turkey shoot - Metro Cinema

JANUARY AND
FEBRUARY 2009
PATTI SMITH:
DREAM OF LIFE
THE EXILES
BEST OF OTTAWA
a n imatio n
LILJA 4EVER
BALLAST
Metro Cinema
9828 - 101 A Avenue,
Zeidler Hall Main Floor Citadel Theatre
Office: 6-32, 7 Sir Winston Churchill Square,
Edmonton, AB T5J 2V5
Tel: 780 425 9212 Fax: 780 428 3509
e-mail: [email protected]
www.metrocinema.org
TURKEY
SHOOT
WEEKEND OF
THE WITCH
Metro Cinema is a non-profit society devoted to the exhibition and promotion of film and video as an art form.
To this end, the Metro presents a varied palette of independent, International and Canadian cinema every weekend.
Our films are presented in a modern, comfortable 224 seat auditorium (Zeidler Hall) located at 9828 - 101A Avenue,
main floor inside the Citadel Theatre complex. Facilities are readily accessible to the physically handicapped.
Remember that metered parking is free downtown after 6pm and that we are on the LRT line above Churchill Station.
If you are interested in volunteering for Metro Cinema please call 425.9212, or email [email protected].
Towers Open Fire
UK 1963, 16 min, 16mm,
Dir: William S. Burroughs & Anthony Balch
Anthony Balch collaborated on a number of film experiments
with Burroughs. “Towers Open Fire is a collage of the main
themes and situations or “routines” that appear in Burroughs
cut-up novels of the period. The soundtrack accompaniment
is a mixture of recordings made by Burroughs on a cheap
Grundig tape recorder and resembles many of the cutup tape experiments achieved in collaboration with Ian
Somerville. The film depicts a crumbling society; members
of “a board” are dematerialized, and Burroughs plays an
omnipresent role in the film (not least as the victim of an
“orgasm attack” in which he leaps through a window and
shoots family photos with a ping-pong gun). Also appearing
in the film are early flicker experiments courtesy of Gysin’s
“dream machine”, a flicker machine that when viewed with
eyelids closed reproduces alpha-rhythm flicker and reputedly
causes 360-degree fractal hallucinations without the use of
chemical stimulants.” Description from an excellent article in
Bright Lights Film Journal on the films of Burroughs, Gysin
and Balch: www.brightlightsfilm.com/39/cutups1.htm
Patti Smith: Dream of Life
USA 2008, 109 min, 35mm, Dir: Steven Sebring
Jan 2 & 4 @ 9:15pm, Jan 3 & 5 @ 7pm
“Life isn’t some vertical or horizontal line. You have your
own internal world, and it’s not neat.” — Patti Smith
Not vertical nor horizontal nor neat, Dream of Life is a hypnotic
plunge, a breathing collage of this legendary musician/poet/
painter/activist’s philosophy and artistry that feels as if it sprang
directly from her soul. A punk pioneer and spiritual child of
Rimbaud, Blake, and Burroughs, Patti Smith’s fierce poetry
and rock music shook up New York’s 1970s underground
scene, and her work continues to be stirred organically by her
rigorous mind, beloved artistic touchstones, and world events.
Shot over 11 years, Dream of Life travels Smith’s mystical
interior terrain - the ideas, losses, and memories she wrestles
with - as much as tracing her outward adventures. Layered
with mesmerizing recitations, music, and narration, the fluid
journey incorporates performances, graveyard pilgrimages
and political rallies, archival nuggets, and vérité moments with
her working-class parents, children, and friends. From raw,
intimate sessions in her apartment to formidable incantations
delivered to roaring crowds, Smith’s expression is unmediated
by pretense or artifice. Remarkably - and this may be the key
to her artistic potency - she doesn’t reject death or construct
polarities of good and bad. Instead, she embraces darkness
and melancholy in a way that’s liberating and also life affirming.
As she manifests the transcendent in life, Dream of Life
reaches for the ineffable in Patti Smith. (Sundance)
Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired
Jan 2 & 4 @ 7pm, Jan 3 & 5 @ 9pm,
Jan 6 & 7 @ 7 and 9:15pm
USA / UK 2008, 99 min, 35mm, Dir: Marina Zenovich
FLicKeR
Canada 2007, 72 min, DigiBeta, Dir: Nik Sheehan
“Really, I think, behind everything, he was trying to teach
people to see differently.” (Marianne Faithfull, on Brion Gysin)
The dream machine looks simple enough: A 100-watt light bulb,
a motor, and a rotating cylinder with cutouts. Just sit in front
of it, close your eyes, and wait for the visions to come. The
dream machine offers a drugless high that its creator - poet,
artist, calligrapher and mystic Brion Gysin - believed would
revolutionize human consciousness. He wasn’t alone. Kurt
Cobain had a dream machine. And William S. Burroughs thought
it could be used to “storm the citadels of enlightenment.” With a
custom-made dream machine in tow, director Nik Sheehan takes
us on a journey into the life of Brion Gysin - his art, his complex
ideas, and his friendships with some of the 20th century’s key
counterculture figures. Gysin was fascinated by identity. He saw
himself as incarnating the 10th-century King of Assassins, trained
in counter-espionage during WWII, and wrote and rewrote his
name in countless permutations, as if to make it disappear - in
the process, inventing the cut-up technique that his lifelong friend,
Beat novelist Burroughs, would make famous. Featuring greats
like Burroughs (in archival footage), singer Marianne Faithfull,
singer/artist Genesis P-Orridge of Pyschic TV, poet John Giorno,
punk rocker Iggy Pop, filmmaker Kenneth Anger, and artist/
turntablist DJ Spooky, FLicKeR is a hypnotic documentary,
which won a Special Jury Prize at Hot Docs 2008. With:
Wanted and Desired is a fascinating look at the public
scandal and private tragedy of one of the world’s most
famous film directors. The documentary focuses on
the events that led to Polanski’s sudden flight from the
United States after his conviction for unlawful intercourse
with a minor in 1977. Known for such films as The
Tenant, Rosemary’s Baby and Chinatown, Polanski’s
life has been marked by tragedy. His mother was killed
by Nazis during the Holocaust and his wife, actress
Sharon Tate was murdered by the followers of Charles
Manson in 1969. He rebuilt his career in the 1970s but
made a fateful mistake during a photo shoot with a 13
year old girl. Subsequently convicted of unlawful sexual
intercourse with a minor, Polanski pled guilty and served
42 days in jail. Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired
explores how the case affected both the young girl and
Polanski, while addressing larger, lasting questions
about the media, our cultural obsession with celebrity
and the US legal system.
