Dennis Day
Birth : , Grand Falls, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada
History
Dennis Day was born in Grand Falls, Newfoundland, in 1960. He studied classical music and psychology before graduating in media-based art from the Ontario College of Art in Toronto, in 1984. He has produced a number of videos known for their strong use of editing, rich colours and humour. He has won a number of international prizes including the «Prix à la Création Artistique du Conseil des Arts et des Lettres du Québec» (Les Rendez-Vous du Cinéma Québecois, 2001), the “Bulloch Award” for best short film, at the Inside/Out Gay & Lesbian Festival in Toronto (1997), the “Videofest Award” (Berlin, 1995) and the “Young Director’s Award” (Geneva, Switzerland, 1988). His work has been included in a number of museum exhibitions, including the Museum of Modern Art (New York) and the National Gallery of Canada, in Ottawa. Television broadcasts include PBS (USA), TV Ontario, CBC, Vision TV, (Canada), NHK (Japan) and Canal+ (France). Dennis divides his time between Montréal and Toronto.
Editor
In Caribou in the Archive, rustic VHS home video of a Cree woman hunting caribou in the 1990s is combined with NFB archival film footage of northern Manitoba from the 1950s. In this experimental film, the difference between homemade video and official historical record is considered. Northern Indigenous women hunting is at the heart of this personal found footage film in which the filmmaker describes the enigmatic events that led to saving an important piece of family history from being lost forever.
Color Grading
Inspired by a collection of personal notebooks, this feature-length director’s cut of the short film by the same name is an experimental documentary on art, AIDS and activism. Following James Wentzy from South Dakota to New York City, the film traces his days from struggling and surviving as an artist to later becoming an AIDS video activist. In showcasing a unique individual through his involvement with the fight against AIDS and his tireless frontline reportage of the crisis, The Books of James is an intimate portrait of a neglected everyman/hero and unearths a time now forgotten.
Producer
An unhappy, silent man journeys through a constantly shifting mediascape in search of something we never discover. Transylvanian moonscapes, Baroque parties and fraternity joyrides constitute just a fragment of his dizzying journey. Is this unnamed character searching for a way in, or a way out of the shifting and overwhelming history which whirls about him?
Writer
An unhappy, silent man journeys through a constantly shifting mediascape in search of something we never discover. Transylvanian moonscapes, Baroque parties and fraternity joyrides constitute just a fragment of his dizzying journey. Is this unnamed character searching for a way in, or a way out of the shifting and overwhelming history which whirls about him?
Director
An unhappy, silent man journeys through a constantly shifting mediascape in search of something we never discover. Transylvanian moonscapes, Baroque parties and fraternity joyrides constitute just a fragment of his dizzying journey. Is this unnamed character searching for a way in, or a way out of the shifting and overwhelming history which whirls about him?
Producer
Reflecting on the premature death of a young dancer and artist, Heaven or Montréal points to unfinished ideas, creating "outlines" of lost energy and imagination. As a finale, it summons all its desperation and asks for silence to speak and stillness to dance. Ian Middleton, its co-author, died in 1993 of AIDS related causes.
Editor
Reflecting on the premature death of a young dancer and artist, Heaven or Montréal points to unfinished ideas, creating "outlines" of lost energy and imagination. As a finale, it summons all its desperation and asks for silence to speak and stillness to dance. Ian Middleton, its co-author, died in 1993 of AIDS related causes.
Director of Photography
Reflecting on the premature death of a young dancer and artist, Heaven or Montréal points to unfinished ideas, creating "outlines" of lost energy and imagination. As a finale, it summons all its desperation and asks for silence to speak and stillness to dance. Ian Middleton, its co-author, died in 1993 of AIDS related causes.
Director
Reflecting on the premature death of a young dancer and artist, Heaven or Montréal points to unfinished ideas, creating "outlines" of lost energy and imagination. As a finale, it summons all its desperation and asks for silence to speak and stillness to dance. Ian Middleton, its co-author, died in 1993 of AIDS related causes.
Editor
Freely drawing from a variety of film genres, including musicals, the sudsy melodramas and documentaries and combing them with a free-flowing narrative and bright pop-art sensibilities, this hard-hitting experimental romp from Canadian filmmaker John Greyson packs a political wallop while satirically comparing and contrasting the issues of censorship and circumcision. The tale centers on the exploits of three homosexuals named Peter. Peter Koosens is obsessed with the semi-scandalous behavior of Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau while college student Peter Cort, ponders the significance and necessity of male circumcision. Peter Denham is an artist who seduces the other two and freely borrows from their work to make something of his own. Their exploits land the trio in prison after an operatic number (the police sing songs adapted from Bizet's Carmen).
Music
A rather liberal and pictorial interpretation of a number of Western musical forms with a considerable homosexual bias. Playing largely off the mood of different musical genres, it is a humorous commentary on musical association, and a celebration and critique of "gay identity."
Producer
A rather liberal and pictorial interpretation of a number of Western musical forms with a considerable homosexual bias. Playing largely off the mood of different musical genres, it is a humorous commentary on musical association, and a celebration and critique of "gay identity."
Sound Mixer
A rather liberal and pictorial interpretation of a number of Western musical forms with a considerable homosexual bias. Playing largely off the mood of different musical genres, it is a humorous commentary on musical association, and a celebration and critique of "gay identity."
Editor
A rather liberal and pictorial interpretation of a number of Western musical forms with a considerable homosexual bias. Playing largely off the mood of different musical genres, it is a humorous commentary on musical association, and a celebration and critique of "gay identity."
