Spinning Plates – Nov. 30

Nov. 30    Spinning Plates
Dir: Joseph Levy    93 mins USA 
Documentary      2013

    This is about three extraordinary restaurants and the incredible people who bring them to life. A world-renowned chef competes for the ultimate restaurant prize in Chicago, while privately battling a life-threatening condition. A 150-year-old restaurant in Iowa is still standing only because of an unbreakable bond with the community. And a fledgling Mexican restaurant in Tucson struggles as its owners risk everything to survive. Their unforgettable stories of family, legacy, passion and survival come together to reveal how meaningful food can be, and the power it has to connect us to one another.
    “Two years after opening Alinea, it was named best restaurant in the nation. Two years after that, Grant got the diagnosis that thrust him into a fight for his life,” says Levy.   
    He hadn’t heard of Breitbach’s Country Dining prior to 2010. “I knew the basic blueprint I was looking for - a place where everybody seemed to know everyone else and the color of your collar didn’t matter. It was a place where community just happened around food.”
    La Cocina de Gabby, was difficult to find and took Levy months of searching. “I knew the story I wanted,” described the director, “a
restaurant run by owners who came to the U.S. in search of the American Dream. I also knew that I wanted the drama driving their story to be completely true.”

Showtimes: 7 + 9:30
all screenings in room 1-306 at the College of New Caledonia

The Trailer:

Good Ol' Freda – Nov. 23

Nov 23    Good Ol’ Freda
Dir: Ryan White    USA, 2013
Documentary         86 minutes

    Good Ol’ Freda is a unique and personal portrait of one modest woman at the heart of an international phenomenon.
    The newspapers of the 1960s called her the “luckiest girl in the world.” As a Liverpool teenager working in a typing pool, Freda Kelly was plucked from her desk and taken to local music club The Cavern, where an up- and-coming hometown group, The Beatles, were playing. From that fateful trip down the road, Freda fell into a job as personal secre- tary and fan-club manager for the biggest rock band in history.
    Though Freda was a trusted member of The Beatles’ inner circle for a decade, this documentary by director Ryan White marks the first time she has ever gone on record to speak about her integral role in Beatlemania. Still working as a secretary today, she opens up for the first time in fifty years to paint a vivid portrait of the Fab Four she came to know so well.
    White gives Freda a well-deserved moment in the spotlight and reveals a dedicated, hum- ble and charming woman who was loved and respected by John, Paul, George and Ringo.
    "A slyly humorous and insightful portrait…of a participant in one of popular culture's most pivotal moments."- Filmmaker Magazine

Showtimes: 7 + 9:30
all screenings in room 1-306 at the College of New  Caledonia

The Trailer:

Blackfish – Nov. 16

Nov.16    Blackfish
Dir: Gabriela Cowperthwaite   USA, 2013
English, Spanish with subtitles 90 minutes

    Orcas are intelligent mammals, thought by the scientific community to have a deep capacity for emotion and social interaction that’s equal, if not superior, to that of humans. There are no known instances of an orca ever harming a human in the wild... Blackfish sets out to reveal why captivity is different.
    Unfolding with the tone and pace of a thriller, this documentary reveals that SeaWorld is not only inhumane in its treatment of orcas, but also knowingly puts human lives at risk. The film opens with a 911 call made by a SeaWorld employee, reporting that a whale has attacked one of its trainers. This moment is contrasted with underwater footage of an orca dramatically launching a trainer out of the water during a choreo- graphed stunt. As they break the surface, the crowd erupts into a chilling roar of applause. The death in question occurred  in 2010, when an experienced trainer was dragged into the water and drowned by an orca named Tilikum. The incident was covered up by SeaWorld publicists, who attributed the death to “trainer error.” As it turns out, however, Tilikum was already responsible for two human deaths before this tragedy—a fact known to managers at SeaWorld but withheld from young trainers recruited to work with the whale.
    A powerful piece of journalistic filmmaking, Blackfish has the power to change people’s minds about animal captivity.

