Having grown up playing hockey on the Canadian prairies, filmmaker Brett Kashmere now lives in the American Midwest
and writes extensively about avant-garde cinema, music and video, curates international exhibitions, and teaches
digital media and film production at Oberlin College.
Kashmere is a founding member of the antechamber,
a non-profit organization dedicated to the support of emerging independent artists and filmmakers, and
Syracuse Experimental, a film and media workshop. He has presented
screenings and curated exhibitions at festivals and venues such
as the Seoul Film Festival, the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Strasbourg, the D.U.M.B.O. Arts Festival in Brooklyn,
Cinematheque Ontario, New York's Eyebeam Center for Art and Technology, Light Cone in Paris, Portland's Cinema Project, Vtape in
Toronto, and La Cinematheque quebecoise. In 2004 he organized the touring expanded cinema installation
and DVD-format catalog, Industry: Recent works by Richard Kerr.
Kashmere's work has screened internationally at the London Film Festival, Made in Video:
International Video Art Festival in Copenhagen, Anthology Film Archives in New York, the Kassel Documentary Festival in
Germany, and The Images Festival in Toronto.
His writing has appeared in journals and magazines such as The Canadian Journal of Film Studies, Take One,
ESSE arts + opinions, Synoptique, Senses of Cinema, PROTEE revue internationale de theories et de pratiques semiotiques,
and Offscreen, and anthologies like The Films of Jack Chambers, Centre des arts actuels Skol 2002-2003,The Encyclopedia of the Documentary Film, and the forthcoming volumes Excesses and Extremes in Film and
Video and Live Cinema: A Contemporary Reader.
Kashmere holds an BA in Film & Video Studies from the University of Regina, as well as an MA in Film Studies and an MFA in
Studio Arts from Concordia University in Montreal. His most recently completed film is
Valery's Ankle (2006).
June 4/5/6: ARTHUR LIPSETT: ABOUT TIME, A Film Retrospective, curated by Brett Kashmere, CINEMATHEQUE QUEBECOISE, Montreal. Presented by
Double Negative Collective.
May 7/8: UNFINISHED PASSAGES @ British Film Institute, part of "Double Visions," a touring project of The Images Festival
and CFMDC, London, England
April/May: VALERY'S ANKLE in "Arena: The Art of Hockey," curated by Ray Cronin, ART GALLERY OF NOVA SCOTIA, Halifax (screening date tba)
Apr. 17: TRACKS + GESTURES, curated by Brett Kashmere, with films and cinematic videos by Mitchell Akiyama, deco dawson, Ryan Diduck, Kelly Egan,
Julien Idrac, Brett Kashmere, Karl Lemieux, Robert Pasternak, Sheila & Nicholas Pye, Daichi Saito, and Michael Snow, WINNIPEG CINEMATHEQUE
Apr. 11: Kashmere's Super 8 film DREAMED ON A MORNING, STARVED FOR IMMEDIATE NIGHT @ THE IMAGES FESTIVAL, Toronto
Apr. 10: Live Cinema: A Contemporary Reader—Book Release Party @ SAN FRANCISCO CINEMATHEQUE. Includes the essay "In Pursuit of Northern Lights:
Tracking Canada's Living Cinema," by B. Kashmere & Astria Suparak.
Apr. 2: WINTERS OF DISCONTENT: Video-essays by Brett Kashmere and L'Atelier National du Manitoba, encore screening in Ottawa. Presented by
Available Light in association with the Art Engine commissioning exhibition, "Superfan"
Feb. 22/23: unfinished passages @ Forest City Gallery, part of "Double Visions," a touring project of The Images Festival
and CFMDC, London, Ontario
Feb. 22: Premiere screening of "That Reminds Me of Something...," curated and introduced by Brett Kashmere,
with videos by Stephen Andrews, Tony Cokes, Jacqueline Goss, Paper Rad, Jenny Perlin, and Steve Reinke,
Vtape, Toronto
Nov. 6: Guest presentation and screening in CINE 101 - Form, Style, and Meaning in Cinema, Instructor: Tess Takahashi, Oberlin College, Oberlin, OH
Oct. 25: Guest presentation and screening in CAS 100 - Salt Stories, Instructor: Fereshteh Toosi, Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY
Sept. 24: Valery's Ankle @ The Little Theatre, as part of the Emerging Filmmakers Series, Rochester, NY
Aug. 18: Valery's Ankle @ CHICAGO UNDERGROUND FILM FESTIVAL as part of "Surmises" program, Elegant Mr. Gallery at 1355 N. Milwaukee in Chicago, IL
June 22-23: Valery's Ankle @ WINNIPEG CINEMATHEQUE as part of "Winters of Discontent," Winnipeg, MB
June 12-17: When Canadians Attack @ WORLDWIDE SHORT FILM FESTIVAL, Toronto
June 3: Syracuse Experimental presents THE OPEN SCREEN, Bring Your Own Film/Video Event, The White Warehouse, 200 S. Geddes St, Syracuse, NY
May 24-27: Valery's Ankle, nominated for Documentary POV Golden Sheaf Award, @ YORTON SHORT FILM & VIDEO FESTIVAL, Yorkton, SK
Apr. 29: Valery's Ankle @ PDX: DOCUMENTARY & EXPERIMENTAL FILM FESTIVAL, Hollywood Theatre, Portland, OR
Apr. 24: CINEMA PROJECT presents Brett Kashmere: Carte Blanche du Canada, New American Art Union, Portland, OR
Apr. 21: Panel Presentation: "Lessons from Valery's Ankle" @ CANADA & THE LEAGUE OF HOCKEY NATIONS, Grand Pacific Hotel, Victoria, BC
Apr. 20: Valery's Ankle @ SYRACUSE INTERNATIONAL FILM & VIDEO FESTIVAL, BRISTOL IMAX OMNITHEATER at the MOST, 500 S Franklin St in Armory Square, Syracuse
