God's Nightmares

Dozens of disjointed images flow one after the other: the mind of God[https://tiff.net/events/gods-nightmares TIFF] reviewing human activities, anxiously considering the nightmare possibility of becoming trapped in his own creation as an everyman.

Ostensibly, Daniel Cockburn explores the "murky world of dream logic",{{cite web |last1=Stiff |first1=Victor |title=TIFF 2019: Our Look at Short Cuts Programmes 5, 6 & 8 |url=https://intheseats.ca/tiff-2019-short-cuts-programmes-5-6-8/ |website=In The Seats |date=5 September 2019 |accessdate=21 September 2019}} "the stuff of dreams and nightmares",{{cite journal |last1=Marsh |first1=Calum |title=6 of the best Canadian films at the Toronto International Film Festival |journal=Maclean's |date=13 September 2019 |url=https://www.macleans.ca/culture/movies/6-of-the-best-canadian-films-at-the-toronto-international-film-festival/ |accessdate=21 September 2019}} by means of a meditative collage of "iconic and esoteric movie clips ... artfully set to the measured but troubled reflections" of God.{{cite web |title=God's Nightmares |url=https://fantasticfest.com/films/gods-nightmares |website=Fantastic Fest |accessdate=21 September 2019}} However, as Calum Marsh notes, the film technique is also a way "to think about how movies work", and in that sense God's Nightmares may be seen as a follow-up to the director's 2017 film, The Argument (with annotations).

In 2017, the same year he completed his York University master's thesis film, The Argument (with annotations),{{cite web |last1=Cockburn |first1=Daniel |title=Daniel Cockburn |url=http://zerofunction.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/Daniel-Cockburn-CV-Apr-2016.pdf |website=ZeroFunction Productions |publisher=Daniel Cockburn |accessdate=10 February 2019}} Cockburn began an artist-in-residency and a research fellowship at the Queen Mary University of London's School of Languages, Linguistics and Film in its pilot year.{{cite web |title=Film Practice Research Fellowships |url=https://www.qmul.ac.uk/sllf/film-studies/research/film-practice-as-research/film-practice-research-fellowships/ |website=School of Languages, Linguistics and Film |publisher=Queen Mary University of London |accessdate=10 February 2019}} Both The Argument and God's Nightmares are considered Canadian-British co-productions.{{cite web |title=Toronto goes British! |url=http://film.britishcouncil.org/calendar/2017/toronto |website=British Council |accessdate=11 February 2019}}{{cite web |title=UK Films at Toronto 2017 |url=http://www.weareukfilm.com/news/uk-films-and-co-productions-at-toronto-2017 |website=www.weareukfilm.com |accessdate=11 February 2019}}

In the introduction to his review of God's Nightmares, Marsh notes appreciatively that Telefilm Canada and other funding bodies in recent years "have completely redefined how money is awarded to filmmakers across the country", choosing to support dozens of different projects "instead of bankrolling two- or three-million-dollar epics by washed-up directors who have been phoning it in since middle age", representing "a shake-up that is already transforming the landscape of Canadian film in a fundamental way." It has been reported that Cockburn's project had a budget of $300,000.

Cockburn's film relies almost exclusively on "a few dozen carefully curated film clips,"{{cite news |last1=Wilner |first1=Norman |title=TIFF 2019: 10 must-see Canadian short films |newspaper=Now |date=27 August 2019 |url=https://nowtoronto.com/movies/features/tiff-2019-short-films-guide/ |accessdate=21 September 2019}} the same collage technique he made use of in the first half of The Argument and in his early short film work.{{cite journal |last1=Hoolboom |first1=Mike |title=Experimental: Daniel Cockburn-Preliminary Notes |journal=Point of View Magazine |date=1 November 2005 |issue=60 [Winter 2005] |url=http://povmagazine.com/articles/view/experimental-daniel-cockburn-preliminary-notes |accessdate=22 September 2019 |archive-date=22 September 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190922181516/http://povmagazine.com/articles/view/experimental-daniel-cockburn-preliminary-notes |url-status=dead }}

God's Nightmares had its world premiere at the 44th Toronto International Film Festival on 8 September 2019 in the Short Cuts Programme, and its U.S. premiere shortly thereafter at Fantastic Fest on 22 September 2019.

Writing for Now following the film's premiere at Toronto, Norman Wilner placed it at the top of his list of best ten short films at the festival, Wilner calls the film a video essay. God's Nightmares likewise makes it on to Calum Marsh's list of top six short films at the festival, and he also calls Cockburn "one of Canada's preeminent film essayists" whose "odd, often beguiling experiments with sound and image display an extraordinarily rich familiarity with cinema history and, more than anything else, a profound love of motion pictures."

God's Nightmares, his latest short, follows up on the sly metacommentary of 2017's The Argument (With Annotations), again using found footage from a huge range of movies, and over the course of its brief running time, Cockburn draws surprising connections, finds intriguing parallels, and makes observations that qualify as bona fide film criticism, all tied together with a meditative narration that playfully muses about the thoughts and fixations of the Almighty.

{{reflist}}

• [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRbYycYDqV4 Official trailer] on YouTube
• [https://vimeo.com/351435054 Official trailer] on Vimeo

Category:2019 short films

Category:2019 black comedy films

Category:2019 films

Category:2010s avant-garde and experimental films

Category:Canadian black comedy films

Category:2010s psychological drama films

Category:Films about nightmares

Category:Films directed by Daniel Cockburn

Category:Fiction about God

Category:Canadian collage films

Category:2010s English-language films

Category:Canadian comedy-drama short films

Category:2010s Canadian films

Category:English-language black comedy films

Category:English-language comedy-drama short films