Catalogue > Un extrait vidéo au hasard

A former mining town in remote northwest British Columbia, Anyox is now marked by mountainous slag piles accumulated as a byproduct of the early 20th century copper smelting process. ANYOX tracks the daily work of the town’s two sole residents, who organize and salvage value out of this seemingly endless mass of industrial waste. Concurrently, the film unfolds a complex labour history and reveals the vestiges of immense environmental degradation produced by the company town model. ANYOX explores a history of labour press dissemination, activism and the severe reaction from industry and government. Interlacing past and present, ANYOX combines large format cinematography of the contemporary landscape with a study of the archival record, considering the aesthetics it carries, as well as how it reveals and obscures narratives.

Jessica Johnson and Ryan Ermacora are award-winning filmmakers based in Vancouver, BC. Their work investigates the visible and invisible ways in which humans have engraved themselves into the biosphere. Formally, their work is defined by a structural approach to filmmaking, engaging with the optics of cinema while illustrating the experience of labour in dialogue with landscape. Their work has screened at festivals and cinemas including Cinéma du réel, The Walker Art Center, Festival du Nouveau Cinéma, Open City Documentary Festival, DOXA, and VIFF.