Black Rectangle

Defying modernity, 90-year-old Agatha forges a solitary existence on her ancestral farm preserving heirloom seeds.

A murder has been committed on a balcony. But it is only one of the many balconies attached to a large apartment block. Strange things are transpiring of each of them on loop. As the eye attempts to take them all in, the murder soon seems entirely unimportant.

This story surrounds a pivotal event: the sun does not rise for one day. While the world watches a new sun rise, mysterious events weave together the lives of a Sculptor, a Civil Servant and a Security Guard. Through varied landscapes and timelines, journeys through moments of grief are ignited. This film, shot over the course of a year on some broken Bolex cameras and features in-camera fx such as multiple exposures.

A lonely gravedigger who stinks of corpses finally meets her dream man, but their whirlwind affair is cut short when he tragically drowns at sea. Grief-stricken, she goes to morbid lengths to resurrect him through madcap scientific experiments, resulting in grave consequences and unlikely love.

Renée arrives to her hometown of Ste. Anne after a long absence. Her brother and his wife are raising her daughter Athene as their own, and the return of the prodigal mother is a surprise to all involved. The tension between them grows as the questions that have been accumulating over the years await their answers.

“Is this your first visit here?” “Yes.” “Well this whole thing must seem kinda strange to you, huh? You realize that I can’t see you even though you see me. Well that takes a little getting used to.. Oh. Am I looking at your face now? (laughs) It

Fetishized alpine landscapes of 16mm film collage and rayograms generate an obscured portrait of the godlike, Carlo Mollino. Completed in anticipation of a personal pilgrimage to Turin - this film delineates what is at stake for the genius bachelor architect as well as the deplorable, unremittingly heartbroken filmmaker (who adores him so).

Smoke offers an experience of a space of metamorphoses that is animated and then dissolves, paradoxically, in light. A sequence of highly contrasting, increasingly abstract images enters into dialogue with a soundtrack rich in sonic materials and textures. The experience is optical, aural and physical.

This is the story of the architect, Carlo Mollino, animated within the desk space of failed architect, Rhayne Vermette.

“…while many architects through their time have sought a ‘true house’ or a ‘true architecture’, their truth was something of the past and not so true in the present […] here architecture is a child of the sea, arose from its substance…” — Gio Ponti At the age of 32, I finally ran away from home. Dramatically, I left with only my cat and copies of all the still and motion images taken by my father (these dating until the mid 1990s when he then passed his camera down to me). And while I unpacked the baggage of this surreal house coincidentally, back home, renovations were in order… Here, an architectural threnody is composed through a various "true stories" and the inherent struggle between the metaphysical and material. What time is it? No time to look back...

This film is my failed attempt at creating a thematic palindrome of audio/visual samples. When working between two poles of remembering - one easily gets confused. Please enjoy this film before my mother asks me to delete it.

A sequel to her earlier Black Rectangle, and reminiscent of Evelyn Lambart and Norman McLaren’s groundbreaking animations, Rhayne Vermette’s buzzing miniature A Black Screen Too is a burst of colour and movement undercut by darkness.

In this experimental short film specially commissioned from celebrated Métis filmmaker Rhayne Vernette for Severin's All the Haunts Be Ours vol. 2, images from The White Reindeer are reanimated through contact printing and optical printing.

A section cut through a transitional editing tool, the dissolve. For Craig Baldwin.

In pursuit of an eclipse, the citizens of Winnipeg flee the city. Meanwhile, stranded in Tudor Village, the caretaker does his best to interrupt their trajectory & entice everyone to return.

There are few alternatives for exiles. The homecoming may be postponed to an indeterminate future; one could settle for a replacement; and lastly, there is always madness.