From sea to sea: Winnipeg.

The Winnipeg Film Group is helping satisfy a demand for experimental and independent film in South America. This October a selection of member's films entitled "Fantastic Tragedies" will tour South America with screenings at the National Museum of Fine Arts in Buenos Aires and possibly The Cinemateca in Montevideo, Uruguay. The program, which includes a cross section of Guy Maddin's work and an experimental program, was organized by Ruben Guzman of the University of Buenos Aires, Vancouver independent producer Judy Robertson and Winnipeg Film Group's distributor Marlene James. "We're trying to open new doors for Canadian film in South America," said James. "There's a huge appetite for independent and experimental work down there." Meanwhile, Video Pool in Winnipeg, in conjunction with the Walker Art Centre in Minneapolis, is launching "Magnetic North", an incredibly ambitious tour of the work of 40 to 55 video artists from across Canada. The tour, beginning in October, will travel to major institutions in the United States, Europe and Canada. According to curator Jenny Lion, the program will showcase "the recent explosion of compelling and sophisticated Canadian independent video ... occasionally shocking, often funny, and above all genuinely experimental".... Photographer Jeff Solylo (Latent Greatness) is shooting a new black-and-white feature, East of Euclid. Loaded with Winnipeg references (garlic sausage, hockey and the old Tribune newspaper), the film is set in an illegal gambling den run out of a perogie warehouse in the city's north end. Set in 1972 (the year of the glorious Russia / Canada hockey series), the film is the story of recent Russian immigrants--press photographer Valeri (Brent Neale) and Villosh the gambler (Michael O'Sullivan)--who become involved in a love triangle involving gambling and kidnapping.... Guy Maddin used a huge, abandoned bridge factory to shoot a short entitled The Heart of the World. The film was commissioned to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Toronto International Film Festival. Working with some of the same art crew from Archangel and Twilight of the Ice Nymphs, the fantastic set resembled a cross between Fritz Lang's Metropolis and Georges Melies' A Trip to The Moon. A member of the art department said they were aiming for a Russian Constructivist look. Maddin hopes to convey a "visual machine-gun blast" of imagery with additional footage from a Super 8 diary that was shot on set by filmmaker deco dawson. With dawson as co-editor, they faced a mammoth task of cutting 600 to 800 individual shots into a five-minute film.