Greetings From Isolation : A capsule collection of short Canadian Isolation movies -About the projectGreetings From Isolation

About Greetings from Isolation

Created by Canadian veteran film programmer Stacey Donen in the hopes of finding inspiration and enlightenment from our shared human experience of isolation under COVID-19, Greetings from Isolation has invited a broad range of Canadian filmmakers to participate in a capsule collection film project.

The project will include new and original works filmed while living in isolation from Matthew Rankin (The Twentieth Century), Sadaf Faroughi (Ava), Brett Story (The Hottest August) Ann Marie Fleming (Window Horses), Richard Fung (Sea in the Blood), John Greyson (Lilies), Larry Kent (Bitter Ash), Barbara Sternberg (Like a Dream That Vanishes), Peter Lynch (Project Grizzly), Gariné Torossian (Girl from Moush), Alan Zweig (Hurt) and Yuqi Kang (A Little Wisdom) among others. The collection of films will be released online beginning in May, 2020

Currently there are around around 100 participating Canadian filmmakers creating short films across genres, including fiction, documentary, essay, and video diary, with more filmmakers expected to come on board in the coming months. Each filmmaker will use their own phone or personal camera and anything else that is available to them in their living space, with no budget attached.

“A few weeks ago, I began my involuntary new life as an at-home kindergarten teacher with my 5 year-old Sophie, who incidentally thinks I am pretty boring. With the few minutes of the day not building forts, struggling with origami, or watching Buster Keaton movies, I reached out to a group of my filmmaker friends to gauge their interest in participating in this project,” said Stacey Donen. “What’s happening around us is unprecedented, momentous, and frankly hard to believe or understand. All around the world we find ourselves forcibly separated from one another. With our extraordinary new everyday routines, connecting with one another is more important than ever.”

Stacey Donen of VeryNiceVeryNice and his daughter Sophie.

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I Can See the Future

director: Terryll Loffler

Montreal, Quebec

July 30, 31, 2020

7min 25sec

An observation of the cyclical daily routine and how isolation has brought a family closer together but also further from the outside.

The Cop in Our Heads and the Cop in Our Hearts

director: Brett Story

Toronto, Ontario

July 2020

3min 40sec

A neighborhood is ordered to shelter in place and snitch lines are set up in every town.

Tire(d)

director: Daniel Cross

Dorval Island, St Lawrence River

June 29, 2020

3min

“Here I am sitting at the River, staring at this tire – buried in time, and wondering when I’ll get to move around again.”

From 9 O’clock

director: Raphael Bendahan

Montreal, Quebec

June 26 - July 1, 2020

2min 20sec

Alone in an apartment during COVID lockdown time shifts and morphs into a barrage of reminiscences, places, memories. An adaptation of a poem by C.P. Cavafy

Landscape

director: Liz Marshall

Sunshine Coast, British Columbia

March to June, 2020

4min 45sec

A brief winter holiday to the Sunshine Coast to visit family turns into an unforgettable 20 week hiatus from Liz’s Toronto home.

are you haunted, daddy ? (about anxiety)

director: Guillaume Vallée

Montreal, Quebec

December 2016 and June 2020

2min 20sec

Vallée uses hand processed Super 8 film to depict various anxious states of mind reflecting a feeling of confusion and instability that the current pandemic has brought up.

Ghosting

director: Vanessa Magic

Toronto, Ontario

May 2020

3min

Trying to stay creative and deal with loneliness and isolation Vanessa builds a ghost costume, rearranges her furniture every night, and makes this film.

Breakout

director: Dylan Akio Smith

Vancouver/Southern Gulf Islands, BC

July 17-20, 2020

3min 45sec

After 4 months of being isolated a family decides to come up for air.

Dying to Tell You

director: Peter Rowe

Toronto, Ontario

April/May, 2020

3min 25sec

An animated film that gives a voice to those most profoundly affected by COVID-19 and that reminds us that this is not a virus that you want to mess with.