The CINEMAexpo67 research group has been working since 2007 to excavate, research and reconstruct the large format and multi-screen films from Montreal’s Expo 67. These three programs celebrate Canada’s large-format cinematic heritage and bring original Expo 67 films from the pavilion archives to large screens. Presented in collaboration with the Cinémathèque québécoise, La Ville de Montréal, and Library and Archives Canada.
Presented continuously during the opening hours of the MAC in the BWR Hall.
September 12 to September 17
Motion (1967)
Dir. Vince Vaitiekunas
70 mm digital transfer, 14 min
Originally presented in the CN Pavilion
Motion was presented on a twelve-meter screen in the 200-seat Canadian National (CN) theatre, and explores the themes of time and movement. Through expansive experiments with cinematography, this film captures stunning kinetic movements as an integral part of everyday life from birth to death. Most famously, the film features a breathtaking aerial camera free-fall.
September 19 to September 24
Two films from the Carousel Theatre at the Canada Pavilion
Settlement and Conflict (1967)
Dir. Michel Brault
35mm digital transfer, 2 screens, 5 min 15 s
The second of five films in the Canada Pavilion’s Carousel Theatre, spectators sat on a rotating turntable surrounding five theatre chambers to experience different moments in the “The Origins and History of Canada.” Directed by key Québec filmmaker, Michel Brault, the 2-screen installation depicts settler colonial conflicts between French and English soldiers, as indigenous children and adults bear witness to the violence of these everyday encounters.
Canada is My Piano (1967)
Dir. George Dunning
35mm digital transfers and 3-screen reconstruction, 4 min 30 s
Screened on three interlocking projectors in the Carousel Theatre’s third chamber, this triple screen animation on the subject of Canadian Confederation was made by legendary British director, George Dunning (who produced the landmark Beatles’ film Yellow Submarine). It presents Canada’s English, Scottish and French colonial settler heritages, but notably excludes any Indigenous participation in the formation of the nation. Each identity is enacted through an upright piano engaged in a discordant, dueling piano cacophony.
September 26 to October 1
The Earth is Man’s Home (1967)
Dir. Nick and Ann Chaparos
70 mm digital transfer, 10 min
Originally presented in the Man the Explorer Pavilion
Screened in Expo’s Man the Explorer complex (which also presented Polar Life), this unique multi-screen projection stacked three frames vertically within a single large projection. Featuring sublime optically printed images, the vertical screen was four meters wide and ten meters high, accompanied by a lively soundtrack of voices, music and ambient everyday sounds. A brilliant specimen of 1960’s environmentalism that features original and found footage.