Jan 9 & 11 @ 7pm, Jan 10 & 12 @ 9pm
January and February 2009
Graphic Designers of Canada
AGM with Ben Day
The Annual General Meeting of the Society of Graphic
Designers of Canada / Alberta North Chapter is held to
conduct elections and to discuss and vote on any society
matters. Only members of the society can cast votes, but
the proceedings are open to the general public. At the
conclusion of the AGM, we will screen the film Ben Day.
Popcorn and refreshments will be provided by our event
sponsor, Coast Paper. For more info, please contact admin.
[email protected]. With:
Ben Day
USA 2006, 45 min, Dir:
Dana Arnett and Bob Rice
Edmonton Tonight
EDMONTON TONIGHT is a live variety/talk show in the
classic format featuring local artistes, luminaries and regular
people with interesting things to show and tell. There will be
musical performances, demonstrations, poetry readings,
interviews, film and video screenings and more. Wind down
your week or start up your weekend. Come on down and
see who is on the “Hef” tonight. Admission is $5. Sorry,
Metro passes don’t apply.
Jan 16 @ 10:30pm
Ben Day, a film by Dana Arnett
about the world’s greatest living
graphic designer. The film
chronicles the meteoric rise of
the fictitious designer Ben Day,
from relative obscurity to a near
rock star-like existence. After
he amasses a large collection
of awards, Ben begins to
question the value of his work
and the origins of his creativity. Is this his inspiration, or that of
another? The 45+ minute film stars Kyle Colerider-Krugh and
a cast from Second City in Chicago. Filmed in Chicago and
directed by Dana Arnett and Bob Rice.
Jan 13 @ 6:30pm (FREE)
Libero
Italy 2006, 104 min, Dir: Kim Rossi Stuart
Italian with English subtitles
Died Young, Stayed Pretty
Canada 2008, 94 min, Dir: Eileen Yaghoobian
Died Young, Stayed Pretty is a candid look at the
renaissance of North America’s underground, indie-rock
poster movement spurred by the unexpected launch
of groupie Clayton Hayes’ web portal Gigposters.com.
Picking up where punk left off, this documentary reveals
a new breed of counter-culturists that set out to destroy
the mainstream through their controversial and intensely
visceral design work. Under the guise of advertising for
rocks shows, these unheralded masters of the silkscreen
and Xerox machine carry on public discourses that range
from hot button political issues to lewd inside jokes.
Stealing from the golden era of Americana, they pervert
classic pop culture references and slap it in the face of
polite society while safely treading under the radar. Died
Young, Stayed Pretty offers a look at some of the giants
of this modern subculture, some who go for broke to
maintain their creative workshops while others have found
tremendous commercial success. Yaghoobian sneaks
her lens into the lives of these self-professed radicals to
discover where the real punk power lies, if any remains.
Jan 9, 11 & 13 @ 9pm, Jan 10 & 12 @ 7pm
Freelance film cameraman Renato is a single father. His
artistic inflexibility has made work hard to come by, and the
daily stress of family life with his teenage daughter Viola and
eleven-year-old son, Tommi, has made his temperament very
uncertain. Sweet and affectionate one moment, then angrily
domineering the next, he treats his children as his equals,
rather than as his responsibility. Then his wife, Stefania,
shows up at the door, swearing that she has changed and
from now on will be a good wife and loving mother. We see
the family entirely from the viewpoint of Tommi, desperate for
love, unsure of who he can trust, and unsure of his own role.
“Beautifully acted and convincing from start to finish, it is a
difficult and often painful film, but also a richly rewarding one”
– Anton Bitel, Eye for Film
Rating 14A, coarse language, mature themes
Jan 14 @ 6:30pm in the Stanley Milner Library
Stitches
Edmonton 2008, 92 min, Dir: Steve Ashworth
Produced by the Victoria School of Performing and Visual
Arts and Joe Media of Calgary, Stitches tells the story of
Travis Trask, a small town boy who is the victim of serial
bullying at the hands of a gang of bullies over a 3 year
period during his Junior High years in the fictional Alberta
town of Acton. Based on the Governor General’s Award
winning novel by Edmonton author Glen Huser, Stitches
was shot entirely in Edmonton during the summer of
2008 and represents the collaboration of many schools,
organizations and support groups. The film’s major sponsor
was Alberta Children and Youth Services through their
Prevention of Family Violence and Bullying Initiative.
