Francisca Duran

Francisca Duran is a Toronto based filmmaker, media artist and a lecturer in the Multimedia Department at McMaster University (Hamilton, Ontario).

Her media arts work combines digital and analogue formats and explores the intersection points of memory, history, politics and technology. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally in numerous film festivals, galleries and group screenings. She has received grants in support of her artistic practice from the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council and Toronto Arts Council.

She holds an MFA in Film Production from York University and a B.A.H. from the Department of Film at Queens University. Born in Santiago Chile in 1967, Francisca came to Canada as a refugee following the 1973 military coup.

In addition to her art practice Francisca has worked as a volunteer in the cultural sector since 1991 at organizations such as the Liaison of Independent Filmmakers of Toronto (LIFT) and Cineworks Independent Filmmakers Society in Vancouver. She is currently co-chair of the board of directors of Canadian Filmmakers Distribution Centre.

Related design interests in graphic arts production led to a seven-year professional practice where she produced promotional print materials for cultural sector and non-profit clients including The Images Festival, Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, Fireweed, LIFT and YYZ Books.

My moving-image artwork takes a critical view of social, political and cultural issues through the aperture of the archive: both familial and public.

I am interested in lost, irretrievable things. I am interested in the tactile qualities of media that are thought of as ephemeral. I seek to make visible, to give a graphical representation to what is perceived as invisible, for instance, light, sound and memory.

I am interested in the intersection points of re-collection, history and technology and exploring these within a framework that reveals the material and physical presence of the media/material I work with. I strive to locate and follow circuitous paths produced by the intersections of: the body, language and translation, popular culture, new technologies, old technologies, lost and abandoned technologies, archival films and recordings, personal stories, news stories, historical documents, politics, works of art.

I use a variety of digital and analogue media, processes and methodologies in the creation of my moving image work: photographs, film and digital video, hand drawing and digital illustration, analogue and digital found footage, downloaded images, text, animation.

I take images and audio apart, and reassemble them.

I am interested in the act of looking, in documenting and in the results, pleasurable and painful, of looking and documenting. These formal and material experimentations act as metaphor for memory.

Filmography
2009
Retrato Oficial 2 [4:10 minutes, experimental documentary, animation, DV]
2007
Mr. Edison’s Ear [30 minutes, experimental documentary, 16mm, DV]
2006
In the Kingdom of Shadows [5.30 minutes, experimental, 35mm/DV]
2005
BOY [5 minutes, experimental, 16mm]
2004
Nazia (Doctor with Borders), [11.5 minute segment of 50 minute documentary, DVcam]
Swing [2 minutes, rotoscope animation, DV]
Dominion [2.48 minutes, experimental, found footage film, DV]
2003
Does this mean we’re going together? [3.30 minutes, experimental, found footage film, 16mm]
2002
She was so young back then [3 minutes, experimental, found footage film, 16mm]
Retrato Oficial 1 [1 minute, experimental, found footage film, 16mm ]
1995
Miami Blues [3 minutes, music video for Andrew Whiteman]
1991
Cuentos de mi Niñez (Tales From My Childhood) [9 minutes, experimental documentary, 16mm]

