the village trilogy/Matryoshka Crush

A film screening and Q&A with acclaimed filmmaker Laura Taler

Presented by Public Energy Performing Arts and The Art Gallery of Peterborough

Content warning: crude and sexual content

Romanian-born Canadian artist Laura Taler began her career as a contemporary dance choreographer before turning her attention to filmmaking and visual art.

In 1995 Taler made her first film, the village trilogy. Heralded by Dance International Magazine as marking the beginning of the dancefilm boom in Canada, the village trilogy alludes to the millions of people uprooted through emigration in the past century, capturing a time and place that is beyond our grasp, but not beyond our memory.

To mark the 30th anniversary of the village trilogy Taler will screen the film alongside her most recent film, Matryoshka Crush, in which poison, exorcism, gender trouble, song and dance intermingle in a darkly funny and disturbing tale of intense yearning.

Awards for the village trilogy:
Best Experimental Film, Toronto Worldwide Short Film Festival
Gold Hugo, Short Subject Experimental, Chicago International Film Festival
Cinedance Award for Best Canadian Dancefilm, Moving Pictures

Laura Taler works across a range of media including performance, film, sound, sculpture, and installation. Her work explores how memory and history are linked to movement and how the body is able to carry the past without being oppressed by it. Taler began her career as a contemporary dance choreographer before turning her attention to filmmaking and visual art. Her work has been praised for its unique combination of emotional resonance, wit, and striking visuals. She has been a resident at the Banff Center for the Arts, Centro Cultural Recoleta (Buenos Aires), Carleton Immersive Media Studio (Ottawa), Ottawa Dance Directive, Unpack Studio (Havana) and a fellow at the Institute for Cultural Inquiry (Berlin). Awards include a Gold Hugo from the Chicago International Film Festival, the Best Experimental Documentary award from Hot Docs!, Best of the Festival from New York’s Dance on Camera Festival, and SAW Gallery’s Dennis Tourbin Prize for New Performance. Most recently, her public art audio work MONAHAN was awarded the 2024 Creative City Network of Canada’s Public Art Legacy Award. To mark the 30th anniversary of her first film the village trilogy, screenings and master classes will take place in the 2025/26 season across Canada.