Jorge Lorenzo – Winter 2017 Artist in Residence

 
LIFT ANNOUNCES WINTER 2017 ARTIST IN RESIDENCE
JORGE LORENZO
 

 
LIFT ANNOUNCES WINTER 2017 ARTIST IN RESIDENCE
JORGE LORENZO
 

 
Toronto, December 9, 2016—The Liaison of Independent Filmmakers of Toronto (LIFT) is pleased to announce that Mexican filmmaker Jorge Lorenzo has joined us in Toronto as an artist in residence from December 6, 2016 to January 15, 2017 to create a new film in his Pinhole Series. He will be showing his films on Thursday, December 15, 2016 at CineCycle (129 Spadina Avenue, down the lane) and presenting a curated program from Colombia and Mexico on Wednesday, January 11, 2017 (also CineCycle). Lorenzo will also be teaching a workshop on making Pinhole films on Saturday, January 14, 2017 at LIFT (1137 Dupont Street).
 
Lorenzo’s process plays with the idea of making film a direct experience, rather than a representation of an experience. This has come into play with his most recent project ‘On the Road’ by Jack Kerouac, where Lorenzo re-typed Jack Kerouac’s iconic novel –written on a continuous paper scroll– onto a continuous strip of 35mm film with the use of a typewriter, reducing the meaning of the work but emphasizing Kerouac’s immediacy. His Pinhole Series turns traditional pinhole techniques towards the projector itself, turning the projector into a projector obscura, making films that don’t “only show the optical process of the aperture in pinhole films, but one that contains it and actually is that very process.”
 
At LIFT, he will be using our extensive resources to continue his Pinhole Series, creating new experiential possibilities to explore his ideas around this process. Out of these explorations, Lorenzo will also lead a Pinhole Film Workshop on January 14, where attendants will be able to discover and put into practice the techniques employed in the Pinhole Series film installations made by Lorenzo. After looking at examples of work made using pinhole cameras, participants will be able to delve into Jorge Lorenzo’s unique pinhole method by actually perforating strips of 16mm black leader film to produce short loops that will be mounted onto lensless projectors creating direct frame by frame animations in real-time. To register for this workshop, call 416-588-6444. Participants are limited to 12. The cost of the workshop is $40 for members, $60 for non-members. The workshop takes place at LIFT at 1137 Dupont Street.
 
On Thursday December 15 at 8:00pm at CineCycle, Lorenzo will present a screening of his films, including the infamous 1/48”, which played at the Images Festival in 2009 and has been named one of the “most subversive films of all times” by Alexander Howarth of the Austrian Filmmuseum, as well as the aforementioned ‘On the Road’ by Jack Kerouac and examples of his Pinhole Series installation. The screening will reveal Lorenzo conceptual humour that he will build on in an accompanying artist talk.

Finally, Lorenzo will present a screening of recent Mexican and Colombian films on Wednesday, January 11, 2017 at CineCycle. Lorenzo has been moving back and forth from his base in Monterrey to Bogata twice a year for the last decade, teaching experimental filmmaking in both places. He has built a wide knowledge of the contemporary filmmaking scene in both those places and his presentation will serve well to connect Toronto artists to an emerging and largely unknown contemporary film scene.
 
After finishing his BA degree in Communication Science at Tecnológico de Monterrey in the year 2000, Mexican filmmaker Jorge Lorenzo got involved in the local Monterrey audiovisual production scene for a few years. In 2004 he got a Fulbright scholarship to study an MFA degree in Experimental Film and Video at the San Francisco Art Institute in California where he lived for three years absorbing the legacy and tradition of experimental cinema the area has developed throughout several decades. Lorenzo works on solely individual and personal film projects nowadays and although he is still active in the field of video and digital technology, his fondness for the use of celluloid is evident not because of the image it produces but because of the format’s physical, material, and formal characteristics. Thus, through several experimental techniques like cameraless film and appropriation methods, Lorenzo’s sly observations of film’s conceptual nature question, not only contemporary moving image technology in general, but our very existence and place in society as well. Lorenzo’s films have been screened at important experimental cinema venues such as the Berlin International Film Festival (Berlinale), the Images Festival in Toronto, and the Experiments in Cinema festival in Albuquerque, among others. His piece 1/48” (2008)—which merely lasts one single frame out of the usual twenty-four we see every second—captured the attention of some members of the international experimental cinema community like Alexander Horwath, Director of the Austria Filmmuseum in Vienna, who has quoted it on several occasions “…the most subversive film of all times,” including an article published in the renowned film magazine Cahiers du Cinéma. Creative endeavors apart, Jorge Lorenzo teaches film and video-related courses at “Tec de Monterrey” in his hometown in Northeast Mexico. http://www.jorgelorenzocine.mx/en/pinhole-series
 
Jorge Lorenzo’s visit is made possible by a grant from the Canada Council for the Arts through their Visiting Foreign Artists program.
 

 
On the Road with Jorge Lorenzo
Thursday, December 15, 2016
8:00pm
Cinecycle (129 Spadina Avenue, down the lane)
Admission: $8 non-members, $5 members
 
COL-MEX: Film and Video from Colombia and Mexico
Wednesday, January 11, 2017
8:00pm
Cinecycle (129 Spadina Avenue, down the lane)
Admission: $8 non-members, $5 members
 
Pinhole Film Workshop
Saturday, January 14, 2017
12:00pm – 6:00pm
Liaison of Independent Filmmakers of Toronto (LIFT)
1137 Dupont Street (at Gladstone Avenue)   
Cost: $40 LIFT members, $60 non-members
Pre-registration Required. Enrolment limit to 12.
Register: 416.588.6444
 
 
The Liaison of Independent Filmmakers of Toronto (LIFT) is Canada’s foremost artist-run production and education organization dedicated to celebrating excellence in the moving image. LIFT exists to provide support and encouragement for independent filmmakers and artists through affordable access to production, post-production and exhibition equipment; professional and creative development; workshops and courses; commissioning and exhibitions; artist-residencies; and a variety of other services. LIFT is supported by its membership, Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council, Ontario Trillium Foundation, Ontario Arts Foundation, the Government of Ontario and the Toronto Arts Council. http://lift.ca
 
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For additional information please see http://lift.ca or e-mail Executive Director Chris Kennedy at office@lift.on.ca

Tuesday 6 December 2016 –

Non-members: Various
Members: Various

Location:
Liaison of Independent Filmmakers of Toronto (LIFT) 
1137 Dupont Street 
Toronto ON Canada