text, language, visual information and personal exposure. Nazlı Dinçel’s work reflects on experiences of disruption. She records the body in context with arousal, immigration, dislocation and desire in juxtaposition with the medium’s material: texture, color and the passing of emulsion. Her use of text as image, language and sound attempts the failure of memory and her own displacement within a western society.
Talk and Screening with Stephen Broomer,
Filmmaker, film preservationist and independent scholar
Ian Hugo’s films, made between 1948 and 1979, betray a fascination with the mystic and exotic, the flow of energy, and like a distorting mirror, they give a vision of a world in flux. From his psychodramas, inspired in part by the writings of his wife, Anais Nin (Bells of Atlantis, Melodic Inversion), to his documentaries (Ay-Yi, Tropical Noah’s Ark), to his experiments with pure abstraction (Aphrodisiac I & II), Hugo’s films are an invitation to the most puzzling and difficult strains of American underground cinema.
An evening of visceral and provocative handmade films that explore bodies, acts of the solitary, text, language, visual information and personal exposure. Nazlı Dinçel’s work reflects on experiences of disruption. She records the body in context with arousal, immigration, dislocation and desire in juxtaposition with the medium’s material: texture, color and the passing of emulsion. Her use of text as image, language and sound attempts the failure of memory and her own displacement within a western society.
Join us for a screening of works by Canadian filmmakers Philip Hoffman and Milada Kovačova, framing unique experiences from their own respective pilgrimages in rural Czechoslovakia to ancestral villages, recounting and reliving familial tales through a diarist’s lens. Both films are presented on 16mm with artists in attendance.
2016
In partnership with Winter Spectacular, LOMAA presents 'In Dreams', an hour long film programme suffused with moving images of otherworldly visions, navigating through ambiguous narratives of fever-dream realities and subconscious states of being.
Featuring 16mm works by Barbara Sternberg, Phil Solomon, Amy Halpern, Bruce Baillie, Matthias Müller, Charlotte Pryce, Sol Nagler & Alexandre Larose.
LOMAA is pleased to host Berlin-based duo 'OJOBOCA' for a 16mm screening and performance for modified projectors.
LOMAA is pleased to present a selection of stunning works by San Francisco-based filmmaker Paul Clipson, displaying his unique vision to transform the everyday into phantasmagoric celluloid landscapes. Hosted in partnership with Forest City Gallery.
LOMAA presents a selection of 16mm films by Canadian artists exploring the extreme possibilities of the medium through intense image manipulation, at times to the point of near abstraction. Emulsions are boiled and battered, toned and tinted, optically printed and handprocessed in alternative photochemical concoctions, combining multiple projections for a wildly immersive experience that expands the artists' unique visual expressions.
Join us at Good Sport for the third instalment of our curated monthly experimental film series, for this occasion in partnership with Western Film Studies, to present Bruce Baillie’s ‘Quick Billy’ (1970), one of many rarities from the university’s 16mm archive.
Join us at Good Sport Tuesday March 1st at 7pm for a screening of Jonas Mekas' landmark diary film, 'Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania', presented on a gorgeous 16mm print.
Join us for a 16mm screening of two early works by eccentric American documentarian Les Blank (1935-2013), hosted in conjunction with LondonFuse's CYOA festivities.
Please join us at Brown and Dickson on Friday, November 22 at 7pm for a 16mm screening of Kay Armatage's 1987 film, 'Artist on Fire: The Work of Joyce W’.
2015
A programme of contemporary experimental film works by various Canadian and international artists, pushing the boundaries and exploring the possibilities of the photo-chemical medium. Unique artistic visions realized through an array of techniques, including handmade emulsions, decayed film stocks, multiple exposures, manipulated found footage, intense optical printing, macro-photograhpy of liquid reactions, solarization and hand-processing with alternative chemistry.
2014
Buffalo-based filmmaker, curator and arts advocate Lawrence Brose's landmark De Profundis is a 65-minute meditation on gay desire based on Oscar Wilde's infamous prison letter presented via lush hand-processed imagery. The film utilizes vintage erotica, home movies, radical faerie gatherings, queer pagan rituals and drag shows alongside a piano score by Frederic Rzewski which incorporates Wilde's text as a means of exploring assimilation and sexuality through hand painted frames and manipulation. The result is an exploding utopia of colour and a layered but equally privileged soundscape.