We've got three more films this season, BARBARA, THE SAPPHIRES, AND REVOLUTION. Check the individual film posts in this blog for further information.
two shows, 7 and 9:30 for each film
in room 1-306 at the college of new caledonia
series passes: $18. single tickets: $8 regular; $7 student/senior/unemployed
passes and information: the cnc bookstore + Books and Company
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APRIL 20: REVOLUTION Showtimes 7 + 9:30
Rob Stewart CANADA, 2012 English 90 minutes
With: Rob Stewart, David Hannan, Boris Worm, Emily Hunter, Felix Finkbeiner
A runner-up for the Cadillac People’s Choice Documentary Award at the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival®, Revolution is an impassioned, angry yet hopeful call to arms against the destruction of our planet’s precious marine life.
Director Rob Stewart, whose Sharkwater was one of the highest-grossing Canadian documentaries ever made and a Canada’s Top Ten selection in 2006, expands the scope of his earlier film — which dealt with the numerous threats that are effectively wiping out the world’s shark population — to examine the mortal dangers facing marine life around the world. Travelling the globe to chronicle the efforts being taken — and not taken — to stem the tide of destruction, and plunging into the ocean depths to observe their wonders first- hand, Stewart examines our destruction of our own invaluable natural heritage.
As with Sharkwater, the key virtue of this new film is Stewart’s boundless compassion and tireless advocacy for the species he loves, and his profound outrage over how poorly we treat our planet. Attending another failed environmental conference, where few decisions are made and little or no action is taken, he angrily dismisses the whole proceedings as a farce, and castigates those governments whose token nods to environmental sustainability are accompanied by wholly disingenuous actions. He is especially enraged at Canada’s Conservative-led government, which has withdrawn Canada from the Kyoto Accord and which, he argues, has broken our country’s own laws with the Alberta tar sands project.
Yet despite the spectacle of governmental inaction and the terrifying data on marine decline that it relentlessly presents, Revolution is above all infused with a sense of wonder and hope. The underwater photography is breathtaking, capturing the sense of awe that Stewart felt when he first became intrigued by aquatic life as a child. And while the seasoned activists at the environmental conference have little to offer in the way of answers or leadership, Stewart sees a new face of the movement in the youth who plead with the leaders to do something about climate change and the dangers facing the planet. Part memoir, part eco-critique, Revolution leavens its anger and despair with its enduring, inextinguishable hope.
APRIL 13: THE SAPPHIRES Showtimes 7 + 9:30
Wayne Blair AUSTRALIA, 2012 English 103 minutes
Principal Cast: Chris O'Dowd, Deborah Mailman, Miranda Tapsell, Jessica Mauboy, Shari Sebbens
A Special Presentation at the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival®, The Sapphires is a wildly entertaining musical comedy in the tradition of Strictly Ballroom and The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. Based on the smash 2004 Australian play by Tony Briggs (who co-wrote the screenplay), The Sapphires was inspired by the true story of Briggs’ mother and aunt, who sang in an all-Aboriginal female soul quartet that enter- tained American troops during the Vietnam War.
Set in 1968, the story begins with sisters Gail (Deborah Mailman, Bran Nue Dae, the Film Circuit hit Rabbit Proof Fence), Diana (Jessica Mauboy, Bran Nue Dae), and Cynthia (newcomer Miranda Tapsell) entering a local talent competition in an outback pub, where their moving rendition of a Merle Haggard classic outclasses the tone-deaf competition but fails to win over the racist judges. One man is impressed, however: boozy Irish emcee Dave Lovelace (Chris O’Dowd, Bridesmaids), a would-be music promoter with an ear for raw talent. He convinces the girls to swap their sleepy country standards for soul music, promising to turn them into stars. Recruiting their long-estranged cousin Kay (Shari Sebbens) as a fourth member, the girls soon sing their way from the far-flung Australian outback to Southeast Asia and a tour of war-torn Vietnam.
Filled with show-stopping renditions of classic Motown hits that showcase the phenomenal voice of Mauboy (an Australian Idol alumnus), The Sapphires deftly mixes sparkling humour with serious drama, a delicate balance maintained not least by O’Dowd’s charisma and lackadaisical charm. Featuring stunning period recreations and gorgeous cinematography by Warwick Thornton, The Sapphires is a rousing film that hits all the right notes.
First-time filmmaker Wayne Blair has crafted an exuberant celebration of Aboriginality that fizzes with humor and heart; its soulfulness goes beyond the embrace of a jukebox full of Motown, Stax and Atlantic Records hits. —MEGAN LEHMANN, THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER
MARCH 30: BARBARA Showtime 7 + 9:30
Christian Petzold GERMANY, 2012 German with English subtitles 105 minutes
Principal Cast: Nina Hoss, Ronald Zehrfeld, Jasna Fritzi Bauer, Mark Waschke, Rainer Boc
Set in East Germany in the early 1980s, Barbara (an Official Selection of the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival®) is a suspenseful chamber piece about an accomplished Berlin physician who is banished to a rural hospital as punishment, where she finds herself torn between the promise of escape to the West and her growing love for a fellow colleague — who may be planning to betray her to the secret police.
Removed from a prestigious medical post in East Berlin and reassigned to an under-funded rural hospital — her tacit punishment for requesting an exit visa from the GDR — Barbara (Nina Hoss, Jerichow, The White Masai) resentfully isolates herself from her new colleague, chief physician Andre (Ronald Zehrfeld), whom she suspects is keeping tabs on her at the behest of the local Stasi officer Schütz (Rainer Bock, War Horse). Seeking solace in clandestine trysts with her West German lover Jörg (Mark Waschke), who is working to effect her escape across the border, Barbara allows her icy mask to slip when she meets a young pregnant woman, Stella (Jasna Fritzi Bauer), who has contracted meningitis after escaping from a detention centre for wayward youth. As Barbara and Andre nurse Stella back to health, they begin to bond over their shared passion for medicine. But even as she finds herself falling in love with Andre, Barbara still cannot be sure that he is not a spy. When Jörg returns to offer her a sure-fire escape from the country, Barbara must make a difficult decision between her desire for freedom and her growing attraction to a man who may be waiting to betray her.
Director Christian Petzold (Yella, Jerichow) uses his meticulously calibrated pacing and almost unnervingly crisp visual style to create a foreboding atmosphere of ever growing paranoia and claustrophobia. Working for the fifth time with Hoss — whose measured, icy restraint is the perfect actorly analogue for Petzold’s expertly muted style — he creates a brilliantly incisive study of what becomes of human nature when totalitarian states weave suspicion into the fabric of everyday life.
An extremely nuanced and subtle examination of love, charity and political struggle during the paranoid years of the GDR. —GLENN HEATH JR., LITTLE WHITE LIES
