|
|
July 29, 2005
All of mankind is here
Cinémathèque series showcases Canadian films.
KATHARINE HAMER EDITOR
What do an animated film about a down-and-out artist, a documentary
indictment against the Chinese occupation of Tibet and a feature
about a teenage would-be marathon runner from Hamilton have in common?
They're all part of the Canada's Top Ten series, screening this
August at Pacific Cinémathèque.
The program, which runs Aug. 13-24, was selected by a panel of filmmakers,
festival programmers, journalists, academics and industry professionals
from across the country. It's the second year the series, an initiative
of the Toronto International Film Festival, has played at Pacific
Cinémathèque.
As executive director and programmer Jim Sinclair points out, it's
part of the Cinémathèque mandate to promote Canadian
film. "A colleague of mine calls it 'God's work,' " said
Sinclair wryly. "It's something we have to do – but it's
not easy." He notes that few English-language Canadian films
garner the same kind of wide release and publicity funding as their
Hollywood counterparts.
Leading off the screenings is Vancouver-produced mockumentary It's
All Gone Pete Tong (the name of the famous British DJ is Cockney
slang for "wrong"). Calgary director Michael Dowse, whose
first feature was the breakout hit Fubar, has set this film
on the Spanish island of Ibiza (party central for young European
sun-seekers). It's a love story, of sorts, about a deaf DJ, Frankie
Wilde. The title character is played by the irrepressible British
comic Paul Kaye – who first shot to fame as sardonic celebrity-baiter
Dennis Pennis on BBC Television's The Sunday Show (sample
line of questioning, to an unsuspecting Richard Gere, "As you're
a Buddhist, do you like Tibet or do you think gambling's wrong?")
Despite his precocious onscreen performance, Kaye was best known
among the comedy series' production crew as "a nice Jewish
boy."
As Wilde, he portrays a demented, drug-addled leader of the party
circuit who – after losing his hearing – undergoes a transformation
into a gentler, more understanding sort of soul, complete with a
bang-on catalogue of facial expressions ranging from deranged to
bewildered. The film, also starring bombastic Canadian comic Mike
Wilmot as Wilde's manager, was one of the few English-language Canadian
movies to get wide release in the United States this year.
Stephen Lewis, the United Nations' special envoy to Africa, is among
the key commentators in Peter Raymont's harrowing documentary Shake
Hands with the Devil: The Journey of Roméo Dallaire.
Based on Dallaire's book of the same name, the film follows the
Canadian general as he returns to the blood-stained ground of Rwanda
- site of a genocide he had been unable to stop, 10 years before.
Despite Hollywood's best efforts at recreating the horror of ethnic
cleansing in last year's Hotel Rwanda, the reality of Shake
Hands is far more compelling.
"I literally felt I had been chopped at the knees," recounts
Dallaire – who floundered helplessly in the face of a strategic
withdrawal by the United Nations.
"They plunked him into the middle of the most incendiary human
predicament – and then, when he responded intelligently, they
refused to take him seriously," notes Lewis.
The series also includes Chris Landreth's Oscar-winning animated
short Ryan, about once-famous, now dissolute Montreal animator
Ryan Larkin; Child Star, from actor/director Don McKellar;
and Vancouver director Velcrow Ripper's ScaredSacred, which
documents life at "some of our planet's Ground Zeroes"
– Bhopal, India, New York City, Cambodia, Sarajevo and the
Middle East.
For a complete schedule of films, visit www.cinematheque.bc.ca.
^TOP
|
|
