Wavelength

(1967, Michael Snow, USA/Canada, 45 min)

A masterwork of structural film, Wavelength stretches 45 minutes of space, sound, and perception into a mesmerising experience. With a single, slowly advancing zoom across a loft, Michael Snow transforms the ordinary into a meditation on temporality, human presence, and cinematic observation. The film’s sine‑wave soundtrack intensifies the viewer’s awareness of looking — turning the gaze itself into the subject. This screening is followed by a conversation on Snow’s groundbreaking approach to image, narrative, and the self‑reflexive potential of cinema.

La Jetée

(1962, Chris Marker, France, 28 min)

A haunting meditation on memory, time, and mortality, La Jetée constructs a post‑apocalyptic Paris almost entirely through still images. Chris Marker’s photographic gaze turns memory into narrative, drawing viewers into a loop of longing, desire, and inevitable fate. As the protagonist traces a childhood memory to confront the limits of life and death, the film interrogates how images preserve, manipulate, and haunt the human gaze. This influential work inspired decades of science fiction and experimental cinema, including 12 Monkeys.

Tickets $20 (incl beverage & snack)

About This Series

Winter Gaze is an arthouse film program exploring how filmmakers challenge perception, time, and memory through experimental and narrative forms. Hosted by Assoc. Prof. Bruce Isaacs, the series invites audiences to reflect on the ethics, intensity, and intimacy of cinematic observation.

This screening forms part of The Weight of the Gaze, a research‑led project examining how looking shapes power, perception, and the visibility of women’s labour. Through the Winter Gaze film series and the development of the performance work Holding the Line, the project investigates the ethics of attention and the unseen emotional labour carried within systems responding to gendered violence.