Jan 15 @ 7pm
Flow: For Love of Water
USA 2008, 93 min, Dir: Irena Salina
“Thousands have lived without love, not one without water.”
W.H. Auden
Auden’s quote begins Irena Salina’s powerful documentary
about the looming fresh-water crisis. Of the world’s six billion
people it’s estimated that 1.1 billion do not have access to
safe drinking water. Drought and pollution have reduced
fresh-water supplies with privatization an added threat. To
document the situation, Salina traveled the world for five
years to countries including France, India, Canada, Bolivia
and the United States (where rocket fuel has made its way
into tap water). Flow: For Love of Water is the second
documentary for Salina, following her award-winning Ghost
Bird: The Life and Art of Judith Deim.
Jan 17 & 19 @ 7pm, Jan 18 & 20 @ 9pm
Turkey Shoot
Join Dave Clarke, Jeff Page and their sarcastic friends
as they make fun of cinema’s most ridiculous movies.
FAVA’s 16mm
Film Class Screening
Students of FAVA’s 16mm Film Class will be premiering
their new short films at Metro Cinema. FAVA’s 16mm Film
Production Class uses traditional methods and tools (no digital
here!), and students apply these new skills as they bring their
own short film through all stages of development, production
and post-production. The works produced by these students
display an incredible range of content and style. Admission is
by donation. Visit www.fava.ca for more information.
Jan 22 @ 7pm
Ashes of Time Redux
China 2008, 93 min, 35mm, Dir: Wong Kar Wai
Wong Kar Wai’s Ashes of Time has been described
as a thinking man’s martial arts melodrama. Inspired by
characters from Louis Cha’s martial arts novel The Eagle
Shooting Heroes, the film is set in the jianghu (the world of
the martial arts) and presented in the five seasons of the
Chinese almanac. After the love of his life rejects him for his
brother, Ouyang Feng (Leslie Cheung) takes his wounded
heart to the desert. He fulfills the wishes of those who have
been wronged by putting them in touch with swordsmen to
carry out contract killings. Ouyang is pitiless and cynical,
yet his encounters with friends, clients and future enemies
make him conscious of his solitude.
Over the Top
USA 1987, 93 min, Dir: Menahem Golan.
Written by Stirling Silliphant and Sylvester Stallone
“Rocky, Rambo, Cobra and now Hawk, in the biggest
fight of his life.” – original tagline.
This month we explore the hidden depths of Over the
Top, which Stallone made between his masterpieces
Rocky IV and Rocky V. In a chameleon-like acting
stretch, Stallone plays Hawk, a long haul trucker who
regains his son’s love by – wait for it – competitive arm
wrestling! As an added bonus, Dave and Jeff will end the
screening by – wait for it – leg wrestling!
Jan 16, 18 & 20 @ 7pm, Jan 17 & 19 @ 9pm
Jan 21 @ 8pm
Wild Horse Redemption
Ice Castles
Canada 2007, 91 min, Dir: John Zaritsky
At a prison in the high desert foothills of the Colorado Rocky
Mountains, hardened criminals are taught the training
methods of ‘horse whisperers’ and given 90 days to tame
wild mustangs taken from the herd that roams government
lands. Failure means one more defeat for the inmate;
success could save both lives. Most of the inmates who
volunteer for this unique rehabilitation program have never
ridden a horse before, let alone train a wild one. The Wild
Horse Redemption follows the men and mustangs of the
Wild Horse Inmate Program through one training cycle.
Experienced inmate trainers guide greenhorn trainees while
they attempt to gentle and saddle-train horses fresh from
the range. Can two wild creatures tame each other?
Jan 18 @ 2pm (FREE)
USA 1978, 108 min, Dir: Donald Wrye,
Written by Gary L. Baim and Donald Wrye.
Lexie is a figure skater with
big dreams. Then, in a freak
accident, she goes blind! Only
one weepy seventies teen actor
can help her fulfill her dream –
Robby Benson. Join Dave Clarke
and Jeff Page (themselves once
blind figure skaters), perhaps
with an acerbic friend, as they
enjoy a Valentine’s feast of this
frozen turkey.
Feb 18 @ 8pm
Alice’s House
Brazil 2007, 94 min, 35mm, Dir: Chico Teixeira
Documentarian Chico Teixeira’s first dramatic feature bears
the earmarks of his nonfiction background, as well as the
influence of Lars von Trier’s Dogma films, but Teixeira
brings a wry compassion to this story of ordinary people
leading ordinary lives. In one small Sao Paulo apartment,
a world of drama is unfolding. Alice (Carla Ribas) is a forty
something manicurist who lives with her three teenage
sons, her husband and her elderly mother. Everyone in
Alice’s world has a secret: her husband has developed a
passion for underage girls; one of her sons is a gay hustler,
the other a petty thief; and her mother is slowly going blind.
When an old love makes a sudden reappearance in her life,
Alice, too has something to hide.
