Canada has many talented filmmakers. Some distinguish themselves throughout different styles, and Ann Marie Fleming is a known to express her talent well through experimental films. Her career has grown enormously throughout the years and I will describe and analyse what her career and films have been like.
Ann Marie was born in Okinawa and lived her childhood in Vancouver. She is of Chinese and Australian parentage. When it was time to go to university, she went on to study at Simon Frazer University which is interesting because it's a school that we film students hear from so close. She also studied at Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design in the animation department. Now at 36 years old and living in Chicago, Ann Marie has demonstrated her aptitudes with extraordinary analytical films. Her works go from personal anecdotal theories to animation. Her works mainly deal with family issues, history and memory.
Fleming Beach
Fleming 1997
Ann Arbor Film FestivalShe is also known to sometimes deal with humour and mix it with dramatic issues. The theme of family is often explored by Ann Marie, and she recently made a film in 2003 The Magical Life of Long Track Sam which explores the life of Fleming's great grand-father. Fleming discovers an extraordinary story of a man who left China for North America in the late 19th century as an acrobatic member of a touring Chinese circus. For the past 4 years she has been researching him. The film explores world politics, race, and origins.
Being an independent woman filmmaker we can sometimes think that more men are associated with film or animation. However, while Fleming studied at Emily Carr Institute, she says ``they were making a concerted effort to attract more women into the animation program, something that is no longer necessary. In Canada, there are just as...