Showtimes: 7 + 9:30

All screenings in room 1-306 at the College of New Caledonia


The Trailer:

Love Is All You Need – Nov. 9

Nov. 9        Love Is All You Need
Dir: Susanne Bier    Denmark, 2012
English, Danish with subtitles 110 minutes
Principal Cast: Pierce Brosnan, Trine Dyrholm, Paprika Steen, Kim Bodnia.

    Returning from her final, successful chemotherapy treatment, Ida arrives home only to find her boorish husband Leif in a compromising position with a ditzy co-worker. Stricken, she takes off to Sorrento alone to attend the wedding of her daughter Astrid to Patrick in a beautiful Italian villa, where lemon groves and cypress trees form the perfect backdrop for a young couple who appear to be blissfully in love.
    Unexpectedly, Leif arrives with his new paramour in tow. Ida’s reaction does little to impress Patrick’s no-nonsense father Philip, a dashing but brooding widower who seems less than pleased with his life, his son, and his soon-to-be in-laws. When the young couple’s future happiness is suddenly jeopardized, Ida and Philip are brought together to try to set things right—and find that life might have a second chance in store for them as well.
    Bier’s films have always been marked by their outstanding ensemble casts, and this is no exception, being alternately Hilarious, touching and inspiring. Dyrholm invests Ida with energy, warmth and humour. Brosnan delivers a delightful performance as the staid Philip, while Paprika Steen is simply uproarious as Philip’s lustful sister-in-law.

The Trailer:

Hannah Arendt – November 2

Nov. 2        Hannah Arendt
Dir: Margarethe von Trotta   Germany, 2012
German with subtitles 113 minutes
Principal Cast: Barbara Sukowa, Janet McTeer, Axel Milberg, Klaus Pohl

    Margarethe von Trotta has long been fascinated by history’s great women, from twelfth-century mystic Hildegard von Bingen to Marxist firebrand Rosa Luxemburg. Here, she tackles the life of another icon: the German-Jewish philosopher and political theorist Hannah Arendt, as incarnated by von Trotta’s frequent collaborator, Barbara Sukowa.
    A former prize pupil (and lover) of philosopher Martin Heidegger, Arendt was already famous for her books when she was assigned by The New Yorker in 1961 to travel to Jerusalem to cover the trial of Adolph Eichmann. Following the testimony from concentration camp survivors and of Eichmann himself, von Trotta dramatizes the process by which Arendt formulated her most lasting, controversial contribution to contemporary political thought: the “banality of evil”—evil not as diabolical intent but as unthinking, almost offhanded ignorance of the consequences of one’s actions.
    Hannah Arendt is a stunning historical and human drama. Using footage from the actual Eichmann trial and weaving together an involving narrative that spans three countries, von Trotta turns the often invisible passion of thought into immersive, dramatic cinema.

Showtimes: 7 + 9:30
in room 1-306 at the College of New Caledonia

The Trailer:

Five Films For November

Cinema CNC presents... FIVE FILMS FOR NOVEMBER.

Showtimes: 7 + 9:30
All screenings in room 1-306 at the College of New Caledonia

Passes: [five films] $35
Available at Books and Company and at the CNC Bookstore

Tickets:
$8 regular
$7 students, seniors, unemployed
Available at the door.

Nov. 2: Hannah Arendt
Nov. 9: Love Is All You Need
Nov. 16: Blackfish
Nov. 23: Good Ol' Freda
Nov. 30: Spinning Plates

Twenty Feet from Stardom        October 19, 7 + 9:30 pm
Dir: Morgan Neville
USA
2013 
89 minutes

Award-winning filmmaker Morgan Neville returns with his compelling new documentary, Twenty Feet from Stardom, an Official Selection of the 2013 Sundance Film Festival. In his latest foray into the subject of rock ’n’ roll history, Neville shines a spotlight on the backup singers behind some of the greatest musical legends of the late 20th century, taking an unprecedented look at the moving personal journeys of these normally uncelebrated artists and paying tribute to their indelible role in popular music.