Jan 23 & 25 @ 7pm, Jan 24 & 26 @ 9pm
January and February 2009
Best of Ottawa 2008 (70 min)
Último ‘Spong Ice’
The Ottawa International Animation Festival is the
largest festival of its kind in North America, and one
of the most respected animation festivals in the world.
The Best of Ottawa program showcases many of the
outstanding films presented in its Official Competition.
The 2008 program includes such exceptional films as:
Andy & Carolyn London’s thought-provoking A Letter
to Colleen; The Comic That Frenches Your Mind, a
brain-melting trip by veteran director Bruce Bickford; The
Control Master, a hilarious and suspenseful adventure
by Run Wrake; and the intense and award-winning film
from Dennis Tupicoff, Chainsaw.
Portugal 2008, 3 min,
Bolos Quentes Design (Duarte
Amorim, Albino Tavares, Miguel
Marinheiro & Sérgio Couto)
OIAF 08 Signal Film
Canada 2008, 2 min,
Dir: Ian Lagarde, Fake Studio
When the OIAF comes around
each year, the entire world is
turned upside-down. Ink on paper,
2D Computer, 3D Computer. With:
Último is the last painter. The painter also makes music.
Paint, ink on 16mm film Winner: Best Music Video. With:
The Control Master
UK 2008, 7 min,
Dir: Run Wrake, Sclah Films
The Comic That Frenches Your Mind
USA 2008, 5 min, Dir: Bruce Bickford
A drug-muddled mind tries to think back to its origins and
is helped along the way by a mysterious lighthouse and
childhood icons. Pencil on paper, Finalist: Experimental/
Abstract Animation. With:
In peaceful Halftone City, a mysterious heroine and a
brave ally face the ultimate threat. 2D Computer & Cutouts, Finalist: Narrative Short With:
Chainsaw
Australia 2007, 25 min,
Dir: Dennis Tupicoff,
Jungle Pictures
Frank and Ava Gardner live out in the country, amongst
the kookaburras and the cattle. Their jobs are menial, but
they are true romantics at heart. Moving between fact and
fiction, Hollywood and Spain, past and present, Chainsaw
is a chain of stories about romance and celebrity, machismo
and chainsaws, fantasy and death. And how the natural
world endures. 2D Computer, 3D Computer, Pencil on
paper & Rotoscope, Winner: Best Independent Animation,
Best Narrative Short Animation
C’est toujours la même
histoire (It’s Always
the Same Story)
France 2007, 5 min,
Dir: Joris Clerté & Anne Morin,
Senso Films & Doncvoilà
At the age of 16, Jean-Luc went to the cinema and saw
a movie that would forever change how he looked at
his father. 2D Computer, Finalist: Narrative Short. With:
Jan 23 & 25 @ 9pm, Jan 24 & 26 @ 7pm
Unforgotten
Canada 2008, 95 min,
Dir: Carlo Ghioni
A Letter To Colleen
USA 2007, 9 min, Dir: Andy London & Carolyn
London, London Squared Productions
Cattle Call
Canada 2008, 3 min, Dir: Mike Maryniuk & Matt Rankin
A pixallated documentary about cattle auctioneers and
their hypnotic verbal mathe’magic’. Cut-outs, Photocopies,
Pixilation, Puppets, Open exposure painting with light, Hole
punching & Letracet on 35mm, Finalist: Experimental/
Abstract Animation. With:
I Slept With
Cookie Monster
USA 2008, 3 min,
Dir: Kara Nasdor-Jones,
Massachusetts
College of Art
Detailing a woman’s struggle
with and triumph over domestic
violence. Flash, Ink on paper,
Pastel on paper, Rotoscope &
Painted tissue paper, Winner:
Best Student Animation, Best
Undergraduate Animation.
With:
Andy London has been haunted by the events of his
18th birthday for years. In this short animated film set in
the early 90’s, he writes a letter to Colleen in an attempt
to put his demons to rest. Rotoscope, Finalist: Narrative
Short. With:
The Mixy Tapes
Canada 2007, 6 min,
Dir: David Seitz & Mike
Wray, National Film Board
of Canada
Musician MIXYLODIAN (Mike
Wray) and filmmaker David
Seitz team up to tell the story
of their collaborative effort
to produce a film. As the
duo navigates an imagined
world of visual metaphors in
search of the perfect idea,
realities of production and
problems of communication
render the film increasingly
problematic.
Animated
Objects, Cut-outs, Pencil on
paper & Pixilation, Finalist:
Narrative Short. With:
In Unforgotten, filmmaker Carlo
Ghioni weaves a documentary
narrative of the life of Canadian cowboy, Roy Scott. The film
observes Roy as a working man – a working cowboy. Now in his
eighties, Roy no longer enters the arena on a horse, instead he
harnesses his team to carts he has lovingly built or refurbished,
preserving the past for the future. One of his specialties is the
Red River Cart, like those used by the Metis to transport goods
across the west in days of old. Unforgotten is a portrait of
an old cowboy, but it is also a study of the relationships that
sustain the man: the relationships he has with the animals that
surround him; with his Metis neighbors; and particularly with the
wife of his winter years, Marge. Together Roy and Marge share
a passion for resurrecting the abandoned and forgotten, be it
with animals, people, or traditions of the past.