Media Arts Festivals, Galleries and Selected Group Screenings
2011
BOY: Canadiana, Visions of the Country by Independent Filmmakers, Art Gallery of Alberta
2010
Retrato Oficial: Signal and Noise; Rotterdam; Oberhausen, Reframing the Archive Conference McMaster University
In the Kingdom of Shadows: Original/Primitive group show, Ben Russell Gallery, Chicago
2009
Various works screened at: A Fragile Transition: Past and Present in Chilean Canadian Cinema WNDX
In the Kingdom of Shadows: Signal and Noise, Vancouver
Retrato Oficial 2: Images Festival, Toronto
Mr. Edison’s Ear: 44th International Popular and Scientific Documentary Film Festival, Jihlava, Czech Republic
2008
In the Kingdom of Shadows: Experimenta—London International Film Festival
Mr. Edison’s Ear: DOK Leipzig; Hot Docs
Cuentos, BOY: Double Vision (CFMDC/Images Retrospective, London UK/London Ontario)
2007
In the Kingdom of Shadows: Worldwide Short Film Festival
2006
In the Kingdom of Shadows: Ann Arbor Film Festival
BOY: Calgary $100 Film Festival
Does this mean we’re going together: Calgary’s $100 Film Festival
2005
Retrato Oficial 1: The 51st Robert Flaherty Film Seminar: Cinema and History: Piling Wreckage Upon Wreckage
She was so young back then: San Francisco Art Institute; Best of LIFT $99 Film Festival tour
BOY: Alucine
Swing: Alucine
2004
She was so young back then: The No Excuses $99 Film Festival Tour
Does this mean we’re going together: The LIFT No Excuses $99 Film Festival Tour
2003
Cuentos de Mi Niñez: Durham Art Gallery; Our Own September 11th Winnipeg Film Group
She was so young back then: Images Film Festival
Retrato Oficial 1: Images Film Festival; Our Own September 11th Winnipeg Film Group

Additional Group and Festival Screenings—Cuentos de Mi Niñez (Tales From My Childhood)
Experimenting Women, Pacific Cinematheque, Vancouver, 1996; Liaison of Independent Filmmakers of Toronto Carte Blanche—Ontario Cinematheque Toronto, 1995; Allegheny College, Meadsville Pennsylvania, 1995; Narrative Signs—The London Filmmakers’ Co-op London England, 1994; Sappho Speaks—The National Film Board; 1994; Independent Film and Video Alliance Conference, Toronto, 1994; Glenbow Museum, 1993; Calgary Status of Women, Calgary, 1992;
Festivals: Toronto International Film Festival 1991 + 1993 (retrospective); Hispanic Film Festival, 1993, 1994; Images, 1992, One World Film Festival, 1992; Ann Arbor Film Festival, 1991; Kingston International Film Festival, 1991, Vancouver International Film Festival, 1991; Montreal International Film Festival; 1991 Yorkton, 1991

Collections
Mr Edison’s Ear and Cuentos De Mi Niñez: Hotdocs Online Library
Cuentos De Mi Niñez:Queen’s University Department of Film Studies

Broadcasts
2005/2006 Doctor with Borders: OMNI Television Documentary Signature Series
1992—4 Cuentos de mi Niñez: Women’s Television Network, TVOntario, CBC

Commissions and Collaborations
2011
Liaison of Independent Filmmakers of Toronto (LIFT) 30th Anniversary—Untitled (work in progress)
2006
LIFT—Film is Dead! Long Live Film! —In the kingdom of shadows
2003
Images Festival—One’minute Movies—Retrato Oficial 1
1999
Cineworks Independent Film Society
Omnibus Project–Vancouver at the Turn of the CenturyBOY

Awards
2008
York University Faculty of Graduate Studies Thesis Prize
1992
Cuentos de mi Niñez: TVOntario Telefest, First Prize Short Documentary;
1991
Cuentos de mi Niñez: Kingston International Film Festival, Local Heroes First Prize; Regina
National Student Film and Video Showcase, First Prize Documentary and First Prize Film

Community Committee Experience
2007
present—Co-chair Board of Directors, Canadian Filmmakers Distribution Centre
2007
Selection Committee—LIFT production grant, Cinema + Disjunction
1997–1999
Board of Directors, Cineworks Independent Film Society, Vancouver
1992–1993
Board of Directors, Liaison of Independent Filmmakers of Toronto

Education
Present
OCADU Continuing Studies Digital Media Certificate
2007
M.F.A. Department of Film, Faculty of Fine Arts, York University, Awarded York University Faculty of Graduate Studies Thesis Prize
1991
B.A.H. Department of Film Studies, Faculty of Arts, Queen’s University