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RYE STUDENTS, FACULTY CURATE FILM EXHIBITIONS

By Andrea Maclean

Movie night: minus the bucket of popcorn, the A-list celebs, the extremely overpriced tickets and the plot line.

Far from mainstream, the Lighthouse Series is a free weekly showing of experimental films presented by Ryerson’s School of Image Arts and the Loop Collective.

The Loop Collective is a group of independent filmmakers, many of whom are Ryerson grads or faculty, who aim to provide a platform for screenings of experimental films.

“These are formal types of work,” said Dan Browne, a 2005 graduate of the School of Image Arts and a member of the Loop Collective.

“They are attempting to claim the cinema as an art form.”

Izabella Pruska-Oldenhof, member of the collective and Image Arts faculty member, compares experimental films to viewing modern art.

“Experimental films avoid predictability and trends and focus more toward poetic form,” she said. “A lot of these films are interested in perception. They try to expand vision into other realms like imagination.”

Browne recalls watching these same films in class and the impact that they had on him. The Lighthouse series provides an opportunity for them to be screened outside of a classroom setting.

“We show works that have inspired us,” said Pruska-Oldenhof. “I fell in love with experimental films and I’m trying to spread the disease.”

Ryerson’s own avant-garde filmmaker R. Bruce Elder will be screening his film Eros and Wonder at the March 14 session.

The Lighthouse Series screens films Thursday evenings at 122 Bond St., Room 304 at 7:00 p.m. Admission is free. For more information go to www.loopcollective.com.

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