Another great film fest is on the horizon: the Amnesty International Film Fest runs from Thursday, November 12th to Sunday, November 15th at the cozy and plush Vancity Theatre on Seymour near Davie.  Tix are $9 or $7 with $100 or $75 passes available (check the bottom of this email for recommended films just before and after the AIFF at the Vancity Theatre).

This festival by nature documents as much of the tragedy around us as it can; thanks to the profound insanity of our civilization, this means a 4 day festival of film will barely scratch the surface of our culture’s death-wish and destructiveness.

The good news is that there are some giant gems to unearth.  I’ve been lucky enough to find a couple already: Taking Root and The Yes Men.  I hope the reviews of these and some of the other films to screen next weekend help you find your way to the pot at the end of this changing climate’s rainbow.  I simply don’t believe it is enough to just throw info out at us anymore and many of these films go way beyond, using gorgeous cinematography and even humour to expose the worse and inspire us to get off our duffs and overcome our childhood training….

Wow, I have a new role model: Wangari Maathai.  Taking Root: The Vision of Wangari Maathai (Friday@ 8:15pm) documents her life and work leading up to becoming the first African woman and first environmentalist to receive the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004.

The film starts at the beginning, showing what life was like for this indigenous girl.  It then allows us to see her grow, leave her people and culture, and then return with strategic skills gained elsewhere.  It is so powerful to see an African woman stand true to her ancestors by wearing traditional dress and using her mother tongue in a world overwhelmed by civilization.

I truly see this film and her inspiration as a wake-up call for everyone here: environmentalist, social activist, common citizen.  Wangari’s brilliance connected the environmental destruction that was killing her people to their colonial past and then when the colonial present tried to stop their remediation work through the Green Belt Movement, she helped empower regular folks to think and stand up for themselves.  Her work and commitment literally brought down the Moi dictatorship: who is going to help bring down ours?

Wangari also explains how important our childhoods are and how they make us who we are.  If we are connected to the land in childhood, that connection will stay with us for our entire life.

Other women are also portrayed beautifully: one states, “the little, little grassroots people – they can change this world,” while another exclaims, “now I have courage to say anything!”

If you only have time to see one film at this festival, see this one.  Just be sure to make time to change your world afterwards….

The Yes Men Fix the World (Thursday Opening Gala: doors at 6pm: $45) made me scream out loud with laughter.  Not only is it hilarious, it is real and really good.  Two white guys try to fix the world by posing as the worst of the worst: corporate spokespeople and US government officials.  They try to hoax their way through to the atrophied brains that allow the insanity around us to continue unchallenged: yours and mine.  They’re not the first to get major headlines with their scams (the Guerrilla Girls quickly come to mind), but they certainly show how it can be done and make big points along the way.  Laughing never felt so good!  Check out their website for more…

The Night Runners (Coureurs de nuit: plays with The Yes Men) is very short and sweet…unless you’re a cop.  The simplicity and beauty of the images may mesmerize you so here’s the final message in case you miss it: “because running is good for your health!”

Un poquito de tanta verdad (A Little Bit of So Much Truth: Sunday@ 7:30pm) is a fabulous film that takes the viewer on a ride through the APPO’s (Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca) birth and incredible life to 2007.  It truly is a “how-to” film in the way it shows how the people united will never be defeated.  Check out the riot police and tanks being resisted and pushed back.  Marvel at how they took over a right-wing TV station that claimed to be the voice of the people and really made it so.  If you had any doubt about the lies and corruption in Mexican government, this film will lay them to rest and inspire you to turn the lens on our own governments.  This is a must see!

Jerusalem is Proud to Present (Sunday@ 1:30pm) could be a fun spy/espionage film if it weren’t a documentary about real people’s lives.  Ironically, all the major religious leaders in Jerusalem come together to oppose the World Pride Celebration and March that was to occur in Jerusalem in 2006.  In the lead up, religious fanatics issue death threats and spout intense hatred while organizers forge ahead.  When yet another war is created by the Isreali government, it all changes – sort of.  The subtitles are quick but the messages are strong: these people (the Pride organizers, not the lunatic religious right) are courageous, committed and truly inspiring.