Although few, if any, of these singers become household names, their work has defined countless songs and records that remain hallowed in rock’s collective memory. Helping to set the record straight, Neville juxtaposes interviews with industry legends (Bruce Springsteen, Mick Jagger, Sting, and Bette Midler) with the relative unknowns who support them—a list that includes such talents as Merry Clayton (who sang on The Rolling Stones’ “Gimme Shelter”), Táta Vega (notable for her duets with Michael Jackson and Lou Rawls), and Darlene Love (a discovery by producer Phil Spector). As each backup singer demonstrates their unquestionable talent, and the unique blend of intuition and skill needed to support lead vocals, they also reveal their own struggles to find careers as solo artists, and their disappointment in a music industry that has only propelled them so far.

Triumphant and heartbreaking, Twenty Feet from Stardom is a tribute to the unsung voices that changed the sound of popular music, and a reflection on the conflicts, sacrifices, and rewards of a career spent harmonizing with others and standing next to the spotlight.

Their voices are powerful enough to tear you apart and put you back together again, and their stories will do the same.
—Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times

Showtime: 7 + 9:30 pm
Place: room 1-306 at the College of New Caledonia
Tickets: $8 regular; $7 student, senior, unemployed

The trailer:

Movies for Springtime

MOVIES FOR SPRINGTIME:

 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

LUNARCY! ... MARCH 3, 9:30 PM

Sunday, March 3: 9:30 pm    LUNARCY!
DIR: Simon Ennis 80 mins. Documentary

From the late 1950s to the end of the 1960s, the thrill of space exploration captivated a world witnessing truly cosmic achievements. It was a time when anything seemed possible — Pan Am Airlines even began to take reservations from regular citizens for the first prospective commercial flight to the lunar surface. By the time the 1986 Challenger disaster and the close of the Cold War ended the Space Race, the utopian dreams that had fuelled the Space Age had already faded from the public's imagination — but for a few true believers, those dreams only intensified. This irresistibly zany, sharp-witted documentary from director Simon Ennis shuttles entertainingly from the ridiculous to the sublime as it introduces us to an unforgettable group of characters whose years-long obsession with the moon has reached truly galactic proportions.

Among the lunar-fixated interviewees is Peter Kokh, who has been publishing The Moon Miners' Manifesto since 1986, which speculates on what homes, gardens, malls, even musical instruments will look like once we live on the moon. Then there is Dennis Hope, who in 1980 found a loophole in the United Nations Outer Space Treaty which prohibits nations from owning the moon, but not individuals — which led him to declare himself the owner of the moon and to make a fortune selling plots of land to hopeful future lunar colonizers (including some former U.S. presidents). At the heart of the film, however, is an eccentric young man named Christopher Carson, who is determined to be the first person to live on the moon. With humour and more than a little sympathy, Ennis follows Carson's often misfired efforts as he travels from place to place trying to convince people to help him reach his goal.

Energetic, illuminating and often hilarious, Lunarcy! achieves the difficult feat of pointedly depicting the humour inherent in its subjects' endeavours without condescending to them — and it also raises larger questions about the human capacity to make dreams a reality. Are Carson's ambitions any more outrageous than explorers setting sail to discover new lands, amateur inventors trying to take to the skies, or two mighty nations racing to put the first human being in space?

As Lunarcy! reminds us, some of the most startling achievements in human history began with a seemingly impossible dream.

STORIES WE TELL: MARCH 3, 7 PM

Sunday, March 3: 7 pm        STORIES WE TELL
DIR: Sarah Polley        Documentary    108 minutes
With: Sarah Polley, Michael Polley, Harry Gulkin

Stories We Tell is the acclaimed feature documentary debut from award-winning Canadian actor and filmmaker Sarah Polley. In the few short years since Polley first revealed her remarkable talents as a writer and director, audiences have already come to expect the aesthetic rigour and reserved yet deeply felt emotion she brings to her studies of human relationships.

