Prairie Puppet Underground Film Collection, Vol. 1
curated by Chrystene Ells asks, puppets, monsters, heroes, stilts, and craziness infused my earliest adventures with IFAO curator Xstine Cook back in 198586 during several multi-month winter performance tours to isolated communities in northern Alberta, treks we were both lucky to survive in spite of midnight van breakdowns under February northern lights on isolated back roads through black forests; she’s been an inspiration to me ever since. I have attended the past two IFAOs, which I believe to be one of the world’s top arts festivals. The sheer breadth, depth and quality of the work, not to mention the genius, creativity, and overall camaraderie among the IFAO artists, is astounding. I always return home burning with the urge to bring something big to share at the next festival. n 1986 I left Alberta for San Francisco, where I spent the next 20 years working as a professional director, puppeteer and designer for live theatre and the tv / film industry, and in 2006 moved to Regina for grad school, receiving an MFA in Interdisciplinary Studies, discovering to my surprise that Saskatchewan is a secret gem of storytelling and creativity, and home to an engaged, close-knit, and explorative arts community. I am still in Regina, most recently having the great good fortune to serve as the Artist in Residence at the Saskatchewan Filmpool Cooperative (2011-2012). nspired by IFAO, my residency focused on guiding members of the local arts community through the creation of their own puppetfilms, many of which are having their World Premiere this evening. It is a great honour to be presenting these films, most made by firsttime/emerging filmmakers, or first-time puppet artists, or both! Hailing from backgrounds including writing, painting, filmmaking, intermedia, and library science, these artists have collectively created a uniquely quirky, lovely, funny and odd volume of Saskatchewan films. For many this was a huge feat, as all were newcomers to one or more aspects of the process of making a puppet-film from start to finish: screenwriting, puppet fabrication, shooting, and editing. Vol. 1 is loosely themed around
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Saskatchewan history, with most films being inspired by first-person narratives of personal historical events, including family narratives and stories by homesteaders from the Regina Public Library’s Prairie History Room; still, the collection exhibits a wide array of modes of engagement, and breadth of visions and techniques. he Saskatchewan Filmpool Cooperative hosts the 1st International Puppet Underground Film Festival (IPUFF) in Regina, April 6-7, 2013, celebrating these and other local and international puppet-films, as well as workshops and an exhibition of the puppets themselves. IPUFF dreams of someday growing up to become a bigger puppet festival that can collaborate more extensively with IFAO. million thanks to Xstine Cook for her informal mentorship of IPUFF, and for her generosity in inviting Prairie Puppet Underground Vol. 1 to IFAO 2013. Huge thanks to Berny Hi for his tireless technical support of the artists and the collation of this volume, and to Amber Christenson, IPUFF Coordinator. Thanks to the Filmpool and Executive Director Gordon Pepper for such fervent support of this crazy puppet-film project, and to the Saskatchewan Arts Board for supporting the year-long Artist’s Residency that resulted in this collection. Most of all, thanks to the artists and filmmakers who invested so much time and love in bringing their puppet-film visions to life.
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Raised on an Alberta cattle ranch, Chrystene
Ells worked as an artist in the San Francisco film industry on films such as ‘The Nightmare Before Christmas’ for 20 years before returning to Saskatchewan to focus on her own work. In January of 2012 Werner Herzog shook her hand and told her that her art film ‘She Had Died’, a hand-processed 16mm film featuring a farm goose and a voice-over about life after death, was ‘very strange’ and that he liked it ‘very much.’
The World Premiere of 17 puppet films from Saskatchewan! Presented by the Saskatchewan Filmpool Cooperative and curated by Chrystene Ells for the Calgary International Festival of Animated Objects, 2013, a celebration of puppets, masks, and all things animated.
The first IPUFF runs April 6 - 7, 2013 in Regina, SK Visit Filmpool.ca for more info
Filmpool.ca 5:30 p.m. Wednesday March 13th, 2013 - Lantern Church Basement screening room - 1401 10th Ave. S.E., Calgary