Jan 29 @ 7:30pm
Down to the Dirt
Reprise
Canada 2008, 114 min, 35mm,
Dir: Justin Simms
Norway 2006, 105 min, Dir: Joachim Trier
Norwegian with English subtitles.
Down to the Dirt is a darkly humorous
chronicle of the transformative power
of love, and the improbable roads that
lead to redemption. Thirty year old Keith
Kavanagh (Joel Thomas Hynes) ekes
his way through life in a small town. A
hard-drinking hooligan, he keeps his
ragged collection of poetry a closely guarded secret...as secret
as his regret for the shattered relationship with his father. When
Keith meets the darkly exotic Nathasha (Mylene Savoie), his life
is changed forever. Scary, sexy and funny Down to the Dirt is a
raw and poignant adaptation of the internationally acclaimed novel,
authored by the lead, Joel Hynes.
Jan 30 & Feb 1 @ 7pm, Jan 31 & Feb 2 @ 9pm
Tkaranto
The Exiles
USA 1961, 72 min, 35mm, Dir: Kent MacKenzie
The Exiles chronicles one night in the lives of young Native
American men and women living in the Bunker Hill district of
Los Angeles. Based entirely on interviews with the participants
and their friends, the film follows a group of exiles — transplants
from Southwest reservations — as they flirt, drink, party, fight, and
dance. Filmmaker Kent Mackenzie first conceived of The Exiles
during the making of his short film Bunker Hill—1956 while a
student at the University of Southern California. In July 1957,
Mackenzie began to hang around with some of the young Indians
in downtown Los Angeles. After a couple of months, he broached
the subject of making a film that would present a realistic portrayal
of Indian life in the community. Mackenzie spent long hours making
friends and earning the confidence of these Indians who finally
agreed to reenact scenes from their lives for this picture. All of the
actors, some of whom were recruited on the spur of the moment
during the shooting, play themselves in the film. The Exiles was
directed and photographed by a group of young filmmakers Mackenzie’s college mates, fellow employees, and friends holding
down a variety of day-to-day jobs in the motion picture industry.
Canada 2007, 105 min, DigiBeta, Dir: Shane Belcourt
Feb 6, 8 & 9 @ 7 & 9pm
Tkaronto is a reflective and provoking exploration of two
Aboriginal 30-somethings, Ray and Jolene, who make an
unexpected connection at the pinnacle of a common struggle:
to stake claim to their urban aboriginal identity. Ray Morin,
A Métis writer, is in Tkaronto (the original Mohawk word for
“Toronto”) to pitch his TV series, Indian Jones. This looks to be
his big break. The only problem is Ray’s growing disdain for
TV execs who are more motivated by ticking off the Aboriginal
box and tapping into “hot” Aboriginal funding than they are
genuinely interested in the project itself. Ray feels caught
between a rock and a hard place as his non-aboriginal wife
puts the pressure on him to take the job. Jolene Peltier, an
Anishnabe painter, is in Tkaronto conducting interviews for a
series of portraits on prominent Aboriginal people. When Elder
Max Cardinal gives her an eagle feather and sweetgrass,
it confirms her deep-seated feeling that she should walk a
spiritual path. But can walking this path mean the end of her
relationship with her husband who seems utterly disinterested
in Jolene’s newfound spiritual calling?
Inuit Odyssey
Jan 30 & Feb 1 @ 9:15pm, Jan 31 & Feb 2 @ 7pm
Canada 2008, 45 min,
Dir: Tom Radford
Join renowned Edmonton filmmaker Tom Radford for the world
premiere of his latest film Inuit Odyssey. This documentary
presents Arctic anthropologist Niobe Thompson on a circumpolar
expedition following the path of the Thule, conquerers of the ancient
Arctic. Thompson journeys across the North and a millennium back
in time, tracing the origins of the modern Inuit in an extraordinary
Arctic Odyssey from Siberia to Greenland. What he discovers
along the way overturns stereotypes of the “peaceful Eskimo”
and sheds new light on the first meeting of Asiatic and European
settlers in the New World. This premiere screening is being held as
part of the University of Alberta’s Centenary celebrations.
Feb 7 @ 7pm
Mostly Water presents:
Metro Digital Shorts
Mostly Water Theatre’s Metro Digital Shorts is a live screening of
short films written, produced and performed by Edmonton’s best
and worst up-and-coming cinematic sensations. Loosely based on
Channel101.com in LA and Metro TV in Edmonton, Metro Digital
Shorts is a chance for independent short filmmakers to get their
work seen, adjudicated by professionals, get paid, win prizes and
be forced to make a second short. The audience members act as
studio executives, voting to decide if the short is good enough for
a command performance of a second short (to be shown at the
next installment of Metro Digital Shorts). If your short doesn’t get
selected for a second installment, you’re free to try again.
Both comedic and more serious submissions are welcome but
must be a maximum of 5 minutes and must not contain any
copyright violations. Other than that, it’s wide open: your chance
to get your film shorts seen, to compete against local artists and
one day rule the world. Submit your shorts on a MiniDV tape or
an uncompressed Quicktime.mov file on a DVD to: Metro Digital
Shorts, 6-32 Stanley Milner Library, 7 Sir Winston Churchill
Square, Edmonton AB T5J 2V5 by Wed, Jan 28.