In her first two features, Away From Her and Take This Waltz, she rendered the complexities of intimacy and desire with the eloquence and control of filmmakers with far more experience. Away From Her in particular asked questions about how we can know ourselves or assess our lives if we can’t agree on the events of the past. Memory is truth — at least emotional truth. And nowhere in life are shared memories more fiercely contested than in the family.

Stories We Tell is at heart a personal essay on the intractable subjects of truth and memory. Using a combination of archival footage, still photos and testimonials in a captivating visual assemblage, Polley examines the disagreements and varying narratives of a single family as they look back on decades-old events.

The responses from the “storytellers” chosen to share their version of things are heartfelt, revealing and even charmingly funny. The result is a lively and richly textured documentary that seamlessly blends past and present, the real and the imagined.

Devoid of sensationalism and filled with tender and powerful moments, the film also serves as a loving homage to one key player who is no longer here to share her version.

Sarah Polley’s portrait of her parents’ marriage is a gripping tale, full of richness, tenderness and emotional complexity. It’s difficult to tell what making this movie must have entailed, and with what diplomacy and skill she must have marshalled its participants — but the result is a great pleasure to watch. —PETER BRADSHAW, The Guardian

REBELLE [WAR WITCH]: MARCH 3, 2 PM

Sunday, March 3: 2 pm        REBELLE [WAR WITCH]
DIR: Kim Nguyen
French with English subtitles 90 minutes
Cast: Rachel Mwanza, Serge Kanyinda

Canada’s submission for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, Rebelle is an extraordinary portrait of survival. Director Kim Nguyen spent ten years bringing this story to the screen, basing his script on the stories of actual child soldiers and shooting entirely on location in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The film is narrated by fourteen-year-old Komona, who recounts the past two years of her life to her unborn child. Abducted by a rebel army that invades her small village, Komona is forced to commit an unthinkable act — shooting her own parents — before being dragged off into the jungle. Over the next several months, she is inducted into the brutal lifestyle of the child soldier: she is beaten repeatedly, taught to fire an AK-47, and kept in a drugged state by the administration of “magic milk.” One day, Komona has a vision of her parents, who warn her of danger ahead; heeding the apparitions’ advice, she is the only person to escape unscathed from a ferocious firefight.

Impressed by her premonitory powers, the warlord Great Tiger bestows Komona with the title of “War Witch,” which earns her both privileges in the camp and the threat of harsh punishment if her powers fail. When Komona befriends fellow soldier Magicien, she seems to have found an escape. The two soon run away together and eventually fall in love — but the war is never far away, and their romantic idyll is cut short when they are recaptured by the rebels. Returned to the tyranny of her former life and still haunted by the ghosts of her parents, Komona soon becomes pregnant and struggles to find a ray of hope in her desperate situation.

This is undeniably grim material, but Nguyen leavens it with delicacy and tact, conveying violence by implication and atmosphere rather than through direct depiction. The performances from the mostly non-professional cast are vivid and authentic, particularly the extraordinary Mwanza’s portrayal of Komona, which won her the Best Actress prize at both the Berlin and Tribeca film festivals.

Heartfelt and helplessly moving, Rebelle guides us through the harsh world of a young girl whose circumstances are tragic, yet whose story is one of formidable courage and unquenchable hope.

THE END OF TIME: MARCH 2, 9:30 PM

Saturday, March 2: 9:30 pm THE END OF TIME
DIR: Peter Mettler. 114 mins. Documentary.

Peter Mettler’s The End of Time is a visually stunning tour de force, as one might expect from one of Canada’s greatest cinematographers. It’s also a rich, deeply rewarding and rigorous meditation on the nature of time. Mettler begins the film with archival footage of US Air Force pilot Joe Kittiger, who flew a balloon to the unprecendented height of 102,800 feet, then parachutes out. Watching these images of Kittinger in free fall suspends our notion of time .