Director
A rather liberal and pictorial interpretation of a number of Western musical forms with a considerable homosexual bias. Playing largely off the mood of different musical genres, it is a humorous commentary on musical association, and a celebration and critique of "gay identity."
Editor
Dirty Laundry speculates upon the buried narratives of gender and sexuality in Chinese-Canadian history of the 19th century, when Chinese communities were almost exclusively male. A story about a chance late-night encounter between a steward and a passenger on a train interweaves with documentary interviews with historians and writers and historical documents brought to life. The tape poses nagging questions about the personal and political stakes in the writing of history and in our interpretations of the past.
Producer
A fishing wharf serves as the runway for a sexy, male fashion show, and childhood fantasies are brought to life in this nostalgic and surreal video about growing up gay in a small Newfoundland town. Auto Biography is a world where lesbian mothers dote over their gay sons and old men reminisce about long-ago boyfriends. In Day's humourous inversion of societal values (shot clandestinely in his parent's house), memory is colourfully reconstructed, and dinner dates and pyjama parties take on a whole new meaning.
Writer
A fishing wharf serves as the runway for a sexy, male fashion show, and childhood fantasies are brought to life in this nostalgic and surreal video about growing up gay in a small Newfoundland town. Auto Biography is a world where lesbian mothers dote over their gay sons and old men reminisce about long-ago boyfriends. In Day's humourous inversion of societal values (shot clandestinely in his parent's house), memory is colourfully reconstructed, and dinner dates and pyjama parties take on a whole new meaning.
Director
A fishing wharf serves as the runway for a sexy, male fashion show, and childhood fantasies are brought to life in this nostalgic and surreal video about growing up gay in a small Newfoundland town. Auto Biography is a world where lesbian mothers dote over their gay sons and old men reminisce about long-ago boyfriends. In Day's humourous inversion of societal values (shot clandestinely in his parent's house), memory is colourfully reconstructed, and dinner dates and pyjama parties take on a whole new meaning.
Online Editor
Ostensibly embarking upon a portrait of a "modern-day Abraham Lincoln", Escaping History traces the development of a relationship between the videomaker and his subject. As the story unfolds, it veers from the objective to the highly personal. The tape relates the story of Mel Glasser, a recovering schizophrenic who, having adopted the persona of Abraham Lincoln, has made considerable progress in the last twenty years. The tape refuses to romanticize Mel's condition; he speaks frankly with intelligence and humour, and takes Applegath on a special journey.
Producer
A video designed to challenge existing models of AIDS treatment in our society. Using a collage of elements as well as techniques from video and performance, the themes of mourning, urgency and healing are explored in a poetic and highly charged video. Got Away in the Dying Moments suggests natural alternatives to the current treatments and attitudes that constrain our hearts and minds with respect to the AIDS crisis.
Editor
A video designed to challenge existing models of AIDS treatment in our society. Using a collage of elements as well as techniques from video and performance, the themes of mourning, urgency and healing are explored in a poetic and highly charged video. Got Away in the Dying Moments suggests natural alternatives to the current treatments and attitudes that constrain our hearts and minds with respect to the AIDS crisis.
Lighting Technician
A video designed to challenge existing models of AIDS treatment in our society. Using a collage of elements as well as techniques from video and performance, the themes of mourning, urgency and healing are explored in a poetic and highly charged video. Got Away in the Dying Moments suggests natural alternatives to the current treatments and attitudes that constrain our hearts and minds with respect to the AIDS crisis.
Director of Photography
A video designed to challenge existing models of AIDS treatment in our society. Using a collage of elements as well as techniques from video and performance, the themes of mourning, urgency and healing are explored in a poetic and highly charged video. Got Away in the Dying Moments suggests natural alternatives to the current treatments and attitudes that constrain our hearts and minds with respect to the AIDS crisis.
Director
A video designed to challenge existing models of AIDS treatment in our society. Using a collage of elements as well as techniques from video and performance, the themes of mourning, urgency and healing are explored in a poetic and highly charged video. Got Away in the Dying Moments suggests natural alternatives to the current treatments and attitudes that constrain our hearts and minds with respect to the AIDS crisis.
Producer
Two young men engage in sexual acts in an enchanted forest lit by disco lights, while nuns and teddy bears voyeuristically look on with delight.
Writer
Two young men engage in sexual acts in an enchanted forest lit by disco lights, while nuns and teddy bears voyeuristically look on with delight.
Camera Operator
Two young men engage in sexual acts in an enchanted forest lit by disco lights, while nuns and teddy bears voyeuristically look on with delight.
Director
Two young men engage in sexual acts in an enchanted forest lit by disco lights, while nuns and teddy bears voyeuristically look on with delight.
Online Editor
In the heat and desolation of Santa Fe, California, three people are connected and disconnected by proximity, nature and circumstances. Dwight is a New Age DJ. Ramon is an experimental composer and filmmaker. Ash displays numerous tattoos. Each elaborates on central and sometimes disturbing chapters of their lives. The tape culminates with Ramon's harrowing account of a friend's downward spiral.
Online Editor
In Keep Moving, three men work to make ends meet and to understand how they have arrived where they are. Two are single fathers coping with parental responsibilities. Frank is a founding member of Act Up, who dedicated himself to the organization over the years, and who has paid a price in the course of his commitment. Bob juggles businesses, trying to make a new start, while Mike wrestles with a past that encompasses family tragedy, alcoholism and drug addiction. Keep Moving considers how these men understand their histories while pressing forward, and how they received and pass on fundamental values.