Feb 7 @ 9pm
This film festival favorite was Norway’s selection for the 2006 Best
Foreign film Oscar. Reprise is an intelligent reflection on friendship
and youthful exuberance – a portrait of two young writers for whom
life and art occupy the same blurry space. It is full of honest and
carefully observed moments, and while its preoccupations are
weighty (love, disappointment, and self-doubt), Reprise is buoyed
by visual flourish, an infectious energy, and a superb soundtrack.
Its splashy, self-conscious style – a throwback to the French New
Wave – mixes film stocks, homages, flashbacks, flash-forwards,
an unidentified narrator, and frequent detours to Paris. Manohla
Dargia of New York Times called Reprise “one of the most
passionately and intellectually uninhibited works from a young
director I’ve seen in ages. Rated 14A, coarse language
Feb 11 @ 6:30pm in the Stanley Milner Library
Ballast
USA 2008, 96 min, 35mm,
Dir: Lance Hammer
In the cold, winter light of a rural
Mississippi Delta township, a man’s
suicide radically transforms three
characters lives and throws off-balance
what has long been a static arrangement
among them. Marlee is a single mother
struggling to scratch a living for herself
and James, her 12-year-old son, who has begun to stumble under
drug and violence pressures. So when the opportunity to seek safe
harbor at a new home arises, she grabs it, though the property is
shared by Lawrence, a man with whom Marlee has feuded bitterly
since James’s birth. Ballast is one of those rare films that maximize
the medium through an aesthetic of understatement. Every frame
is deliberately and beautifully composed, every cut artfully and
economically executed not only to transmit a quietly gripping story
but to reveal characters’ layered emotional experiences and the
specific textures and sensations of their locales.
“There isn’t much talk and not a drop of cynicism in Ballast,
Lance Hammer’s austerely elegant, emotionally unadorned riff
on life and death in the Mississippi Delta. Shot with a sure hand
and a cast of unknowns, the film doesn’t so much tell a story
as develop a tone and root around a place that, despite the
intimate camerawork, remains shrouded in ambiguity.… It’s a
serious achievement and a welcome sign of a newly invigorated
American independent cinema.” The New York Times
Feb 13, 15, 16 & 17 @ 7pm & 9pm
Afghan Music Week
British ethnomusicologist John Baily is in Edmonton as part
of an Afghan Music Week hosted by the Department of
Music and the Canadian Centre for Ethnomusicology at the
University of Alberta. There will also be a concert of Afghan
and Indian classical music (featuring local and international
artists) on February 10 in partnership with the Edmonton Raga
Mala Society. For more information contact Federico Spinetti
([email protected]) or visit www.music.ualberta.ca.
AMIR: An Afghan Refugee Musician’s
Life in Peshawar, Pakistan
UK 1985, 52 min,
Dir: John Baily,
Produced by the Royal Anthropological Institute
Between 1973 and 1977 John Baily carried out extensive
ethnomusicological fieldwork on the urban music of Afghanistan,
particularly in the western city of Herat. In 1985, he traveled to
Peshawar to film Afghan refugees who were musicians and
again met his old friend Amir Mohammad, from Herat. The film
portrays aspects of Amir’s life as a refugee - his living conditions
in Peshawar and his longing to return to Herat. It is also about
January and February 2009
Amir’s life as a professional musician and his relationships with
other musicians in Peshawar. Musical performances include
resistance songs at a Pakistani wedding. Winner of several
awards for ethnographic and anthropological film. “It is a
poignant production. The plight of refugees comes through and
should leave no-one indifferent.” - Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan,
UN Co-ordinator Operation Salam Ticket prices for this event:
$5 for students, $8 for adults.
Lilja 4-Ever
Presented by the Pochaiv Safe House
Brand Upon the Brain!
EDMONTON TONIGHT is a live variety/talk show in the classic
format featuring local artistes, luminaries and regular people
with interesting things to show and tell. There will be musical
performances, demonstrations, poetry readings, interviews, film
and video screenings and more. Wind down your week or start
up your weekend. Come on down and see who is on the “Hef”
tonight. Admission is $5. Sorry, Metro passes don’t apply.
Canada 2006, 95 min, 35mm, Dir: Guy Maddin
Feb 20 @ 10:30pm
Surreal, satiric and surprisingly touching, Guy Maddin’s film
looks at the secret lives of families in a work that is equal
parts childhood reminiscence, Expressionist horror movie,
teen detective serial and Grand Guignol reverie. Memories
are everywhere on Guy’s beloved island. He remembers
his pubescent sister (Maya Lawson), his chastity-demanding
mother (who watches over the island with her super telescope),
his workaholic scientist father and his own under-stimulated
youth. Then, celebrity teen detectives Wendy and Chance Hale
(both played by Katherine E. Scharhon) arrive on the island to
investigate the mysterious head wounds suffered by former
charges of Guy’s enigmatically malevolent mother and father.
Maddin’s furious, dreamy visuals are nearly overwhelming.
With his misremembered autobiographical mélange of real and
imaginary family drama, he warns that all things will happen
again and again, but for those who dare, nothing is impossible.
(Stacey Donen, TIFF) Presented in conjunction with the 11th
Annual Film Studies Association Graduate Colloquium hosted
by the Department of English and Film Studies at the University
of Alberta. Check our website for updated information.