The film argues that time itself is, in part, a notion we impose on ourselves — and that there may be other ways to view, measure and experience time than the Western artifices of the clock and the stock market bell. Travelling the globe, Mettler explores a dizzying range of perspectives on time: from scientists working with a particle accelerator, who try to examine time by smashing protons together in an immense, twenty-seven-kilometre long concrete structure miles beneath the surface; from Buddhists visiting the tree where Buddha was enlightened; from DJ and electronic musician Richie Hawtin, who locates a new frontier in his work with machines; from squatters in an abandoned area of Detroit near where Henry Ford built his first factory, now a derelict behemoth that evokes the broken statue of Shelley’s "Ozymandias"; from the lone remaining resident in an area being consumed by lava pouring forth from an active volcano.

En route, Mettler draws eerie connections between the most disparate places and events (the patterns on the ceiling of a Buddhist temple echo the multi-coloured circles in the tunnels of the particle accelerator) and locates parables of renewal and destruction in an astonishing sequence where a grasshopper is transported by an army of ants. Establishing a mood which oscillates between rumination and trance, Mettler relentlessly pushes at the limits of our understanding of time, and the ultimate fragility of the structures we have constructed atop it.

Charting the links between primordial mysticism and the furthest conceptual reaches of modern science, The End of Time is both mind-expanding and oddly familiar, as if reminding us of truths we forgot long ago.

MIDNIGHT'S CHILDREN: MARCH 2, 7 PM

Saturday, March 2: 7 pm        MIDNIGHT’S CHILDREN
Dir: Deepa Mehta
English, Hindi with English subtitles 148 minutes
Principal Cast: Satya Bhabha, Shahana Goswami, Rajat Kapoor

A Gala Presentation at the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival®, this momentous collaboration between Academy Award®–nominated director Deepa Mehta (the trilogy Fire, Earth and Water, Heaven on Earth) and celebrated novelist Salman Rushdie is an epic saga that spans borders, generations, wars and fragile peace as it chronicles a pivotal time in India’s history.

    Rushdie’s inspired adaptation of his own Booker Prize–winning novel follows the destinies of a pair of children born at the stroke of midnight on August 15, 1947, the very instant that India claimed its independence from Great Britain—and which, in Rushdie’s brilliant magic realist conceit, endows the children born on the same night as their country’s liberation with supernatural abilities ranging from flight to invisibility, with those born closest to midnight possessing the most powerful gift.

“Handcuffed to history,” and switched at birth by a nurse in a Bombay hospital, Saleem Sinai (Satya Bhabha), the son of a poor single mother, and Shiva (Siddharth), scion of a wealthy family, are condemned to live out the fate intended for the other. Imbued with mysterious telepathic powers, their lives become strangely intertwined and inextricably linked to their country’s careening journey through the tumultuous twentieth century.

    An irreverent epic of Shakespearean proportions, shot through with moments of arresting intimacy, Midnight’s Children is a production of truly impressive scope, featuring state-of-the-art computer graphics, impressive production design by the director’s brother Dilip Mehta, and sixty-two locations. A luxurious feast of a film brimming with romance, spectacle, intrigue, sly social commentary and uplifting optimism, Midnight’s Children is as vast and beguiling as the great country to which it pays homage.

PICTURE DAY: MARCH 2, 1 PM

Saturday, March 2: 1 pm        PICTURE DAY
DIR: Kate Melville.  93 mins. 
Cast: Tatiana Maslany, Spencer Van Wyck, Susan Coyne

One of the most charming and vibrant debut features by a Canadian filmmaker in recent memory, Kate Melville's Picture Day features rising star Tatiana Maslany as Claire Paxton, a teenage girl who has all the freedoms of adulthood but none of the responsibilities. Forced to repeat her last year of high school due to bad grades and absenteeism, Claire still prefers to cut class whenever feasible and spends her nights clubbing, living on the fringes of the adult world she's almost part of.

