Author Archives: kaja

NOT A DROP

CANADA 2018, 33 MIN.
SINGLE-CHANNEL HD VIDEO, STEREO SOUND

Not a Drop presents 11 individuals in the act of dish doing. The audio consists of the participants divulging stories of conflict with family members, lovers, and roommates surrounding this ordinary chore. They share their processes, relationship to water, and how some of their methods have changed through criticism they received regarding water usage. This task is at times frustrating and tedious while at others it can be calming and meditative. Anxieties and tensions are revealed as well as the potential for a moment of respite in one’s day. Movement patterns emerge and gracefully flow through the practice of this personal activity. Not a Drop is a study of gesture, focusing on a necessary, banal activity.

The video is projected onto a wall above a kitchenette: a countertop of stacked dishes, soap, a sponge, and a dripping faucet. The 3×4 grid video shows 11 individuals completing the washing of a single sinkful of dishes. Each video clip is uncut. The bottom right corner contains a sinkful of dishes that are not being washed. In this clip water runs for the entire duration of the video. Once all the other participants have finished their tasks and disappeared, this one tile remains for a moment before the video loops again.

Housework is a form of labour that is almost inevitably invisible. In capturing people doing their own dishes, a document has been created of this very ordinary and mostly private activity. 

Performers Fernando Belote, Omar Elhamy, Peggy Hogan, Stacy Lee, Dorothee Nowak, Keith Odell, Kevin Jung-Hoo Park, Chantale Potie, Alan Reed, Aleks Schürmer, Adam Tadros

 

Inge: When the Walls

CANADA 2018, 24 MIN.
SINGLE-CHANNEL HD VIDEO, STEREO SOUND

Inge recounts her life, family, and home that she built almost entirely out of cement and steel.

Director of photography and colour grading  Adam Tadros
Music, sound-design, and title cards Charlie Twitch
Performers Inge Mittman and Carmen Dufort
French translation Sophie Croteau
Director, camera, producer, writer, editor Kaja Levy de la Vie

SCREENINGS

2022 Screener Short Film Fest. Hackney, UK.
2020 Vesuvius International Film Fest. Screening. Finalist for Best Documentary. Naples, Italy.

Euthymia

CANADA 2015, 9 MIN.
THREE-CHANNEL HD VIDEO, EIGHT-CHANNEL SOUND

Euthymia is a black and white, slow-motion video triptych set in a high-vaulted chapel. It personifies a professional woman’s existential crisis, a representation of her mental state in which workers of her own making support her delusions.

kajalevy_05_euthymia


Euthymia explores the character’s best possible level of performance, a state in which she is capable of functioning while under the threat of dysthymia – a numb, chronic lowness.

EXHIBITIONS

2021 May XXIVe Rencontres Internationales Traverse, L’Art c’est faire. Programme ENSAV. Toulouse, France.
2021 February Harcourt House Artist Run Centre. Solo exhibition. Edmonton, AB.
2018 February Long Winter. 6.4. Installation. Toronto, ON.
2017 June Short to the Point. Experimental Selection June 2017. Screenings. Various venues, Romania.
2017 January – February FOFA Gallery. Making Spaces. Installation. Montreal, QC.
2016 January VAV Gallery. #10.vav//2016. Installation. Montreal, QC.
2015 July matralab. Residency & installation. Montreal, QC.
2015 May Concordia Film Festival. Screening. Nominated for Best Production; Direction; & Cinematography. Montreal, QC.

Director of Photography Wolski
Music and sound-design Charlie Twitch
Performers Emylie Bernard, Janick Burn, Robby Reis, Tania Dos Santos.
Producer, writer, editor Kaja Levy de la Vie

Witness

CANADA 2015, 12 MIN.
SINGLE-CHANNEL HD VIDEO, SILENT

Crying in slow motion, black and white, and silent.

witness_still1

EXHIBITIONS

2017 November Long Winter. 6.1. Installation. Toronto, ON.

Performer Kaja Levy de la Vie

Worth/Defence

CANADA 2014, 5 MIN.
SINGLE-CHANNEL HD VIDEO, SOUND

Worth/Defence presents text-to-speech dialogue between an arguing couple over fish being gutted and filleted. Six mackerels are filleted by a woman and one striped bass is gutted by a man. Neither butcher is practiced, insinuating the thoughtless confrontations couples have that stem largely from self-defence. The emotional butchery that lovers inflict upon one another is blatantly represented by the bloody fish.

worth_03

The question of worth often comes up in love: weighing the good against the bad. Is it worth staying in a relationship if it tends towards bickering and arguments? If defensiveness is taken out of the equation, worth is somehow gleaned from love, though this is a difficult task – hinted at by the gruesome imagery.

EXHIBITIONS

2018 Madhouse Movies. Screening. USA.
2015 April Academy of Video Art Gala. Screening. Nominated for Best Short. Montreal, QC.

 

Music Charlie Twitch
Performers Tania Dos Santos, Robby Reis
Producer, camera, editor, sound Kaja Levy de la Vie

Rinse

CANADA 2013, 5 MIN.
SINGLE-CHANNEL HD VIDEO TRANSFERRED FROM 16MM, SOUND

The hostess of a small dinner party recalls events as casual and friendly for everyone but herself. Her mind wanders to seemingly mundane tasks that she relishes. The same cup is washed several times, the repetition positing her daydreams as ruminations.

rinse01

The poignant and evocative soundtrack is a collaboration between Charlie Twitch and Jamie Woollard. It was shot on 16mm in December 2012 and has a running time of 5 minutes and 34 seconds.

EXHIBITIONS

2017 September Canadian Short Film Screening. La Place du Marché. Montreal, QC.
2014 April Academy of Art Video Art gala. Screening. Nominee in fiction. Montreal, QC.
2013 Jeu de Temps/Times Play 2013. Screening. Canada.
2013 April Concordia Film Festival. Screening. Montreal, QC.

CREDITS

Music Charlie Twitch, Jamie Woollard
Performers Holly Brace Lavoie, Ian Moram, Ian Pieters, Chantal Potié, Fiona Vickers
Thank You Holly Brace Lavoie, John Campbell, Mama i Pato
Producer, writer, editor, camera op/DOP Kaja Levy de la Vie