Valley of Light | 65 minutes | 2023
Across the seasons, two siblings explore and grow in an idyllic but abandoned landscape. A scientist observes the changes with impassive concern. Later, one sibling returns to piece together the remnants of her heritage.
Mind Unseen | 16 minutes | 2018
Drawing a parallel between bi-polar illness and creativity Mind Unseen explores the different angles of this notion. Showing footage of varying stages from manic episodes to depths of depression the viewer is brought into the mind of a person with bi-polar.
Thunderbolt | 3:30 | 2015
Light explodes out of the darkness engulfing a young woman as she tries to find her way through the storm.
Images | Toronto 2015 | Marian McMahon Akimbo Award
Old West Lodge | 16 minutes | 2015
Set amidst drifts of snow in a desolate prairie winter, a weather-beaten lodge provides refuge for a disparate group of locals and travellers. Unlikely bonds form as each individual finds a way to move past isolation – freeing the lodge, and themselves, of the memories that haunt them.
WNDX | Winnipeg 2015 | Jury Prize: Best Prairie Work
Forsaken | 4:30 | 2012
In Forsaken, Phillips again abstracts images selected from found footage, this time exploring such techniques as contact printing and hand tinting and toning. Muscle men, machinery, and building climbers become foreboding figures in this darkly apocalyptic film.
Skydive | 5 minutes | 2011
Skydive is a metaphoric reflection on religious faith that uses found footage of parachute jumpers. Artfully scored and edited, the film remains ambiguous about whether those who take the leap of faith will soar, or crash and burn.
Discovering Composition in Art | 2 minutes | 2007
At once tongue-in-cheek and ironical, Phillips displays her failed darkroom experiments in an anarchic composition of chemical spills and grainy found footage film.
Isolating Landscapes | 5 minutes | 2007
A first exploration of narrative, Isolating Landscapes hints at relationship woes by mixing both spare and lush hand-crafted imagery with confessional text. Beautifully minimal scenes give way to denser moments, as when an ice-sculpture of an anatomical heart is hung, lantern-like, over a darkening street.
Heidi Phillips is an experimental filmmaker and installation artist from Manitoba, Canada with an affinity for the tactility of the filmic medium. Phillips’ often uses thrifted super 8 films, contact printing and darkroom experiments to push her work into new places. Phillips’ old school process frequently becomes part of the content, as grainy scratched films are merged with images lifted from found footage to create mesmerizing, transcendent works.