Shakespeare on Screen:
Prospero’s Books
Feb 14 @ 7pm
Feb 14 @ 9pm
NFB Matinee
On this Sunday afternoon, we’ll be
screening a recent documentary,
to be determined, from the National
Film Board of Canada.
Feb 15 @ 2pm (FREE)
Weekend of the Witch
“So Jill...what are you brewing up with the weekend of the witches
at Metro? They look pretty potent but I don’t know them.”
“Hey Leslea...it’s a couple of films about how ladies with
power have been feared and persecuted throughout
history. Witches have gotten a bad rap on film and have
pretty much been portrayed as evil and scary.”
“Kind of like take back time for the oracular ladies?”
“Indeed!”
Presented in partnership with the
Freewill Shakespeare Festival
France / Netherlands / UK / Japan 1991,
129 min, 35mm, Dir: Peter Greenaway
Peter Greenaway’s audacious 1991 film Prospero’s Books
is the stuff that dreams are made of. John Gielgud said
that a film version of The Tempest was his life’s ambition.
He had approached Alain Resnais, Ingmar Bergman, Akira
Kurosawa, and Orson Welles about directing him in it,
before Peter Greenaway agreed. The film, loosely based
on William Shakespeare’s mystery play, does not present
the work using conventional staging but suggests it through
dreamlike ballet sequences with writhing nude dancers,
computer animation, lush photography, surreal imagery
and the evocative music of Michael Nyman. Gielgud, still
magnificent in his eighties, is Prospero, the philosopherking. He is the voice of all the other characters as well
as Prospero including the witch’s son, Caliban (dancer
Michael Clark), the King’s son Ferdinand (Mark Rylance),
and Prospero’s fifteen-year old daughter Miranda (Isabelle
Pasco) and, in his clearly articulated poetic voice, Gielgud
allows Shakespeare’s language to soar.
Thurs, Feb 26 @ 7pm
of a stroke, fulfilling her not so secret wishes, Anne is branded
a witch and persecuted by the villagers. Its compositions
evocative of Rembrandt and northern Renaissance paintings,
Day of Wrath is a harrowing, thrilling experience from its first
sequences, showing an old witch burned at the stake, to the
final apotheosis of Anne. Despite its Ken Russellish subjects
- sudden death, forbidden desire, witchcraft, paranoia, and
persecution - Day of Wrath is rigorously ascetic, and all the
more powerful for its austerity.
Feb 20 & 22 @ 7pm, Feb 21 & 23 @ 9pm
Day of Wrath
Burn, Witch, Burn! (Night of the Eagle)
Denmark 1943, 110 min, 35mm,
Dir: Carl Theodor Dreyer
UK 1962, 87 min, 35mm, Dir: Sidney Hayes
“It has been said that Carl Dreyer’s
art begins to unfold just at the point
where most directors give up, and
this psychological masterpiece,
suggesting a fusion of Hawthorne
and Kafka, is proof. . . . The most
intense, powerful film ever made on
the subject of witchcraft, it explores
the erotic tensions of the ‘witch’ and
her accusers” (Pauline Kael). Derided
and misunderstood when it was first released, Day of Wrath is
now counted as one of cinema’s greatest works. Set in 1623,
during the puritanical Danish Reformation, Wrath centres on
Anne, who is trapped in a loveless marriage to a dour pastor.
She is in love with his son, and when the pastor suddenly dies
The Pochaiv Safe House project is raising funds for a transitional
home for disadvantaged youth in Ukraine. They’ve been working
since 2001 to help over 2500 orphans, and abused and neglected
children in the Lviv area. Unfortunately, after a child reaches
adolescence, there is nowhere for them to live. Unprepared for
adult life, they are released from the orphanage, and are quite often
preyed upon or sold into slavery. The Pochaiv Safe House project
will provide a safe place to live, and to learn useful trades such as
sewing, carpentry and computers. For more information, contact
[email protected], or 780-437-2116.
A university professor committed to rational thought discovers
that his wife is practicing voodoo and witchcraft. Like the
learned fellow he is, he forces her to destroy all her magical
charms and protective devices, and stop that foolishness. He
isn’t put off by her insistence that his professional rivals are
working magic against him, and her protections are necessary
to his career and life. Scriptwriters Richard Mathieson (I Am
Legend), George Baxt, & Charles Beaumont hone and
shape Fritz Leiber’s book (Conjure Wife) into a remarkable
psychologically ambiguous work. Melding the brooding
horror of Dreyer and Val Lewton, the inspired Hayes builds
a portentous atmosphere of superstition through judicious
framing & camera movement, producing a taut, genuinely
frightening witchcraft chiller.
Feb 21 & 23 @ 7pm, Feb 22 @ 9pm
Lilja 4- Ever
Denmark/Sweden 2002, 109 min, 35mm,
Dir: Lukas Moodysson
Lilya 4-Ever is a brutal look at growing up when the odds are
stacked against you. Lilya (Oksana Akinshina), is a 16 yearold girl living in the broken-down tenements of a small town
in Estonia. Abandoned by her mother, who has flown off to
be with her boyfriend in the United States, Lilya must fend for
herself. Her only friend is an 11 year-old boy named Volodya,
and together they construct elaborate fantasies that allow
them to escape, however temporarily, from the dreariness
of their lives. But fantasizing is a profitless pastime, and
Lilya needs money to continue living in her run-down flat.
