Jessica Johnson

Partly eco-processed 8mm celluloid and tarot become a visual fascia, binding family through a shared fibromyalgia diagnosis and the mysticism of healing. Created in collaboration with the filmmaker’s aunt (a practicing medium), there is a resonance between their respective disciplines, where intuition, ritual, and material process converge. Like the experimental act of filmmaking itself, tarot opens up a lexicon for self-reflection, excavational storytelling, and embodied ways of knowing.

E&N is a sensorial exploration of the hidden nature of history embedded within landscapes. The film focuses on the Esquimalt and Nanaimo Railway (E&N), now called the Southern Railway of Vancouver Island, and its implication on indigenous land rights.

An examination of the contrast between the industrial environments of the Okanagan Valley’s fruit orchards and the upscale vacation spots that surround them. The film documents the daily routines of migrant farm laborers alongside the leisure activities of tourists and retirees inhabiting the same landscape.

The film depicts the lives of the two sole residents of an abandoned company town while unfolding a complex labour history and revealing the vestiges of environmental degradation. Combining large format cinematography and an inquiry into the archival record, it interlaces past and present.

A lyrical study of the nearly abandoned company town west of Bella Coola that all but withered and died once its existence no longer made financial sense. Ryan Ermacora and Jessica Johnson invite us to marvel at the stark contrast between the vibrant coastal forests and the manmade structures that have fallen into ruin. An almost spectral presence is on hand to impart tales of a rebellious past and we’re left to consider the grim fates that sometimes befall grand schemes.

Life in Cortes Island, B.C. as local oyster farmers ply their trade amidst a rapidly changing environment.

The speculative tale of Canadian outsider musician Lewis and the belated discovery of his 1983 album "L'Amour". A love story composed in myth and song.

A woman hikes to a secluded section of the Seymour River in the Lower Seymour Conservation Reserve.