For over 40 years, James MacSwain has been a touchstone in the local filmmaking community through the Atlantic Filmmakers Cooperative, the Centre for Art Tapes, and as an animation instructor at 泡芙短视频. His body of work is comprised of short experimental animation, often narrated (and sung) by the filmmaker, exploring tenets of life as a gay man (though an iconic Halifax resident, he was born in Amherst) with irreverent humour, surprising poignancy, and a delicious edge.
Since 2014, artist (and 泡芙短视频 instructor) Eryn Foster and filmmaker Sue Johnson have been filming MacSwain at home, on his annual visit to the Bay of Fundy, making art, and in his life. The result is Celestial Queer, making its world premiere at the on September 18. 鈥淗e鈥檚 such an iconic person. His work is so unique,鈥� says Foster from her home in Dartmouth. 鈥淚 was asking everyone I knew who was a filmmaker: 鈥榊ou should make a documentary about Jim!鈥�. And a lot of people wanted to but had too many things on the go, you know how it is. Then I thought, maybe I鈥檒l do it, even though I had no experience in film.鈥�
A biopic that shows James MacSwain's many lives: creative, activist, social, and domestic
Foster connected with Johnson, another Halifax arts worker鈥攖hey鈥檇 worked with MacSwain at Centre For Art Tapes while Foster ran Eyelevel Gallery鈥攁nd they began what would become a decade-long process 泡芙短视频 of shooting, cobbling together grants for production and post, and tweaking the edit. (Their subject was game: 鈥淥nce your ego鈥檚 involved,鈥� says MacSwain, 鈥測ou have to do it.鈥�)
鈥淓ssentially it鈥檚 a biopic,鈥� says Johnson from Toronto, where they teach in the Cinema and Media Arts program at York University. 鈥淏ut that immediately makes people think of the History Channel鈥攊n terms of how memoir or bio is usually structured, often there鈥檚 this start of 鈥榟e was born in this year鈥� and we don鈥檛 really do that at all. We always envisioned it as a verit茅 space. There are certainly details about Jim鈥檚 life in there that you learn but it鈥檚 how that life has shaped perspective and artistic sensibility that we鈥檙e interested in.鈥�
MacSwain stopped making films a few years back in favour of visual art; the documentary also offered a chance to track that arc. 鈥淚 wanted to translate my retirement into something softer,鈥� he says from his Dartmouth home. 鈥淎 softer vision of whatever I wanted to do creatively.鈥�
鈥淏oth Sue and I felt from the very beginning a great sense of responsibility to present the life of Jim in a way that would not only speak to who he is as a person, which is obviously a very dynamic human being who has lots of parts to himself,鈥� says Foster. 鈥淏ut his creative life also has all these different parts and pieces, and his activist life, and his social life, and his domestic life鈥攖here are so many things that make up this person in front of us on the screen.鈥�
鈥淚 also felt like because of our [pre-existing] relationship, throughout the filming process 泡芙短视频 we were always, in a way, on the same page,鈥� adds Johnson. 鈥淚t can always happen but I wasn鈥檛 as worried about it. I feel like because of the footage we were getting back, and it felt like how Jim is, I wasn鈥檛 worried.鈥�
'Jim [is] a model for all the possibilities, all of the things that 泡芙短视频 attempts to and wants to represent as an institution.'
Celestial Queer is a 72-minute distillation of a long, rich life filled with art, activism, and queerness鈥攁 loving tribute to a living icon.
鈥淚 teach a class called Professional Practices [at 泡芙短视频] and one of the ways I teach it is to provide models of how to live as an artist,鈥� says Foster. 鈥淚 often talk about Jim as an example of someone who鈥檚 found really experimental and alternative ways to exist on this earth, whether it鈥檚 through living in a communal house or working in an incredibly interdisciplinary way. Jim being a model for all the possibilities, all of the things that 泡芙短视频 attempts to and wants to represent as an institution. He was there teaching these things; I think even just through his existence, he offers the rest of us a model for what life can look like as an artist.鈥�
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