HOW TO BE A CANADIAN


THE INDEPENDENT FILM CHANNEL (IFC):
Desperate Blue Staters Learn 'How to Be A Canadian'

"Even before John Kerry conceded the election, the word was out: Disenchanted Americans were flooding the Canadian immigration Web site. Elsewhere, young Canadians were pledging to marry an American to save the poor things from their evil empire.

Tapping into the zeitgeist, a couple of film-loving Canucks, Astria Suparak and Brett Kashmere, are curating a series called How to Be a Canadian, with a new event in New York tonight at 8.

The third installment of Eyebeam's Panorama screening series offers Work by experimental and underground film/video makers from the nation Famous for Alanis, Celine, and quick trips to Cuba. Following the screening, Quebecois multimedia sensation Skoltz_Kolgen will perform the live audio-visual show Fluux:/Terminal v.4." - Andrea Meyer, IFC News, November 2004



PHILADELPHIA CITY PAPER:
Northern Exposures: Citizenship Test (Canadian Div.)

"With an impressively short turn-around time, the Philadelphia-based Small Change Film Screening Collective presents "U.S. Without Us: A Primer For Secession" tomorrow night at Vox Populi. Working from the assumption that the overwhelming majority of Philadelphians who didn't vote for Bush are morbidly depressed right now, Small Change offers an evening of helpful information for would-be Canadians: a dozen or so Canada-themed experimental video shorts (one of which, Sex, numbers Peaches among its collaborators) and a Q&A with American-in-exile (in Canada) Astria Suparak, filmmaker and curator, who last hosted a Small Change event in April. Attendees will also receive miniature American-Canadian dictionaries. Stick around afterwards for It's the End of the World as We Know It, a rapture-inducing, millennially themed dance party hosted by Miss Meow and DJ Julia Factorial of WPRB and Homos Outta the Hacienda infamy.

All of the above are designed to lure us towards our northern neighbor, where public transit is beyond reproach, iPod muggings are unheard of and the government lavishes funding upon experimental filmmakers.

Like City Paper when we offered a step-by-step post-election guide to obtaining Canadian citizenship, it appears that the Small Change collective is, at most, half-joking. Maybe not even half." -Joel Tannenbaum, mixpicks, November 18-24, 2004



THE PHILADELPHIA WEEKLY:
U.S. Without Us

"The first (as far as I'm aware) official local public mourning session for Kerry's close-but-not-close-enough loss comes courtesy of the whimsical hosts of Small Change, who've designed an evening of film, dancing and pragmatic suggestions for how to assimilate up north. Expat curator Astria Suparak returns with another cavalcade of DIY shorts, all programmed under the banner of "How to Be a Canadian".

Afterward DJ goddesses Julia Factorial and Miss Meow will spin a barrage of doubtless pointed favorites (R.E.M.'s "It's the End of the World as We Know It (and I Feel Fine)" among them, surely), while patrons can help themselves to imported goods to aid northbound travels and take a written test to see if Canucks will take to you. Try not to ask Suparak, who'll participate in a Q&A, too many questions on how her new homeland's better than ours." - Matt Prigge, Arts & Entertainment



THE PHILADELPHIA INDEPENDENT :
A Primer for Secession

"Small Change film collective has the answers to all of the semi- rhetorical questions you've been asking each other, and you don't even have to read anything. Tonight's video screening - "How to be a Canadian" (videos by Canadians about Canada) - will answer it all.

Plus, there will be giveaways: dictionaries, maps, and a Q&A with recent American expatriate turned Canadian resident Astria Suparak. Followed by "IT'S THE END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT!, a dance party with DJ's Julia Factorial and Miss Meow.

Here's what co-curators Suparak and Brett Kashmere have to say about it: The second largest country in the world, Canada houses a population less than California's 34 million. The birthplace of You Can't Do That on Television, Tom Green, and the inspiration for American Pie, Canada has been a chief exporter of adolescent gross-out comedy for two decades. No MTV, Madonna, Mister Roger's Neighborhood or melting pot, but Much Music, Alanis Morisette, Mr. Dressup's tickle trunk and government-mandated Multiculturalism. Utilizing artistic (re)enactment, manual animation, telepathetic aesthetics, performance, and high-end low technologies these videos challenge traditional representations of (Canadian) identity and gender.

Features recent work by Jeremy Bailey, Daniel Barrow and The Hidden Cameras, Dorion Berg, Shary Boyle, Peaches and Kara Blake, Jubal Brown, Daniel Cockburn, Paige Gratland, Brett Kashmere, Jake Kennedy, Jim Munroe, Jon Sasaki, and Tom Shermank." - November, 2004



PHILADELPHIA DAILY NEWS: "O, Canada!" by Sara Sherr, Nov. 19. 2004