animal movies : fox past combines footage of urban foxes with an array of cinematic source material to investigate how animal movies impact on 'nature'

animal movies traces the effects of photography and cinema on our experience of 'nature'. Judith Doyle's voice-over is "rewritten, retold, changed" from Alex Wilson's chapter "Looking at the Non-Human" in his book The Culture of Nature. A Toronto cultural theorist and horticulturalist, Alex died from AIDS in 1993. The appearance of foxes in Doyle's downtown backyard prompted her return to Alex's book.

animal movies is a multilayered montage, edited with key collaborator David McIntosh. Source images include digital video of urban foxes, tourism films from the Archives of Ontario, 19th century chronophotographs by Etienne-Jules Marey, motion studies by Muybridge, anatomical drawings, microphotography, X-rays, telescopics, and Doyle's 1991 videosketches of Alex working on a landscaping project. Sound designer Kevin Dowler's soundtrack is a potent mix of themes in the film, realized with sound editor Stephen Balen.

festivals : Brooklyn Film Festival, NYC (2001); Images Film Festival, Toronto (2000), Hot Docs, Toronto (2001); Planet In Focus Environmental Film Festival, Toronto (2001).