Midi Onodera (partial data)
Films directed by Midi Onodera
Quotes by Midi Onodera
"I approach film much as I did a blank canvas. In my early films I
concentrated on learning how to control and manipulate the technical
properties of the medium. I played with grain, texture, composition, and
lights and shadow. [...] But beyond these concerns, for me the ultimate
power of film rested and rests in its potential to directly reflect the social morals and climate of our time."
-- Midi Onodera
(source)
"I believe that producing a film is a full-time obsession. During production, this manic obsession both isolates/protects the maker from outside forces (precarious funding, politics, blockages in production cash flow) and drives the film forward."
-- Midi Onodera
(source)
"I was and am against the idea that films abstractly possess a gender and I was caught in the middle of a debate that I was unprepared to tackle. My films were looked upon as women's films and as lesbian works. I was programmed in Women's Film Festivals and became appalled that my films were only accepted by or deemed appropriate for half the population. Going against the predominate gender and sexual politics of the time, I wanted my films to speak to both men and women. (Perhaps by having the safe-haven of being embraced by the tide of 'women's films' I had the luxury of playing the young rebel filmmaker who wouldn't be labelled. Perhaps had I been working within a mainstream system, I would have found my filmic rebellion in B-movies or slasher/horror films.)"
-- Midi Onodera
(source)
"The camera is so expensive and the film stock is so expensive. I've got some money in the bank. I can make a 60-minute 16mm film, but I don't want to, not yet, because I'm so afraid of the cost involved. I don't want to run off a thousand feet in 16mm and say 'Oh God, this is a piece of shit.' I'd rather work in Super 8 where I can work the camera myself. I can be in it myself, I can feel it. I can get the tone of the film. I can figure out what I want to say visually and sound-wise. I could write all I want but writing is not film. To me, the Super 8 format is personal. It was conceived for the home movie market from the very beginning, for people to take home movies, not to edit them, not to put on glossy soundtracks, but rather to find tones, to find human beings, real emotion. Whereas, with 16mm, you will possibly have to have a camera person, a camera assistant, a sound person, sound assistant. Suddenly, when you have four people or even two people on set with you, it becomes a question of whether you have it together enough or not."
-- Midi Onodera
(source)
"There is no question that [in the mainstream film and TV industry] a glass
ceiling exists [...] for women and especially women of colour. In North
American productions, men are still looked at as authority figures and given the benefit of the doubt in terms of the diverse subjects they are allowed to explore. Women are relegated to soft women's dramas, soaps, emotionally driven stories. Very rarely do women directors get the opportunity to do action movies. If you're a woman or a man of colour, for that matter, you are somehow led down the path to make films that reflect your cultural/ethnic background."
-- Midi Onodera
(source)
For QUOTES about a specific film by Midi Onodera, please see: Ten Cents a Dance (Parallax)
Displaced View
Skin Deep
Notes about Midi Onodera
- Studied at the Ontario College of Art.
(sources)
Bibliography for
Midi
Onodera
Section 1: Publications by Midi Onodera
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Onodera, Midi. "Dishing It Out and Taking It."
In By, For & About: Feminist Cultural Politics, edited by Wendy Waring, 141-154. Toronto: Women's Press, 1994.
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Onodera, Midi. "Locating the Displaced View."
In Feminisms in the Cinema, edited by Laura Pietropaolo and Ada Testaferri, 20-27. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995.
Section 2: Publications about Midi Onodera
Book Chapters
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Doyle, Judith. "Midi Onodera."
Interview with Midi Onodera.
In In a Different Voice: Conversations with Women Artists and Filmmakers, 35-38. Toronto: Funnel Experimental Film Theatre, 1986.
[exhibition catalogue]
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Hoolboom, Mike. "Midi Onodera: Camera Obscura for Dreams."
Interview with Midi Onodera.
In Practical Dreamers: Conversations with Movie Artists, 137-154. Toronto: Coach House Books, 2008.
Web Sites
Section 3: Publications about the Films of Midi Onodera
Book Chapters
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Martin, Elizabeth, and Vivian Meyer. "Midi Onodera: Ten Cents a Dance (Parallax)."
In Female Gazes: Seventy-Five Women Artists, 162-163. Toronto: Second Story Press, 1997.
Brief Sections of Books
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Mayne, Judith. "A Parallax View of Lesbian Authorship."
In Feminisms in the Cinema, edited by Laura Pietropaolo and Ada Testaferri. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995.
(pp. 199-204)
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Mayne, Judith. "A Parallax View of Lesbian Authorship."
In Framed: Lesbians, Feminists, and Media Culture. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2000.
(pp. 153-160)
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Mayne, Judith. The Woman at the Keyhole: Feminism and Women's Cinema. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990.
(pp. 225-228)
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Onodera, Midi. "Locating the Displaced View."
In Feminisms in the Cinema, edited by Laura Pietropaolo and Ada Testaferri. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995.
(pp. 24-25)
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Waugh, Thomas. The Romance of Transgression in Canada: Queering Sexualities, Nations, Cinemas. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2006.
(pp. 256-259)
Brief Sections of Books
-
Onodera, Midi. "Locating the Displaced View."
In Feminisms in the Cinema, edited by Laura Pietropaolo and Ada Testaferri. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995.
(pp. 22-24)
Brief Sections of Journal Articles
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Banning, Kass. "The Canadian Feminist Hybrid Documentary." CineAction, no. 26/27 (Winter 1992). (pp. 111-113)
Dissertation Chapters
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Sivak, Nadine. "Exposing the Limits of Knowledge: The Displaced View and Skin Deep."
In "'Howwe Gonna Find My Me?': Postcolonial Identities in Contemporary North American Drama and Film," 99-139. PhD diss., University of Toronto, 2000.
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Wilson, Sheena L. "Midi Onodera's The Displaced View."
In "Paradigms Lost and Re-membered: The Case of the Japanese Canadian
Experience in Canadian Media, Cinema, and Literature," 187-220. PhD diss., University of Alberta, 2006.
Dissertation Chapters
-
Sivak, Nadine. "Exposing the Limits of Knowledge: The Displaced View and Skin Deep."
In "'Howwe Gonna Find My Me?': Postcolonial Identities in Contemporary North American Drama and Film," 99-139. PhD diss., University of Toronto, 2000.
Archival Collections
This archival institution has holdings related to Midi Onodera or her films:
