J. Saragosa  
         

Selection of Film, Video, Installation & Performance


    Audio Film currently in progress


    In Berlin in the year 2020, there are still homes that rely on coal stoves for heating, despite their ban in 2015 by the Federal Emission Control Ordinance. This short film is a portrait of one of those stoves, the maintenance it requires of the inhabitant of the home it’s in, and what it means for its Kiez, Kreuzberg.


    "Ofenheizung: Portrait of a Stove" (2020)


    "I Dream of Inadequacy" (2017)

    The writer Michael V. Smith asked several filmmakers to visually interpret a poem from his latest book “Bad Ideas.” Juli Saragosa combines a textured sound design and hand-processed Super8mm footage of abandoned places with Google Street View and rotoscoped imagery of talking ravens in this rendering of a poem about feelings of shame and inadequacy.

    • Distribution: Video Out Distribution

    • Screenings:
    • Re-fest (Seoul, SK) June 2024
    • Composthumanism, Pleasuredome (Toronto, CA) Feb. 23, 2019
    • VIVO Media Arts 45th Anniversary Screening (Vancouver, CA) Sep. 12, 2018
    • Process Experimental Film Festival (Riga, LV) Mar. 24, 2018
    • Artifact Small Format Film Festival (Calgary, CA) Mar. 10, 2018
    • Riots and Popcorn (Gothenburg, SE) Feb. 2, 2018
    • The 8fest (Toronto, CA) Jan. 27, 2018
    • Agony Klub Online Radio Show (audio only) Oct. 2, 2017



    A 64-minute personal experimental documentary, part 2 of the stories based on what my grandmother told me. This continues where we left off in part 1, the short film "Finding a Place to Sleep" (2013), which conjures the image of my great-grandmother during the Ukrainian Holodomor (forced famine) during the Soviet era. When her daughter, my Baba , was 19, she was taken from her family in urban Soviet Ukraine to work on a Bavarian farm under National Socialism. She had the luck and perseverance to survive hardships of the forced famine in her homeland and forced labour in the new one. The stories of her everyday life – learning how to milk a cow, falling in love – are interspersed with three generations of reflections on politics, labour, longing, feelings of displacement and loss. Hand-processed black & white film, colour film, photographs and official documents create a polyvocal montage. The hand-touch aesthetic combines with the acousmatic effect of disembodied voices, in this deeply intimate portrait obscured by memory loss, mis-translation, fear and trauma.


    "Learning to Milk a Cow" (2016)

    "Finding a Place to Sleep" (2013)


    "Stories for a Future Generation" - trailer
    a series of films about migration






    "East Van Queer Italians" (2015)
    This interactive Korsakow-video brings together footage from Vancouver’s east end of 3 Italian-Canadian queers talking about their Catholic upbringings (eg; expectations to marry), a personal essay about the characteristics (both physical and DIY-approach to life) I inherited from my immigrant father, and an interview with my Nonna about her experiences coming to Canada from Italy after WWII. Different perspectives on the multi-generational effects of uprooting are presented through a multi-genre collage of video, old photos and voice-over. Produced as part of the Performigrations international collaboration project to represent the city, Vancouver, on Coast Salish territory.




Selection of Earlier Work, Festival Screenings and Performances


    "The Pink Fairy"
    • Microcinefest (Toronto, CA) Sept. 2008
    • Pride: L’Amour de l’été (Hamilton, CA) June 2008
    • European Media Arts Festival (Osnabrück, DE) April 2008
    • Out on Screen Gay & Lesbian Film Festival (Vancouver, CA) Aug. 2007
    • Solo screening (Vancouver, CA) May 2007

    "They Dance Alone"
    • Battle of the Cities (Chicago, US) April 2007
    • Vancouver Film Experiments (Toronto, CA) Jan. 2007
    • Inside Out Gay & Lesbian Film Festival (Toronto, CA) May 2006
    • Pleasure Dome’s Sweet 16: Coming of Age (Toronto, CA) Dec. 2005

    "The Outsiders"
    • Tranny Fest (San Francisco, US) Nov. 2008
    • Warsaw Lesbian & Gay Film Festival (Warsaw, PL) June 2008
    • Reeling International Gay & Lesbian Film Festival (Chicago, US) Nov. 2006
    • Out on Screen Gay and Lesbian Film Festival (Vancouver, CA) Aug. 2006
    • Outfest International Gay and Lesbian Film Festival (LA, US) July 2006
    • Cinema Gaylesbico (Milan, IT) June 2006
    • London International Lesbian and Gay Film Festival (London, UK) April 2006
    • Splice This! (Toronto, CA) July 2005 

    "Film Scroll"
    • ‘Interior Scroll: (re)create’ // “That 70s Ho Performance Art Festival” // The Western Front (Vancouver, CA) Oct. 2004
    "Amoré"
    • TUFF (Toronto, CA Subway) Oct. 2011 // *Jury Prize for Experimental film
    • The Language of Colour, Films at the Factory (Hamilton, CA) April 2008
    • Inside Out Gay & Lesbian Film Festival (Toronto, CA) May 2005
    • One-minute International Film festival (Toronto, CA) Nov. 2005 // *Best Canadian film
    • PDX Film and Video Festival (Portland, US) April 2005
    • Williamsburg Bridging (Brooklyn, US) Feb. 2005
    • LIFT Island Screening, One Take R8 Film Festival (Toronto, CA) July 2004

    • "Elements" - collab as ‘The League’
      Splice This! Super8 Festival, (Toronto, CA) July 2002

    "suburban is a state of mind"
    • Brisk Collages and Bricolages: Artistic Audits of Mainstream Media in Recent Canadian Shorts, MSVU/AFCOOP/NSCAD (Halifax, CA) Dec. 2005
    • Canzine (Toronto, CA) Oct. 2003
    • Haze Video Night (Sis Boom Bah, Toronto, CA) 
    • Nov. 2002 Junction Arts Festival (Toronto, CA) Sept. 2002
    • REHAB Parkdale Film Fest (Toronto, CA) June 2002
    • Haze Video Night (Sis Boom Bah, Toronto, CA) March 2002

    "Parade"
    • Inside Out Gay & Lesbian Film Festival (Toronto, CA) May 2003
    • Calgary Society of Ind. Filmmakers $100 Film Festival (Calgary, CA) 
    • Nov. 2001 National Salon Des Refusés (Toronto, CA) Sept. 2001
    • Sabina International Short Film Festival (Mompeo, IT) May 2001
    • Collections: “Super Super 8: Experimental Works for Educational Environments” (CFMDC)


    "The Pink Fairy" (2006)
    "They Dance Alone" (2005)
    "The Outsiders" (2005)
    “Film Scroll” (2004 / 16mm performance)
    "Amoré" (2004 / 16mm installation)
    “Elements” by ‘The League’ (2002 / 16mm film loop performance)
    "suburban is a state of mind" (2001)
    "Parade" (2001)