Among movie folk, there’s a ritual: Sit down with the
Atlantic Film Festival catalogue and/or website, and plot out every
moviegoing second (from September 17 to 26), considering travel time,
crowd sizes and the chance of films actually coming back. We
hoard non-perishables and determine which lanyard ribbon brings out the
colour in our Vitamin D-deprived complexions. Sometimes this journey
toward film enlightenment is as pleasurable as the festival itself. And
sometimes you need a little guidance.
We’re still reeling from this year’s fantastic line-up of local,
Canadian and international films, but here are some early
highlights.
Homegrown hits As usual, the Atlantic Shorts programs look really
strong. Watch for Luckas Cardona, Andrew Bush, Andrea Dorfman, Jeff
Wheaton, Aram Kouyoumdjian, Tarek Abouamin, Krista Davis, Melanie
Colosimo, Thom Fitzgerald and Jay Dahl.
Burning Rubber is Ariella Pahlke’s documentary about the
culture of burning tire rubber as a form of self-expression. She
interviews drivers and artists about this phenomenon you most often see
snaking across rural roads. Pahlke shot an amazing performance in 2007
at Exhibition Park, where drivers made skid marks and blew tires all
over the parking lot.
We Cancon love it Look for two Newfoundland features coming from
close friends and frequent co-conspirators. Adriana Maggs and Sherry
White were responsible for the short-lived but brilliant CBC comedy
Rabbittown—think Ab Fab meets the Rock. Maggs releases
her directorial debut, Grown Up Movie Star, about a young girl
left with her father after her mom runs away, and there’s White’s
Crackie, in which a young woman wants to escape her rural life
and her domineering grandmother (Mary Walsh).
J’ai tué ma mere: Twenty-year-old Quebec
filmmaker/actor Xavier Dolan became a Cannes darling with his
semi-autobiographical teenage film that’s been described as an artful
Mommie Dearest.
Amreeka: Another festival fave, this time at Sundance,
Amreeka is a Canadian-American-Kuwaiti co-production about a
single mom who immigrates from Palestine to the States with her teenage
son, just prior to the Iraq war.
Act of God: Toronto husband-and-wife team Jennifer Baichwal
and Nick de Pencier blew us away with Manufactured Landscapes.
Now, they speak to people who’ve been hit by lightning.
Suck: We’d say enough with the vampires already, except that
Rob Stefaniuk’s rock-‘n’-bleed has appearances by Moby, Iggy Pop, Henry
Rollins, Alice Cooper and Alex Lifeson.
The White Stripes Under Great Northern Lights: Emmett
Malloy’s tour film follows the red, white and black across Canada,
filming the band’s spontaneous acts, e.g. the city bus in Winnipeg, the
one-note show in St. John’s. Maybe you’re in it.
Around the world This year’s international fare will either romance
or frighten you. Swoon for Pedro Almodovar’s Broken Embraces,
Jane Campion’s Bright Star and dreamy 1960s Britain in An
Education, starring Peter Sarsgaard. Lars Von Trier was bedridden
with depression when he wrote Antichrist, which scared the shit
out of Cannes.
Become a Microscope: A documentary by Aaron Rose
(Beautiful Losers) on 1960s pop artist and nun Sister Corita,
who called Alfred Hitchcock, John Cage and the Eames friends.
Best Worst Movie: If you make a really bad movie, like
Troll 2 bad, someday it will be celebrated as a cult classic,
and someone will make a doc about it.
Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky: There’s a wave of
fashion-related films and docs coming out this year, and this French
film is probably the classiest of the lot, recounting a romance between
the fashion icon and the composer.
The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus: While everyone has been
talking about Heath Ledger, we’ve been quietly anticipating Tom Waits
as the devil.
The Invention of Lying: Ricky Gervais. Tina Fey. Jason
Bateman. Jeffrey Tambor.
Prom Night in Mississippi: A Mississippi high school holds
separate proms for white and black students. Morgan Freeman wants to
end the segregation.
This article appears in Aug 27 – Sep 2, 2009.