Joseph Bernard

Whale Watch (1) & Whale Watch (2) open a double “WHALE WATCH” program hosted by MonoKino in Ostend, Belgium - - May 6 + 7, 2022

Over two days and evenings of festivities, including concerts, workshops, lecture performances and an eclectic mix of films from worldwide makers, were presented in the coastal town of Ostend, Belgium - all in celebration of the majestic whale.

This concept grew from a small group called MonoKino, who collectively happen to have a deep love of both the sea and experimental film. It is run by Godart Bakkers, who heads the group and curates the programs, now ongoing for four years.

He contacted me after seeing my film, Whale Watch (1), in the international Media City Film Festival, a couple of months earlier. It was his idea to use a mix of cinematic formats from super 8, 16, 35mm, digital restoration, video, silent, sound, even news clips and short finds from YouTube throughout the two screenings.

I’ll include a few pages from the playfully-designed brochure to give a sense of the care, thought and real inclusiveness put into these not-for-profit MonoKino projects. My sincere thanks to Godart and crew for a job so sensitively done.

The 25th anniversary celebration of Media City Film Festival will include a truly international virtual screening of Whale Watch (1).

Image: Whale Watch (1)  (1981)

Copy supplied by Media City Film Festival is as follows…

Media City Film Festival (MCFF), Windsor-Detroit’s annual international festival for film and digital art, announces the full scope of its 25th anniversary virtual edition: February 8–March 1, 2022.

In an act of global solidarity, all 70+ films featuring some of cinema’s most ardent pioneers are available to view for free in full open access globally for the duration of this amazing virtual event: mediacityfilmfestival.com

MCFF 2022 features an eclectic selection of films streaming across three sections: International, Spotlight and Regional. Audiences will gain unfettered access to incredible new works, world premieres, restorations, amateur films, and historical masterpieces from legendary artists and filmmakers including Tracey Moffatt, Sergei Parajanov, Sky Hopinka, Ulysses Jenkins, Cecilia Vicuña, Carolee Schneemann, Tony Cokes, Ute Aurand, Karpo Godina, and dozens more. Highlights hail from Windsor-Detroit, Colombia, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Armenia, Brazil, Sri Lanka, across Canada and around the world. 

Whale Watch (1) is available for viewing in the Regional category. For the duration of the festival, the film can be viewed here. Supporting material regarding my entry is available by scrolling downward beneath the film.

My notes on this and its companion title are as follows;

Shot weeks apart, I made two films of personal sightings while on public outings, in the company of the great mammals off Cape Cod. Like icebergs, very little of their bulk, beyond shimmering back and a rearmost dorsal fin is visible as they glide the surface. These forty-ton humpbacks power dive with a grace and purpose that had me conjuring their descending views; diminishing jagged streaks of light into plummeting depths of darkness.

Image: Whale Watch (1)  (1981)

Printed materials publicizing the 2015 screenings of PRISMATIC MUSIC following its premier at the College for Creative Studies, Detroit

Behind each public screening there are individuals who have made these events possible. A list of those who curated and hosted recent programs of my films would include Ben Gaydos (Professor UM-Flint and co-founder w/ Julia Yezbick of Mothlight Microcinema), Adam Lee Miller and Nicola Kuperus, Jodie Mack (Professor & Founder of EYEWASH at Dartmouth College), Monica Saviron, and Dr. Joshua Yumibe (Professor & Director of Film Studies at MSU). Each of these benefactors are artists themselves; that is, filmmakers, writers, musicians, painters, distinguished scholars. I'm extremely grateful for their advocacy and support. 

Upcoming - - An interview and a 90 minute/ 12-film program screening: PRISMATIC MUSIC at Indiana University Cinema (Underground Series) March 11, 2016.