The Pains of Eve
Laurel Point Inn, Salon CD
Friday, February 4, 2000 8:15 pm
Monday, February 7, 2000 10:00 pm
Trafficking Cinderella
Canadian Premiere
Awarded Certificate of Excellence, U.S International Film Festival
48 minutes
Directed by Mira Niagolova
Ontario
This world-tour of slave-trade prostitution examines the impact of the fall communism has had on the lives of women in the former Eastern Bloc countries. The lure of easy money, promised in classified ads, leads to a path of abduction, enslavement and exploitation. The gut wrenching testimonials of broken dreams, withered illusions, rape and humiliation are punctuated by pimps who even when caught suffer little for their crimes against humanity
Valley of the Boys
Canadian Premiere
26 minutes
Directed by Monika Khushf
USA
Why, you may ask, are computer engineers predominantly male? Are computers predominantly a “guy thing”? After having worked in Silicon Valley ex-programmer turned documentarian Monika Khushf turns the lens on geek culture and its gender biases in order to examine those questions. This is a documentary that could have come down harshly on a toy -clutching male mentality and succeeds so well because it doesn't. Khushf's treatment is in fact a very even portrait, at times even chiding the women engineers for not being able to play along. Whether it's Leggo, Nerf or pop can replicas of the Golden Gate Bridge, this documentary is geek culture in its purest form. In the end Valley of the Boys allows its interviewed subjects to incriminate themselves.
Le Beau Jacques
B.C. Premiere
Awarded Best Short Film, Marseille
17 minutes
Directed by Stephane Thibault
Quebec
In some docs, the subject material is so utterly fascinating and bizarre, the best thing a director can do is get out of the way. Such is the case in Le Beau Jacques, which offers up the lives of the director's two aunts who are ardent (read: fanatical) Jacques Villeneuve fans. Shot during the last Formula One Grand Prix ,the tension builds as lap after grueling lap the aunts obsession takes on a comically surreal note.
Building Heaven/Remembering Earth
Laurel Point Inn, Salon CD
Friday, February 4, 2000 10:00 pm
Tuesday, February 8, 2000 8:15 pm
Building Heaven/Remembering Earth
104 minutes
Directed by Oliver Hockenhull
B.C.
The latest work by the fascinatingly philosophical Oliver Hockenhull, who wowed audiences at VIFVF ‘98 with Aldous Huxley: The Gravity of Light.
Hockenhull has a tremendous flair for capturing unique visuals and for taking found ones and modifying them to make them his own. His images of art and architecture cut deeply to the intensely personal vision that created these works. The combined effect is an ambitious and poetic, stimulating journey from a BC film maker destined for international greatness.
The preeminent documentarian Peter Wintonick has described Building Heaven/Remembering Earth as being “unequivocally the best documentary to be produced in Canada in 1999.
Personal Tragedy, Collective Betrayal
Laurel Point Inn, Salon CD
Saturday, February 5, 2000 8:15 pm
Wednesday, February 9, 2000 8:15 pm
Theme: Murder
Awarded the Silver Hugo, Chicago International Film Festival
“Griping...darkly hypnotic...a haunting film.” Boston Magazine
54 minutes
Directed by Martha Swetzoff
USA
A personal, provocative film about a daughter's struggle to come to terms with her father's gruesome death and her discovery of his secret life. Swetzoff attempts to make sense of his homicide while taking the audience into the emotions and wisdoms known only to those who have lost a loved-one to murder.
Hyman Swetzoff, a renown Boston art dealer leading a deeply closeted gay life was stabbed in his own apartment, wandered into the street and refused help by indifferent neighbours and passers by. The apathy to his murder was so massive that his killer may have been briefly questioned and allowed to walk away and live out his life freely.
Having spent 30 years struggling with the loss, Martha has spent an immense amount of time trying to discover her father and found not only his ambivalence to his family but his own tortured feelings about the world in general.
A mesmerizing tale 20 years in the making that includes footage from her early student work that attempted to tell the story
“Documentaries rarely come along that are this emotionally stirring and effectively crafted” - Betsy Sherman, Boston Globe
There's A Strong Wind in Beijing
World Premiere
50 minutes
Directed by Ju An Qi
SMUGGLED OUT OF CHINA!
Armed with a 16mm camera and only one question, “Do you think Beijing's wind is strong?”, director Ju An Qi makes a direct attack on China's media culture. There is little if anything of a shocking nature that would warrant an attempt to smuggle a film away from the federal government in Canada or in any western country for that matter. What offends the Chinese bureaucracy so much is his direct-media approach that flies in the face of state-issued ideals and imagery. What he winds up creating is a virtual tableau of modern Chinese society as he pounds the street, shakes up businesses, and invades public and private buildings everywhere.
A selection from the Trench Film Group in Beijing's statement regarding this film:
“If asked a complex or politically loaded question, the answers one would get would either be brief, nonexistent or politically safe. For the director, any of these possibilities represents the fallacy of status-quo, already exhausted by the media and film in China, and are therefore, undesirable.
The theme question, that permeates the body of the film, about the wind serves many purposes. Much like a Zen koan in its simplicity, the question catches some off guard and stuns others. Yet, the absurd subtlety of the question lacking in political flavour; is safe for anyone to answer without fear of unfavourable repercussions in a society where one always thinks twice before speaking, especially in front of a camera.”
The Raven's Feather
Laurel Point Inn, Salon CD
Saturday, February 5, 2000 10:00 pm
Tuesday, February 8, 2000 10:00 pm
Who Owns the Past?