Sing for Darfur (Saturday@ 8:30pm) takes a novel approach to highlighting a huge humanitarian issue in our world: it shows a few moments in the life of people living or visiting Barcelona that in some way are connected to a concert being held that day to raise awareness about Darfur.  I really enjoyed the flow and especially enjoyed the irony of showing how insane our civilization is.  But it ends well, coming full circle, so it is uplifting as well as honest about our world.  Just don’t expect to learn anything about Darfur or to see pop stars belting it out for a good cause…

The Stolen Child (Sunday@ 11am) will break your heart, especially if you are a parent.  It’s short, so it’s bearable, but it documents the Israeli government arresting thousands of children and imprisoning them for years, despite Geneva Conventions that prohibit such barbaric behaviour.  Again, the Israelis are unmasked as they use state violence on a scale that dwarfs anything that the Palestinians may have done, like throw stones at armoured tanks on Palestinian territory.  The rap by Ramallah Underground ends the film with an uplifting spirit…

Stolen Childhoods (Thursday@ 3pm) is far from uplifting.  It does well to document the hundreds of millions of children who are exploited in almost as many ways.  This would have been a great film if the basic premise (that children should never be exploited) was applied to all life forms.  Sorry, but I just can’t buy into the statement that all humans have the right to go to school and get a job.  That is what is fucking up the planet (our civilization went past the point of no return long ago), by learning obedience from our parents and teachers and then giving up our lives to make a few rich.  No question the lives of so many children are horrendous and that must stop.  But advocating a dead-end life within the system that creates this misery is a waste of time.  If you don’t believe that children are being exploited to make your cigarettes among many other things, see this film and start changing your life at long last….

Enjoy the AIFFest!

PS.  Until Tuesday, Nov 10th, Everlasting Moments is playing at 7pm at the Vancity Theatre and it comes highly recommended by a trusted friend, who writes “it’s a fascinating story — Sweden at the turn of the century — and incredibly beautifully filmed. It’s got some radical politics, incipient feminism, social transformation brought on by new technologies…and The Internationale!”

PPS. Right after the AIFF, Collapse starts its week-long run at the Vancity Theatre…another friend is trying to get the word out about it because it focuses on the social effects of oil depletion in a way that nothing else has come close to.  Here’s the film’s website for more:
http://www.collapsemovie.com

With so much great celluloid on display over the past two weeks, it may be hard to imagine a day without a film in it.  But fear not, there are many post-VIFF offerings to satisfy that newly realized addiction…

This weekend, you can see many VIFF repeats at the Vancity Theatre for $10.  One of my favourite films in this year’s fest, This Way of Life, plays Saturday night.  You can buy tickets here or read my review here.

Also this weekend, the Stone Soup Film Festival: Exploring the Politics of Food runs all weekend in the Britannia High School Auditorium.  A weekend pass is $15 or you can pay by donation for each film.  A shortened version of HomeGrown will be screened as well as Indigenous Plant Diva and many others.  You can see the whole lineup and view many of the films’ trailers here.

Sunday, there is an all ages screening of Wallace and Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit at the Pacific Cinematheque.

Next week, there are two free screenings of Brazilian films at the Frederick Wood Theatre (6361 University Boulevard) at UBC:

Wednesday, Oct 21 at 7:30pm – UM PASSAPORTE HÚNGARO / THE HUNGARIAN PASSPORT (2001 – 72 min.)
“This film, in Portuguese, French, and Hungarian with English subtitles, chronicles Brazilian director Sandra Kogut’s frustrating and often hysterical attempts to jump through the bureaucratic hoops necessary for her to obtain a Hungarian passport. On the way, she explores a painful family history of forced emigration and a hidden legacy of anti-Semitism as she confronts some essential questions: What is nationality? What is a passport for? What should we do with our heritage? How do we construct our history and our own identity?”

Friday, Oct 23 at 7:30pm – O OUTRO LADO DA RUA / THE OTHER SIDE OF THE STREET (2004 – 98 min.)
“Suspicious minds and autumnal romance cross paths in this Brazilian film from director Marcos Bernstein. Regina who works for the neighborhood watch in Copacabana believes she has witnessed a murder in a building across the street. She ends up getting involved with the suspect in a dangerous chain of events that will force her to take stock in her life in a way she could never have imagined.”

And finally, don’t forget there’s another film festival on the horizon: the Amnesty International Film Festival from November 12 to 15.  They have a great lineup and I hope to review many of their films in advance to help you find your favourites.  Stay tuned for more!

Man, this guy is great.  And the film does well to highlight his musical genius and vision.  Unfortunately, we only get a glimpse at his politics but anyone who puts together a band called the Liberation Music Orchestra and goes to jail for justice…well, as Anne Feeney sings, they’re a friend of mine.

I wish I had the musical background to comment on Charlie Haden’s contribution to the jazz scene and music world in general, but that’s one of the strengths of this film.  It also gives us solid stretches of his playing with various other jazz masters, while taking us on a journey through his musical life.

The highlight for me was when Charlie was in Portugal and dedicated a song to the Black Liberation Struggles in Mozambique, Guinea Bissau, and Angola and the huge crowd erupted for minutes of pandemonium, completely drowning out their music.  It then showed how scary life can be for fathers in this world when he was jailed the next day.  His privilege rescued him, however, but the world had changed again thanks to Charlie Haden.

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.

Many kudos to the curator of this fabulous line-up of Canadian shorts.  Despite the many great Canadian features I’ve seen (especially at this festival), this program may also convince you that not only do people living in this part of the world make some of the best short films anywhere, it is a very worthy thing to do.

