Last week of Film Fest; Flower Power; City’s Climate Change Program

Welcome to the last week of the Vancouver International Film Festival!  There are still plenty of great films left to see, some of which haven’t even screened yet.  It’s been a great festival for film so far.

Below is an interview with the makers of Petals: Journey of Self-Discovery.

But first a quick glimpse at the latest City of Vancouver Climate Change Program that I just uncovered on Granville Street in Downtown Vancouver.

Anyone can see for themselves the effectiveness of providing approximately 200 free car parking spots: they are jammed full day and night.  Contrast that with the bike parking provided; I’ve just traversed the entire length of Granville Street downtown and came up with this number: 0.  That’s right, 200 free car parking spots and 0 bike parking spots.

I spoke with the Mayor last Tuesday night and he said that he had contacted the Engineering Department to get bike racks installed out front of the Granville 7 but hadn’t heard back yet.  I’m not surprised, but it raises some serious issues: who is running our City?  And is anyone abiding by the City’s Transportation Plan (it clearly prioritizes walking over biking over transit over goods and services over private motorized vehicles)?

It seems that this current Mayor and Council won’t do what it takes to fix easy and obvious blunders.  And until the Engineering Department is purged of the many suburbanites that drive to work and refuse to read, much less implement the 1997 Transportation Plan, our City will continue to be a major contributor to climate change.

Where did I talk to the Mayor, you may ask?  At a screening of The Age of Stupid, of course.  How a propos.

An interview with the director and producer of Petals: Journey into Self-Discovery

Reellife: This is a beautifully crafted film that really normalizes talking about Vulvas and moves this topic away from the realm of pornography into the realm of art and everyday beauty.  How did you come to this project?

Arwen Hunter, Producer (AH): A photo study was in process and Beck thought there was a film; it is real cinema verité.
Beck Peacock, Director (BP):  Yeah, and I thought it would be easy to publish the book, but no one would touch it.  In the end, a Korean publishing house printed the first 5,000 copies and Nick Karras self-published.  The book has been so successful that Nick is now in the black.

Reellife: One concern in my mind while watching the film was that it initially follows Nick, a male, and is directed by another male, Beck, despite the obviously female subject.

AH: We answer that question at every Q&A.
BP: It’s a film about Nick’s desire to first empower his wife, then other women, through the use of photography.  Nick was a reluctant character.
AH: But it is also about the artistic beauty of the vulva;  it is about the fact that we don’t look at it as being beautiful.  We can for waterfalls, canyons, etc..  There is a lot of pressure to keep the mystic for selling beer and other commodities and that spans all genders and sexes.  But feminism is different in this generation: are things going to change so that vulvas become normal and this film becomes moot?
BP: When Arwen joined the project, she gave it a new life and added a much needed female sensibility.

Reellife: Betty Dodson also adds much to your film through humour and education.  How did you bring her in?

AH: Beck knew her in the 70’s and they stayed friends; when Beck took over the Erotic Art Festival in Victoria, we filmed her there.  She’s so refreshing because she can say the c-word so unapologetically and positively.  She’s 80 now.  In the film, she’s 76 and had a 26 year old boyfriend.
BP: Betty is very generous.  She did this stuff way back in the early 70s in Greenwich Village.  She would show pussy slides in her apartment; she’s an excellent artist, at first drawing vulvas and then then using photography in her crusade to teach women.

Reellife: Where do you think the resistance to talking about vulvas in school, on TV, and in general, comes from?

BP: The Victorian era and even before around 300 AD with the advent of Christianity; they want to control women’s sexuality.
AH: Linda Savage said that when civilization changed from matrilineal to patrilineal, it obviously changed everything…women were now property to be passed and controlled.  Beck was a monk for a year.  Church theology states that masturbation is a mortal sin; spilling the seed is wasting the seed.  But what about female masturbation?  Theology doesn’t deal with it at all.
BP: Yes, the clitoris isn’t understood; is giving yourself pleasure a mortal sin?  The church was a big teacher and they don’t know shit.

Reellife: What plans do you have for the film?

AH: I feel the best approach to getting the film out there is enabling someone who sees the film and feels inspired to give it to someone else.  We have a distributor in Europe and it’s available online in North America.  A company in Germany wants to package the book and DVD together.
BP: The Berlin Porn Festival will be showing it at the end of the month.
AH: Because the film was selected for Amsterdam, the largest Doc Fest in the world, the film has a life of its own.  It’s been on TV in Estonia and has played at the Greece Health Film Festival, as well as many others.
BP: But the raison d’etre remains the same: to empower women to love all of themselves.