Stop Buying Grapes

In Green Dream, Josephine Massarella has infused her vibrant, impressionistic images of nature with the spirit of the goddess Artemis. Evocative and abstract, Green Dream relies on a wide range of experimental techniques, including pixilation, optical printing, and manipulated motion to achieve a dreamlike state where the relevance of beauty and the irrelevance of use can be contemplated. Reminiscent of the work of French experimental filmmaker Rose Lawder, Green Dream confronts modern overdevelopment with overpowering life forces.

A poetic examination of the wetlands, forests, and ecosystems of the Niagara Escarpment World Biosphere.

Interference continues the filmmaker's experimentation with time and stillness. A woman sits at her desk typing. Outside, the Canadian winter holds the land in its grip. Snow flurries drift past the window. The woman makes coffee, waits for the mail to arrive, sits in thought. We wait for the disaster to strike. At the end of the day, another woman enters the apartment and asks how the day went. The end. The accumulation of non-events gradually strips us of all the clichés of dramatic action, and we are made aware that our actual lives are always like this.

Night Stream, a short experimental film about rebirth and fertility, succinctly evokes the flow of tension and trance within the dream state.

No. 5 Reversal opens with a close up sequence of two women in animated conversation, followed by an aural page/station structure. The film combines elements of horizontal and vertical montage in the soundtrack, using white noise, and radio static as a fragmentation device. The visually striking black and white photography weaves lyrical, pastoral nature with the de- and re- construction of civilization. No. 5 Reversal ends with a filmic signature, an image of its maker framed in front of a window against a backdrop of ruins.

Exploring the capacity of the medium to express various notions of time, the film begins with a woman looking out from the shoreline.

A boy takes in a stray dog, later finding out that it's an ultra-intelligent runaway from a genetic research lab. Unbeknownst to him, the dog is being stalked by another escaped creature that's not quite so friendly.

One Woman Waiting evokes questions of subjectivity in the mirrored performance of two women. The single take, tableau composition forms the structure for catalytic change between the characters. The sensuous desert environment accentuates the poetic and ephemeral quality of this film.

No End was inspired by a poem I wrote over the course of six months. During this process, abstract images surfaced, subsided, and settled: eventually forming the foundation of a film. The result is a lyrical journey that explores the intersection of interconnectivity and the lived experience. The film includes an original soundtrack by Graham Stewart of Viosac.

Experimental short film by Josephine Massarella