The 18th annual Victoria Film Festival opens on February 3. This year over 80 films are set to screen. Some will be great, others will be terrible, and the rest fit in-between. Here is a small sampling of what can be seen at this year’s festival. Despite word that tickets for many screenings have sold out at the box office, there may be some tickets available at the door. Take your chances and good luck.
180
Swiss director Cihan Inan’s 180 requires focus. Five minutes in and I could see Crash written all over this film. There are a number of plots going on in 93 minutes. A multiple murder leads to an unrelated fatal accident. After these tragedies occur, we are brought into the lives of those affected. This is what is expected when viewing a film with multiple plots: language barriers, racism, religion, morals, and, ultimately, love. Predictability aside, the actors pull off their roles quite well. The emotion each character conveys is gripping considering there’s only so much screen-time to display their depth. Pulling off a film like this is difficult. We’ve all seen them before: Crash, 21 Grams, Traffic, you get the point. Yet the magnificent locations and the consistent tone makes the foreseeable forgivable. Composer Diego Baldenweg adds to the film with a beautiful score that complemented the film. Turkish actor Güven Kiraç plays Ahmed Özel and gives an outstanding performance as the traditional head of the family. Not bad for Inan’s first film, not bad at all. Oh, and regardless of the predictable factor, bring some tissue.
180 plays February 7, 9:30 pm, at the Cineplex Odeon.
Article 12
Article 12 evokes awareness and a slight paranoia beyond “Big Brother.” This is Argentinian director’s Juan Manuel Biaiñ’s first feature-length documentary and it has impact. Everybody everywhere is watching everyone: perverted voyeurs, people looking for kicks, capitalist corporations, and, of course, our government. Biaiñ bounces between Europe and the United States, documenting how violating security is and that we let this happen. To dramatize the situation, there’s a scene with activists taking over the digital billboards in Times Square and various corporate buildings. Controversial academic Noam Chomsky, journalist Amy Goodman, and cryptographer Whitfield Diffie are just a few of the interviewees who demonstrate how alarming surveillance is amongst today’s society. It’s unsettling how this film unleashes a bold look at how we accept the intrusion of privacy. What, Facebook changed its privacy policy again? No biggie. Oh, you need to keep my personal records to steal my ID? Sure, no problem. Huh, you have to do a cavity search based on my purchase? Hmm, I don’t know about that… Article 12 states that if privacy is ignored then the other human rights can’t be followed through.
Article 12 plays February 5 at 7:15 pm and February 11 at 4:30pm at the Capital 6.
Cerro Rico Tierra Rica
Set in the mining town of Potosi, Bolivia, Cerro Rico Tierra Rica explores the two mining sources there. The first being Cerro Rico, originally a silver mine (now produces tin, lead, zinc, rarely silver); the second is Salar de Uyuni, the world’s largest salt flats. Director Juan Vallejo enters the mine (altitude 14,000 ft) with the miners and gives insight to a miner’s life. They tell him their life stories and of their aspirations. They even welcome him into their homes with their families. The workers at the salt flats are just as inviting. The city has such a deep, rich history and natural beauty that’s caught on film. Mining in Bolivia is a family job. The younger generations work there out of necessity, but want to study. The older generations also work there, and want their kin to continue to mine. The miners have superstitious beliefs of Cerro Rico, which they openly discuss. The flatlands has its own tale of creation. Cerro Rico isn’t just about mining, it’s about a culture and community. What really makes this documentary interesting and a pleasure to watch is the miners themselves. Everybody has a story, and they tell it with such warmth.
Cerro Rico Tierra Rica plays February 7th 7pm at the Cineplex Odeon.
Cloudburst
Cloudburst is a movie that pleasantly surprised me. It has heart, humour, and a crass bull-dyke. Olympia Dukakis and Brenda Fricker play Stella and Dot, a loving American couple who decide to drive to Canada and marry before Dot’s naïve granddaughter puts her back in a nursing home. The film was shot entirely in Nova Scotia, home of director Thom Fitzgerald. The scenery is majestic and perfectly emphasises the characters’ development. I had expected this film to be an advocacy for gay rights and was impressed that in the end I was reflecting on the love and humour in this movie, not painting up “same-sex marriage now!” signs. Veteran Oscar winners Dukakis and Fricker have incredible onscreen chemistry as the lesbian couple; one’s a brazen dyke, the other is blind and quite charming. They play off each other quite well; it’s easy to see the deep love and respect between the two characters. Ryan Doucette plays Prentice, an amiable hitchhiker who the ladies pick up in an attempt to keep the authorities off their scent. A lot of laughs can be found in Cloudburst, as well as a few scenes that are just so wrong they lead to ab-crunching belly laughs. It’s worth it just to hear Dukakis slur, “You ever have a perfect day, you’ll hold onto it, like it’s your dick.” I really wanted to share that line.
Cloudburst plays February 9 at 6:45 pm at the Capitol 6.
Donor
One simple word sums up Mark Afable Meilly’s Donor: disturbing. Get Turistas out of mind, it’s nothing like that. An ordinary Philippine woman is just trying to survive the best way she knows how. Lizette, played by Meryll Soriano, sells bootleg DVDs as a street vendor and is constantly hit up for money and unprotected sex by her deadbeat boyfriend Danny, played by Baron Geisler. While living her drab life, a lucrative offer comes her way. The catch? A foreigner wants her kidney. Donor begs for emotion. Lizette was the only character who displayed any emotion, and that was minimal at best. I’m guessing this is to portray strength. This film has good potential, but the ending is sudden, revolting, and I couldn’t get it out of my head for a couple of days. There’s a lot of build-up to the ending that stressed me out. Give me something to ease the tension instead of kicking me in the teeth. I guess I’ve been spoiled with too much Hollywood garbage. I should have expected it considering Meilly studied film in Paris.
Donor plays February 8 at 9:15 pm, at the Capital 6.
Taste the Waste
Taste the Waste has received a ton of global interest for its important message: we can help the climate simply by refusing to generate so much food waste. Valentin Thurn travels all over Europe, Japan, the United States, and Cameroon to show the world how food waste is a global problem. Interviews with supermarket staff, farmers, an energy plant-owner, wholesalers, dumpster divers, and even a beekeeper (yes, a beekeeper) show us the reality of how much food is tossed before it even reaches the consumers. This is serious stuff. Thurn goes beyond expectations. Not only is this documentary packed with jaw-dropping stats, it shows us how we can live sustainably and start saving the environment, one vegetable at a time. A bakery in Germany condenses its unsold bread into energy which heats their ovens. According to Baker Roland Schüren, “If all bakeries in Germany heated in a way similar to what we do, we could shut down a nuclear power plant in Germany.” What!? That’s just a sampling of what Thurn has to share with the audience. It’s not a competition of which country gets there first; it’s an innovative collaboration. This documentary is visually appealing and it’s going to be big.
Taste the Waste plays February 3, 7 pm at the Cineplex Odeon.