Canadian Premiere
57 minutes
Directed by Jed Riffe
USA
The unearthing of “Kennewick Man” sets the stage for an examination of how misguided and disrespectful white academia's scientific investigation of native culture can be.
Pride
Awarded Best Canadian Short at the Vancouver International Film Festival
6 minutes
Directed by Michelle Ryan & Jessica Salo
B.C.
Born in a mixed family and sporting red hair, our subject struggles to find her place in the face of stereotyping and racism.
The Meaning of Art
World Premiere
10 minutes
Directed by Marianna Rowinska
A visual journey exploring the internal world of Native Artists and how spirituality comes to life in their art. To comprehend the symbolic meaning of the work it is necessary to discover the connection between mind, body and soul that these artists share within their carvings.
A Day Out
World Premiere
15 minutes
Directed by Troy Perkins
With the camera assuming the passive, quiet eye of its main character, A Day Out documents with subliminal frustration a day long run-in between a small outing of native kids and some local redneck yokels. For its 15 minute length, A Day Out masterfully pulls you into the inner life while exploring how people seek to invalidate each other through hatred.
Legacy
Laurel Point Inn, Salon CD
Sunday, February 6, 2000 8:15 pm
Wednesday, February 9, 2000 10:00 pm
Everybody Nose
Canadian Premiere
19.5 minutes
Directed by Gita Saedi
USA
A humorous look at the human nose and its international character, Everybody Nose offers up commentary on our ideas of identity and beauty. Intercut with archival footage, interviews and song this humorous piece makes you stop and think about who you are and how we collectively think about ourselves. Leonard Cohen certainly never intended his titular tune to be used this way but he most likely has enough humour to approve.
The Last Enemy
World Premiere
58 minutes
Nitzan Gilady
Israel
In 1998, as peace talks stalled in the middle east, Jim Mirrione, an American, finished the final draft of his play “The Last Enemy”. Believing that coexistence is as simple as common purpose, a mixed cast of Palestinian, Israeli and Jordanian actors were assembled. And so begins the political awakening of Jim Mirrione.
Documentarian Gilady captures the creative atmosphere and the ensemble spirit that eventually proved to be the catalyst for emotional outbursts and exposure of issues that divide the actors as historical enemies.
Citizen Hong Kong
Laurel Point Inn, Salon CD
Sunday, February 6, 2000 10:00 pm
Thursday, February 10, 2000 8:15 pm
Citizen Hong Kong
B. C. Premiere
90 minutes
Directed by Ruby Yang
USA
Filmmaker Ruby Yang returns to the Hong Kong she and her family left 20 years ago, to both revisit her family history and rediscover the culture, people and politics of a country now under Chinese rule. Yang skillfully weaves her personal explorations through the stories of five young people, whose lives she follows for a year and a half. Edwin and Edward are two deaf brothers who perform in Hong Kong's Theatre of the Deaf, Jia is a grade 11 student who recently moved to Hong Kong from China, Louise is an English language reporter returning after 20 years in Australia, while Ed is a life-long Hong Kong resident and self-confessed pop culture junkie. These Hong Kongers contribute their own 'video diaries' to the film and reveal themselves as human, quirky, endearing and mostly optimistic about their own and Hong Kong's future. Yang uses their stories as a springboard to broader issues, including Hong Kong/China relations, immigrant/emigrant culture, the economy, popular culture, and even death. The film is by turns funny, moving, eye opening, and bittersweet, but always intimate and compelling. Yang makes excellent use of archival footage, and of creative, sometimes experimental visuals. She successfully conveys what she calls the "improvisational spirit of Hong Kong", creating a vibrant portrait of a city teeming with people, colour, food, motion, traffic, and change. - Melanie Groves
Pink Pink? Blue Blue?
Laurel Point Inn, Salon CD
Monday, February 7, 2000
Thursday, February 10, 2000 10:00 pm
Two Brides & A Scalpel: Diary of a Lesbian Marriage
55 minutes
Directed by Mark Achbar
B.C.
The frank and compelling story of Georgina and Linda, two Nanaimo lesbians whose recent marriage caused a media furor across the country. Their legal union was possible only because Georgina was born as George, a biological male. The film spans the period leading up to and following George's gender reassignment surgery, and gives a human and emotional face to the often misunderstood term 'transgendered.' Two Brides and a Scalpel challenges societal definitions and expectations of sex, gender, and sexuality, while depicting the real struggles and triumphs of Georgina and Linda's life together. The film explores Georgina's rejection by her family and co-workers at Harmac pulp mill, her embrace by supportive friends and workers, and her continuing discovery and acceptance of her new identity. Using video diaries shot by the couple themselves, the film paints an intimate self-portrait of a loving relationship, and of two people brave enough to be themselves with each other, and in the world. - Melanie Groves
Note: contains graphic surgical scenes.
The pINCO Triangle
Best Cultural Doc Nominee – Hot Docs
38 minutes
Directed by Patrick Crowe & Ruth Whiston
Ontario
Is there a Canadian alive who doesn't have at least a dim awareness of the Sudbury Nickel, a symbol of WASP work ethic and family values? Well hold on to your hats as Crowe and Wilson, with video cameras in hand expose the stories of gay youths trying to grow up in the shadow of that massive monument. Utilizing stock footage, interviews, kitsch ridden sets and a fabulous musical finale we are invited along on our filmmaker's semi autobiographical satirical journey into growing up in a “Father Knows Best” society.
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