Apr. 13:Valery's Ankle @ SIREN INTERNATIONAL FILM ODYSSEY, Roy H. Park School of Communications, Ithaca College, 953 Danby Road, Ithaca, NY
Apr. 13: PORTLAND - SYRACUSE ONE TAKE SUPER 8 EVENT, Presented by Visiting Artist Brett Kashmere, Organized by the Portland Film + Video Artists Collective, @ ZERO STATION,
222 Anderson Street, Portland, ME
Apr. 6: Toronto premiere of Valery's Ankle @ THE IMAGES FESTIVAL, Joseph Workman Theatre, 1001 Queen Street West at Ossington, Toronto
Apr. 6: FRAMELINE Host Barbara Goslawski interviews Brett Kashmere about his film Valery's Ankle. In Toronto or online at CKLN-FM 88.1
Contemporary hockey fans remember well the Bertuzzi-Moore incident of a few seasons ago, as well as other violent events, many not notable on a national level but rather the almost-private sufferings players undergo simply to be a part of the game.
But hockey is a game of triumphs, too, none perhaps greater to Canadian fans than the NHL superstar team of 1972 defeating the Russian Red Army team in an eight-game showdown called the Summit Series. Four games in Canada, four games in Moscow, with the likes of Phil Esposito, Bobby Clarke, Jean Ratelle, and Ken Dryden highlighting a roster of the best of the best—in the world, it was thought by Canadians. (As a historical note, the two greatest players of the day, Bobby Orr and Bobby Hull, didn’t play. Orr was hurt, and Hull had just “jumped” to the WHA for the incredible amount of a million bucks).
The series didn’t go quite as Canadian fans had expected, though, with the Russians surprising Team Canada to win the first game in Montreal and take another in the Canadian portion of the series as well as a tie. By game eight in Moscow, played September 28, 1972, it was all even. “The Goal” decided it in Canada’s favor (you can see it for yourself on DVD, so I won’t spoil it with the details).
That winning moment is what most people, even those not alive yet to see it first-hand on TV, remember about the series.
However, lurking behind the highlight footage of the series-winning goal, and now almost forgotten, is a moment that filmmaker Brett Kashmere sees as going more to the heart of what hockey is: the slash by Bobby Clarke on Russian scorer Valery Kharlamov which put him out of the seventh game and rendered him ineffective in the deciding eighth contest.
This slash on Valery’s ankle forms the centerpiece of Kashmere’s 33-minute film exploring the violence in hockey. However, Kashmere does not approach the topic as an outsider, but rather as one who played hockey growing up and who understands the way in which the game forms the identity of those who love it.
At the same time, he questions the ethic of hockey which demands tribal-style violence when it is used as a response to the skill of the other team or another player, or when it serves only as entertainment. And in doing so, he provides graphic evidence of the savage nature of the sport through game footage as well as reenactment footage of the 1972 series.
The film is a documentary-style digital essay, intercutting archival documents and stills, appropriated and self-shot footage, and re-photographed and processed imagery. On-screen text, voice-over narration, and music add additional layers of audiovisual information. As Kashmere writes, “Valery’s Ankle is a dense, synthetic film. Each sequence is intended to overload viewers with interrelated images, ideas and data. Why? Because hockey is a fast, transitional game. In order to best represent its speed and flow (also the cause of its violent collisions), I built a montage that moves quickly and transparently between sections and time periods. Like swift skating strides, short bursts of still images and primary documents build momentum then recede, imbuing the film with circular hockey-like rhythms.
“Peter Gzowski’s description of hockey’s fluidity sums up my editing strategy for Valery’s Ankle: ‘There is an awesome, rushing beauty to this game. Even from this perspective, patterns emerge, fade, shift, change, fade and form again. A rhythm sets in, as the play flows back and forth, eases off, gets broken and picks up. For an immeasurable instant, a gap appears….’ These gaps provide opportunities to ask questions. I say in the film that an image can cover up as much as it reveals. Too often, we blindly trust what we see. As with the ubiquitous image of Paul Henderson’s goal, its mass reproduction informs and obscures at the same time.”
This is one DVD you’ll be anxious to share with friends, and one that will get everyone talking about the state of the game post-1972, post-Bertuzzi-Moore, post-whatever event next happens to highlight the other side of the speed and beauty of our sport.
Brett Kashmere can be reached via email at: brettkashmere@yahoo.com. Copies of his film, a must-see for hockey fans young and old, American and Canadian alike, are available for a $10 (USD) donation. More details, including press materials, stills, and ordering information, can be found at brettkashmere.com.
