Gary Popovich
Directing
Biography
Gary Popovich is a Toronto filmmaker, teacher and writer. His films are personal reflections on cultural history which have screened increasingly in Canada, the United States and Europe, and have sold to collections and to television for broadcast. Popovich has taught several courses in film production, as well as courses in film history and aesthetics at Sheridan College, and has conducted workshops on hand-processing, colour toning, and image manipulation. He has written on film for several film publications, worked as newsletter editor for the Liaison of Independent Filmmakers of Toronto (LIFT), and served on arts boards such as the Canadian Filmmakers’ Distribution Centre, the Euclid Theatre, the Grierson Documentary Seminars and Festival in Toronto, The Images Festival, and Cinema Giovanni in Italy.
Known For
Silas Fung, a Chinese-American, was a sign designer and painter for Sears in Chicago in the 1930’s. Born into a creative family, he was also an avid painter, musician, church-goer, documentarian and father. After he was married (to Edythe) and had children, he decided to continue his passion for filming by documenting their lives. Over the next two or three decades, he amassed his family’s whole life as they became part of the middle class of America. Meanwhile, in the early 21st century, Ali Kazimi was bidding on an online auction for some 16mm nitrate film cans with Silas’ name on them. After winning them and starting the process of cleaning them up, he was contacted by a lady who was bidding on another lot of Silas’ films and wanted to know who had won the second lot. From there, Kazimi began to interview Silas’ daughter, Irena Lam, and other Chinese-American people who grew up at the same time as Irena as well as experts in Sino-American culture.
Random Acts of Legacy
A series of dreams, nightmares and overlapping narratives take place on a cruise ship in the Caribbean. The central portion of the film draws a portrait of Haiti’s difficult history, the democratic election of Father Aristide, the coups that removed him from office, and Canadian involvement each step of the way.
Somewhere
“In a tapestry of migratory luck, artifacts and shells, a mixed choir of images and sounds engages the paradox of a journey that loses all meaning once it reaches its end. The film’s westward inclination to the American shores of the Pacific, bound in a pitiless growth and decay, drives a dense montage, woven with guns and prayers.” - Gary Popovich
Faultlines
“Shot in an abandoned warehouse, documenting a contemporary adaptation of the Oedipus story by a group of Toronto experimental filmmakers, Antigone is both a documentary about searching for meaning and validity in the old story, and a fiction about the failure to find any value but parody.” - Gary Popovich
Antigone
“Child’s play in the universe of evolution. Another lost-in-a-box piece, a video, portions of which have been uncovered and are being assembled; Forever may soon make an appearance.” — Gary Popovich
Forever
A short study of the impossible relationship between a camera and a tree.
Caress
Amidst the ghosts of his cultural roots, Popovich creates a lyrical and loving light monument dealing with separation, change and death.