2022 | 6:30 | 16mm + Digital Video
Spanning the 1950-1990s, the Jacobs’ family home film collection reveals a shifting Canadian landscape—from the prairies in Saskatchewan to the Niagara borderlands—through the lens of an amateur filmmaker and father, Robert Jacobs. Following Robert’s passing in the early 2000s, his wife Gloria donated his audio-visual material to the Niagara Artist Center unbeknownst to the rest of the family. Fast forward to 2022, directors Christina Dovolis and Cleo Sallis-Parchet stumbled upon the footage, untouched for 20 years. Using the collection, they unraveled, digitized, and threaded narratives of leisure and class related to the materiality of borders and kinship. The result is a short experimental film juxtaposed with original interviews of the Jacobs family as they rewatched footage they didn’t know existed.
This film was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), Niagara Artists Center, University of Windsor, Brock University, York University, IN/TERMINUS, The Hamilton Perambulatory Unit, and Archive/Counter-Archive.
Screenings
2024 – Orphan Film Symposium – Museum of the Moving Image – New York, USA
2022 – A2ru – University of Michigan – Ann Arbor, USA
2022 – Mighty Niagara Film Festival – St. Catherines, Canada
2022 – Nuit Blanche – Toronto, Canada
Projects 