Bio

Chris Kennedy is an independent filmmaker, film programmer and writer based out of Toronto. He programmed for the Images Festival from 2003-06, Pleasure Dome from 2000-06 and co-founded Early Monthly Segments in 2009. His short experimental films have screened at over one hundred film festivals worldwide and have been featured in solo shows at the Canadian Film Institute, Los Angeles Film Forum, Nam June Paik Art Center and the Pacific Film Archive. He has presented the work of others in Belgium, Egypt, Germany, the US and Canada. He holds an MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute, where he was co-founder and host of a weekly film salon. His work as an artist and programmer operates in dialogue with the history of film as art, exploring the medium's materiality in a contemporary context.

 

Works

Towards a Vanishing Point

  • 2015
  • Chris Kennedy

Footage shot in Coba, Mexico and the Siwa Oasis in Egypt and a found film from California serve as inspiration for a series of sketches on the notion of the vanishing point. Commissioned for LIFT's 30th Anniversary Celebration.

Towards a Vanishing Point

lay claim to an island

  • 2016
  • Chris Kennedy

Texts from the 1969 American Indian Occupation of Alcatraz and letters from supporters propel an exploration of political yearning, emancipatory architecture and failed utopias. What does it mean to claim land that has more value as a symbol than as a potential home? And how does that symbol function beyond the boundaries of its geographic limits?

lay claim to an island

349 (for Sol LeWitt)

  • 2015
  • Chris Kennedy

“A digitally animated version of Sol LeWitt's Wall Drawing #349, which was commissioned by Toronto's Mercer Union gallery in 1981. Recreating LeWitt's geometric vocabulary and primary colour palette, 349 careens through emblazoned emblems, lifted from walls and transported into dialogue with LeWitt's exploration of spatial systems and human emotion.” - Andréa Picard, Toronto International Film Festival

349 (for Sol LeWitt)

Genesee

  • 2015
  • Chris Kennedy

Shot in the Genesee Valley of New York State on regular 8mm to commemorate the last rolls of Kodachrome. The colours of the leaves and the film stock are augmented by orange colour filters, boosting the contrast and highlighting the rich saturated yellows, reds and orange of stock and season.

Genesee