Filmmaker left indelible mark on local cultural community

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This article was published 02/01/2024 (1008 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Jaimz Asmundson, the programming director at the Dave Barber Cinematheque and a wildly irreverent filmmaker, artist and musician, died on New Year’s Day at the age of 42.

Over the course of a 25-year career in Winnipeg’s cultural community, Asmundson created and promoted independent work that mirrored his transgressive spirit, love for the absurd, and distinct taste for the experimental, the cultish, the occult and the bizarre.

Influenced by filmmakers including John Waters, David Lynch, Richard Kern, Jon Moritsugu and Paul Bartel, the self-taught Asmundson’s work was marked by an embrace of shlock and discomfort, finding humour in the strangeness of human behaviour while paying homage to his artistic forebears.

An accomplished, flashy editor who was devoted to VHS tapes and analogue film-production techniques, Asmundson, the son of visual artist C. Graham Asmundson and poet Carol Barton, directed several short films, beginning as a teenager with 1999’s The Attack of the 50 Foot Chihuahuas From Outer Space, which premièred at Winnipeg’s Freeze Frame Film Festival.

Asmundson went on to direct 2002’s Carpet Cleaners, 2004’s anti-capitalist, dominatrix comedy Liquid Lunch — which starred his wife, Karen Asmundson — and 2005’s Blow Me, a cautionary tale about a newspaper columnist addicted to cigarettes that played the Gimli Film Festival.

In a 2013 interview with The Manitoban, Asmundson called Liquid Lunch the most disgusting film he’d ever made.

“I’m both embarrassed and proud of this film and still have no idea what motivated me to make this,” he said.

Often inspired by his family and friends, as well as the strange characters who populate the city, Asmundson collaborated on films with his wife, co-directing 2010’s Goths on the Bus and 2013’s Citizens Against Basswood, which juxtaposed found audio of a man complaining about trees set to be planted on his North End block with video footage from a single roll of Super 8 film.

Three of Asmundson’s films, beginning with 2006’s Super 8 short Drawing Genesis, which captured his father’s artistic practice, were directly inspired by his parents. Asmundson would further explore his father’s visual art practice in 2011’s The Magus, a stark, bold vision which was shown at festivals in Montreal, Hong Kong, and Brazil. Echoes, released in 2015, delved into Asmundson’s grief after the death of his mother.

Alongside his wife, Asmundson formed the gothy synthpop duo Ghost Twin, which released several albums including Plastic Heart and Love Songs for End Times, released in 2021 on Artoffact Records.

Despite his own artistic achievements, Asmundson will be remembered by many for the contributions he made to the city’s film community from behind the scenes, first as producer of the WNDX Festival of Moving Image, later as a board member of Artspace, and in his postings at the Winnipeg Film Group.

Within the film group, Asmundson played a vital role in maintaining the DIY esthetic of Cinematheque, often starring in the theatre’s self-produced ads while tirelessly championing the work of local filmmakers and artists such as Rhayne Vermette, Danishka Esterhazy and Winston Washington Moxam.

At Cinematheque, Asmundson aided in ushering in the theatre’s Secret Cinema, Cream of the Crap, Trash Cult Tuesday and Astral Projections series, while helping to steer the theatre through the pandemic and the death of longtime programmer Dave Barber in 2021.

After news of Asmundson’s death began to circulate Tuesday, Cinematheque announced it would be closed until Tuesday, Jan. 9, as the theatre staff navigates the unexpected and untimely loss of their co-worker.

In a social media post, the Winnipeg Film Group called Asmundson “an extraordinary, gleefully transgressive, award-winning filmmaker” who was known for his original VHS covers and his “thoughtful, empathetic, kindhearted soul.” He also had “peerless curatorial instincts and an almost frightening knowledge of the history and outer limits of” VHS and other “misbegotten formats.”

The film group is holding a celebration of Asmundson’s life on Friday from 3 p.m. to 8 p.m. at 100 Arthur St., open to the public.

ben.waldman@winnipegfreepress.com