When two men enter Claire's life, things begin to change radically. Jame, the singer in a popular Toronto faux-funk band, is intrigued enough by Claire to pick her up from school the night after they sleep together. Claire is soon confronted by someone from her past: her former babysitting charge, Henry, a shy, geeky science whiz who keeps shoeboxes full of mementoes — most of them relating to Claire. After a chance meeting and a shared blunt, Claire is determined to help Henry get noticed at school — hardly difficult, since she's already infamous.

As Claire bounces back and forth between the teenage and adult worlds, the flaws of both become increasingly apparent. If her teenage friends judge her too much for her past, the adult world doesn't guarantee more maturity or understanding. The taunting and backstabbing at school are nothing compared to the casual insensitivity of James or her mother, who is too obsessed with her own tragedies — mostly involving her errant boyfriend — to worry about what Claire is going through. Rarely have the dynamics of a presented so honestly, as in a cutting scene when Claire finds her weeping mother on the phone, bemoaning her boyfriend's departure once again. Looking Claire in the eye, she sobs, "What else have I got left in my life?"

Smoothly directed by Melville, Picture Day sketches a scruffier, less upscale version of the world inhabited by Noah Baumbach's lost adolescents. The film is anchored by an extraordinary performance by Maslany, who more than delivers on the promise evident in Grown Up Movie Star. Together, Maslany and Melville have created a protagonist as unique, infuriating, complex and memorable as the heroines of New Waterford Girl, Emporte-moi or Double Happiness.

MY AWKWARD SEXUAL ADVENTURE: MARCH 1, 9:30 PM

Friday, March 1: 9:30 pm        MY AWKWARD SEXUAL ADVENTURE 
DIR: Sean Garrity. 98 mins.
Cast: Vik Sahay, Sarah Manninen, Emily Hampshire, Jonas Chernick

A hyper-repressed and schlubby accountant (Jonas Chernick) strikes a deal with a worldly but disorganized stripper (Emily Hampshire): he'll help her with her crushing debt if she helps him become a better lover. Sharp direction by the versatile Sean Garrity and a very funny script by Chernick ensure for an uproarious — and surprisingly educational — sex comedy.

After an almost perfunctory montage of Winnipeg night scenes, Sean Garrity’s My Awkward Sexual Adventure cuts to the chase: Accountant Jordan Abrams is having sex with his longtime girlfriend, Rachel. It’s not going well... Rachel — the woman Jordan plans to propose to on the weekend during a romantic getaway to Niagara Falls — has in fact dozed off. When she finally wakes up, she tells Jordan she’s had enough of his bedroom inadequacies and promptly dumps him. Decimated, he heads off to Toronto to stay with his best friend Dandak, a notorious player who throws Jordan an impromptu party packed with available women.

Unfortunately, our heartbroken hero can’t talk about anything else but Rachel. Kicked out of his own party, Jordan stumbles into a strip joint. There he continues to bemoan his fate until, after far too many drinks, he’s tossed into the alleyway where he’s rescued by one of the dancers, Julia. The next morning in Julie’s apartment, which is littered with unpaid bills, she and a somehow pantless Jordan strike a bargain. She’ll teach him how to be a better lover; he’ll help her deal with her crushing debt.

Raucous, sexy, and frenetic, My Awkward Sexual Adventure charts two different quests: Jordan’s drive to become less of a hyper-repressed schlub and win back Rachel, and Julia’s struggle to gain control of her life. They aren’t mutually exclusive journeys, and neither plays out exactly how the characters envision. Ultimately, they are left with opposing choices: Jordan must give up his fantasy while Julia has to embrace hers. It’s hardly certain that either will have the courage necessary to do so. My Awkward Sexual Adventure is sharply directed by the versatile Garrity, with a very funny script by Chernick, who leads the exceptional cast while racing from one catastrophe to the next as if his hair’s about to catch fire. And, perhaps unusually for a sex comedy, it’s surprisingly educational.