Prostitution offers the opportunity to make a wage with little
effort, and Lilya reluctantly embraces it. She then meets
Andrei, a visitor from Sweden who spends time with her,
shows her consideration, and eventually asks her to return
with him to the West. She is overjoyed, but in her naivete,
what is obvious to Volodya - that Andrei is too good to be true
- is a fact that Lilya learns too late on her own. The third film
from Swedish filmmaker Lukas Moodysson, Lilja 4- Ever
can be put it in the same category as The War Zone and
The Sweet Hereafter - movies about intimate tragedies
whose impact wrenches both the heart and the mind. Light
entertainment, this is not. Unforgettable and challenging
cinema, it is. (adapted from a review by James Berardinelli)
Feb 27 & 28 @ 7pm & 9pm
Admission Prices:
Adults
Students/Seniors
Take 5 Memberships
Silver Screen Memberships
$10
$8
$40
$125
Metro Operations
aAron munson - President
Marsh Murphy - Executive Director
Jill Watamaniuk - Publicity & Print Traffic
Leslea Kroll - Administration
Zach Ketchum - Theatre Manager
Joel Rosskopf - Ass’t Theatre Manager
David Walsh - Ass’t Theatre Manager
Marc McCrum - Ass’t Theatre Manager
Tola Adeshina - Ass’t Theatre Manager
January and February 2009
Films at a glance... look inside the guide for details
sunday
MONDAY
tuesday
WEDNESDAY thursday
FRIDAY
saturday
2
3
8
9
10
15
16
17
22
23
24
7pm Alice’s House
9pm Best of Ottawa 2008
7pm Best of Ottawa 2008
9pm Alice’s House
30
31
JANUARY 1
7pm Patti Smith:
Dream of Life
9:15pm FLicKeR
w/ Towers Open Fire
7pm FLicKeR
w/ Towers Open Fire
9pm Patti Smith:
Dream of Life
Patti Smith: Dream of Life
4
5
6
7
11
12
13
14
18
19
20
7pm Patti Smith:
Dream of Life
9:15pm FLicKeR
w/ Towers Open Fire
7pm Roman Polanski:
Wanted and Desired
9pm Died Young,
Stayed Pretty
2pm Wild Horse
Redemption (FREE)
7pm Ashes of Time Redux
9pm FLOW: For Love
of Water
7pm FLicKeR
w/ Towers Open Fire
9pm Patti Smith:
Dream of Life
7pm Patti Smith:
Dream of Life
9:15pm Patti Smith:
Dream of Life
7pm Died Young,
Stayed Pretty
9pm Roman Polanski:
Wanted and Desired
7pm Patti Smith:
Dream of Life
9:15pm Patti Smith:
Dream of Life
6:30pm Graphic
Designers of Canada
AGM w/ Ben Day
9pm Died Young,
Stayed Pretty
7pm FLOW:
For Love of Water
9pm Ashes of Time Redux
21
7pm Ashes of Time Redux
9pm FLOW:
For Love of Water
8pm Turkey Shoot:
Over the Top
7pm Stitches
7pm FAVA 16mm
Film Class
7pm Died Young,
Stayed Pretty
9pm Roman Polanski:
Wanted and Desired
7pm Ashes of
7pm FLOW:
Time Redux
For Love of Water
10:30pm Edmonton Tonight 9pm Ashes of Time Redux
25
26
27
28
FEBRUARY 1
2
3
6
7
8
9
10
13
14
19
20
21
26
27
28
7pm Alice’s House
9pm Best of Ottawa 2008
7pm Down to the Dirt
9:15pm Tkaronto
7pm The Exiles
9pm The Exiles
7pm Best of Ottawa 2008
9pm Alice’s House
7pm Tkaronto
9pm Down to the Dirt
7pm The Exiles
9pm The Exiles
29
7pm Roman Polanski:
Wanted and Desired
9pm Died Young,
Stayed Pretty
7:30pm Unforgotten
7pm Down to the Dirt
9:15pm Tkaronto
7pm The Exiles
9pm The Exiles
7pm Ballast
9pm Ballast
The Exiles
15
16
17
22
23
7pm Day of Wrath
9pm Burn, Witch, Burn!
7pm Burn, Witch, Burn!
9pm Day of Wrath
7pm Ballast
9pm Ballast
7pm Ballast
9pm Ballast
7pm Ballast
9pm Ballast
18
8pm Turkey Shoot:
Ice Castles
7pm Shakespeare
on Screen:
Prospero’s Books
7pm Day of Wrath
10:30pm Edmonton
Tonight
7pm Lilja 4-ever
9pm Lilja 4-ever
7pm Tkaronto
9pm Down to the Dirt
7pm Inuit Odyssey
9pm Mostly Water Presents:
Metro Digital Shorts
7pm AMIR: An Afghan
Refugee Musician’s Life
in Peshawar, Pakistan
9pm Brand Upon
the Brain!
7pm Burn, Witch, Burn!
9pm Day of Wrath
7pm Lilja 4-ever
9pm Lilja 4-ever
Ballast
www.metrocinema.org
Metro Cinema Society operates with the ongoing support of the following:
ALL SCREENINGS @ Zeidler Hall , Main floor Citadel Theatre, 9828 - 101A Avenue