Exhumation (2018/Canada) by Daniel MacIntyre
8m 2s
By mixed-media artist Daniel MacIntyre comes a work of alchemical ingenuity —the peeling back of a shrouded image to reveal the spectres that lay beneath. Re-composing images that have been chemically treated to disintegrate (in the gleefully tactile tradition of Stan Brakhage), the filmmaker’s work is a densely dark collage that explores the story surrounding a celebrity paternity suit and the mythology that adhered to it. McIntyre's film continues the New York-educated artist's interest in organic film chemistry and cinema's formal structures. “I see the film as both a diary of a death mask and about speculative hope. Images were exposed on 16mm celluloid and processed by hand, passed through volatile chemistry to lift the film off the base. The images contained on these cells of film had to shed their physical forms, before being returned and dried back on. In this way, they found their final resting place."