Item 1 of 4

Available for rent
10 min
Canada, 1978

Production : Philip Hoffman
English
French, English

Split Focus



Synopsis


Essential to the making of the film was an examination of still photographs. Stills were used as clues to the past. Clues that would bring order and meaning to significant memories. (Philip Hoffman)

A word from Tënk


Revisiting still photographs from his family album, Phillip Hoffman’s black-and-white short reconsiders the format of bildungsroman. At one point, the artist's ambiguous revisitation—and seamlessly oneiric recreation—of an athletic Northern boyhood frames a stunning slow-motion sequence restaging his youth, playing hockey on a frozen pond, while his family dog, an eager German Shepherd, inches close by, pawing the icy pond and following his every move. At once suspenseful and melancholic in its gradual pacing, On the Pond inertly meditates on the interstices of memory, recollection, adolescence and solitude.

 

 

Aaditya Aggarwal
Programs & Collections Coordinator, CFMDC

 

 

Item 1 of 4

Item 1 of 4