INESCAPABLE... MARCH 1, 7 PM

Friday, March 1: 7:00 pm         INESCAPABLE
DIR: Ruba Nadda        English, Arabic with English subtitles 90 minutes
Cast: Alexander Siddig, Marisa Tomei, Joshua Jackson, Oded Fehr, Saad Siddiqui

Three years ago, director Ruba Nadda won over cinema-goers around the world with the touching romance Cairo Time. This year, she reteams with her Cairo Time star Alexander Siddig for the highly anticipated political thriller Inescapable.

Successful Syrian-Canadian businessman Adib lives a comfortable life in Toronto with his loving wife and two college-aged daughters. On a typical afternoon at work, he receives a devastating piece of news: while vacationing in Greece, his eldest daughter secretly took a detour to Damascus — and vanished. Frantic, Adib immediately makes plans to return to Syria after more than thirty years. As Adib places a series of covert phone calls and makes secret rendezvous with former contacts, it gradually becomes clear that he was once a major player in the Syrian resistance movement. Aided by the ex-fiancée he left behind, and a dubious Canadian embassy official, Adib wades through vague clues, government subterfuge, and a web of conspiracies that stand between him and his daughter. When the regime discovers his former identity and accuses his daughter of being a spy, Adib must once again take up arms and fight for what he holds most dear.

Nadda spent four years as a teenager living in Damascus, which surely informs her convincing evocation of the climate of paranoia that is cultivated by totalitarian regimes. Along with its chillingly authentic atmosphere, Inescapable poses a series of vital, ethically charged questions. What happens if the past won’t stay in the past? What desperate lengths could someone go to if their former life threatens the new life they’ve spent decades painstakingly building? Expertly building the tension to a fever pitch, Nadda withholds her answers until the final, nail-biting minutes.

THE TRAILER:

the 17th ANNUAL CINEMA CNC FILM FESTIVAL

We are presenting our 17th Festival, March 1st to 3rd, with 8 films over three days.

Featuring:
 INESCAPABLE
MY AWKWARD SEXUAL ADVENTURE
PICTURE DAY
MIDNIGHT'S CHILDREN
THE END OF TIME REBELLE [WAR WITCH]
STORIES WE TELL
LUNARCY!

Passes:

Festival: $48 [8 films]
Friday: $14 [2 films]
Saturday: $21 [3 films]
Sunday: $21 [3 films]

available at Books and Company, the CNC Bookstore, and the UNBC Bookstore.

Single tickets: $8 available at the door

This festival presents the best of Canadian film for the Prince George audience. Come see what Canadians are up to on the big screen! This year, we are traveling to Syria, Toronto, India, Winnipeg, the Congo, Nova Scotia, and the Moon... among other locales! [the MOON, you say? Yes... take a look].

Searching for Sugarman

We are showing:

February 16: 7 + 9:30 pm SEARCHING FOR SUGARMAN

Director: Malik Bendjelloul Year: 2012

Runtime: 86 minutes

Country: Sweden, UK Language: English

Searching for Sugar Man tells the incredible true story of Rodriguez, the greatest '70s rock icon who never was. Discovered in a Detroit bar in the late '60s by two celebrated producers struck by his soulful melodies and prophetic lyrics, they recorded an album which they believed would secure his reputation as the greatest recording artist of his generation. In fact, the album bombed and the singer disappeared into obscurity amid rumors of a gruesome on-stage suicide. But a bootleg recording found its way into apartheid South Africa and, over the next two decades, he became a phenomenon. The film follows the story of two South African fans who set out to find out what really happened to their hero. Their investigation leads them to a story more extraordinary than any of the existing myths about the artist known as Rodriguez.

"Do NOT miss it. Astonishing." – Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

Showtime 7 and 9:30 in room 1-306

at the College of New Caledonia

Tickets $8, regular – $7 students, seniors, unemployed available at the door

Imdb.com link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2125608/?ref_=sr_1

The trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QL5TffdOQ7g