Highlights in this program:

Shi-Shi-Etko: “Can you imagine a community, without children.  Can you imagine children without parents?”  These words close a film that shows the lead-up to the forced removal of one child from her family by the state.  Beautifully shot and another important step toward understanding the unimaginable pain that our genocidal policies inflict.

Big Head: in 10 minutes I laughed and screamed while I was totally convinced…children’s humiliation drives them to extremes and schools only exacerbate this devastating problem.

Carmen: I can’t believe a 6 minute film could reduce me to a sobbing mess.  It’s about unconditional love; it deeply touched my heart and proves that there is the odd soul who can keep unconditionally loving beyond their childhood.

Dog = God: a fun and lively ode to woman’s best friend.  The music is a perfect compliment to the rest of the program.

Instant: finally, a film that shows the deadly repercussions of driving motorized vehicles.  But this is hilarious and smart as hell.  The writeup in the guide minimizes the depths that this one dives…it’s brilliant!

Unlocked: I can’t say enough about this 14 minute gem.  Bicycles, family dysfunction passed down, and hilarious.  My guess is that Alice Miller would approve wholeheartedly and it’s simply worth the price of admission alone as it shows one person’s reactions to constantly finding other bikes locked to his.

Click here for more info and tickets.

I really liked this one.  It wasn’t fancy or all that funny, but it tackles romatic relationships and the repressed feelings that fuck them up very well.

Being a Bavarian film, the subject matter and setting are ideal; a couple are vacationing at his parent’s Sardinian villa.  We see his sister and family leaving and he and his girlfriend are shown to be very different than what we see for most of the rest of the film.  And unfortunately the “star of the show”, Schnappi, doesn’t reappear until the final image.

Both leads are convincingly stuck in their journeys through their childhood repression (I know this because Alice Miller and others tell me so) and the film depicts – with great accuracy – the results: low self-esteem, co-dependency and living in fear.  It’s so difficult to navigate these waters without knowledgeable help, but once you do, they are easy to spot and get clear of.

Not surprisingly, the director is a woman…not many men would tackle this material nor find the sensibilities that Maren Ade does.  I truly hope that Everyone Else enjoys it as much as I did.

Click here for more info and tickets.

British dog lovers rejoice!  This one’s for you…

A love story shared by a lonely old man, he does well to use words like vulva and even talk about sex and poo (although he does avoid them just as much).

The animation is ravishingly rudimentary and brings the words of the author of the book of the same name to life in a way that feels right.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t say a lot and it falls into a talking head presentation too much for my liking.  But one thing it does do is confirm that gentleness always is the best way to treat anyone: adult, child, or dog.  Thank you.

Click here for more info and tickets.

I went expecting a lot more and was frankly disappointed.  It has so much potential since the material is rich (mining town in ‘49 with a corrupt Premier and Clergy), but despite the lovely B&W print, it simply falls short.

The characters simply don’t develop as they could and the personal relationships they develop and dissolve just aren’t convincing to me.  And the ending is just too contrived.

The humour is dry and sprinkled throughout, so it was fun and I had hope throughout.  But ultimately, this is one movie that I do not plan to Remember.

Click here for more info and tickets.

This film Can Go Through Skin: be warned.

The dogma style really adds to this most difficult of plots: rape.  The film quickly shows the horrific act and the events leading up to it, but spends most of the celluloid on the victim’s attempts to recover.

It rang horrifically true and showed the ups (by bike, of course) as well as the downs.  I was really pleased to see Peter Levine’s Wake the Tiger therapy used wisely and appropriately, too.  But it didn’t touch my heart until the endnote which shook me deeply.

It seems like a film that could empower others that have similar experiences in its realistic depictions that simply say you are not alone.  It may also reach some males that have the potential to create similar nightmares, but I doubt it: these people obviously haven’t learned empathy and need to go back into their childhood with an enlightened witness first.  Once their own fucked up lives are on the road to healing, maybe then they could get this film.

In the meantime, let anyone who needs support know that this film is out there.

Click here for more info and tickets.

If I didn’t have a beautiful Italian friend, I wouldn’t have seen this film, which constantly reminded me of him.

Mid-August Lunch is a surface only look (unless the translations I read misled me) at human relations, but it is a wonderful snapshot of Italian culture.

The older set that filled the theatre also suggests that the film represents aging humans well.  As a father, I couldn’t help but see the parallels of care-taking a child as the son in the movie care-took his mother.

My only disappointment was that Alice Miller was at the doorstep many times and the opportunity never seemed to be welcomed or invited in.  Instead, we get the Catholic response of forgive and forget which ends well here but has been proved not to in real life for millennia.

This is indeed the light fluff that my beautiful friend was looking for.

Click here for more info and tickets.