OPEN CINEMA host Victoria premiere of The Age of Stupid

“We could have saved ourselves, but we didn’t. It’s amazing. What state of mind were we in, to face extinction and simply shrug it off?”

 

The week after next (18 Nov) OPEN CINEMA are hosting the public premiere of The Age of Stupid a movie that blurs the edge between sci-fi and documentary and an open forum discussion. Open Cinema is a non-profit society that aims to use film as a tool of community engagement. Consistent with this mission The Age of Stupid examines the issue of climate change through the eyes of a man (played by Postlethwaite) living in the devastated world of 2055, watching old footage from 2008 and asking: why didn’t we stop climate change when we had the chance? The film in 2055 when the planet has been ravaged by drought and storm, its coastlines have flooded, and millions of people have been dislocated or have been thrown into conflict. The caretaker of the Arctic  archive whiles away hours scrolling through snippets of footage from our decade musing about why we knew the dangers of climate change and had the tools to change the system but instead of changing direction chose to stick with business as usual. If you want to learn more about the film there is tonnes of information on the film website.

If you want to catch the age of stupid and participate in an open forum discussion then head to:

Victoria Event Centre, 1415 Broad St, doors open at 5.30 and movie starts at 7. Organizers suggest that you get there early to avoid disappointment. Entry is $10 suggested donation. There will be a cash bar, food concession, door prizes and more!

Open forum discussion details

Dr. Colin Campbell, Science Advisor (www.sierraclub.bc.ca), Dorothy Cutting (www.WestCoastClimateEquity.org), Michelle Culossi (www.TransitionTowns.org/VictoriaBC) and moderator Dr. James Rowe (School of Environmental Studies, UVic).

Antimatter Film Festival Oct 9 to 17

Antimatter Film Festival starts tomorrow night!

Antimatter Film festival

The Antimatter Film Festival kicked off with Small World on Friday, Oct 9 at Open Space (510 Fort Street). The excellent opening feature was a multi-media excursion through disney. Artists and local musicians interpreted Disney classics with assistance of shopping carts, painted acoustic guitars, accordions, smoke machines, quirky costumes, tinfoil, and pretty lights. A very fun night to kick off Thanks Giving weekend!

Antimatter continues through Oct 17 with screenings, performances and video installations. Short features are organized into themes including “warming trend: environmentalism alarm bells pealing out for hope; “O’er the land”; “Ju suis une bombe: aesthetic actions promulgate gender confusion/diffusion…”

Full schedule and info at http://www.antimatter.ws or pick up a program guide at any south island Serious Coffee location.

Salt Spring Social Justice Film Festival: March 6-8, 2009

Lots of new films about social movements and issues of social justice will be screening at this festival this weekend.

Our Island Our World
10th Anniversary Film Festival
March 6-8, 2009

http://www.saltspringfilmfestival.com/

Victoria Film Festival

The Victoria Film festival is finishing the weekend. There is some interesting stuff on including

Apology Of An Economic Hitman

John Perkins is a self-confessed economic hit man, reformed and repentant. From 1971 to 1981 he was employed as an economist by consulting firm, Chas T Main. His job‾ To structure huge international loans to Third World countries (in Perkins’ case: Indonesia, Panama and Saudi Arabia), loans to Third World countries for massive construction projects that would funnel the money back to U.S. contractors, enriching the ruling elite at the cost of national self-sufficiency and independence.  By this means, Perkins asserts, the US has turned the World Bank and the International Monetary fund into tools of Empire.  Perkins premise is that Economics – not inteligence – is where the real cloak and dagger stuff happens.

For details of all festival events and films see:

http://www.victoriafilmfestival.com/

For a humorous take on film festivals see SWPL: http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/2008/01/18/3-film-festivals/

UPDATE:

The Irish film hunger took first prize at the Victoria Film festival

Hunger

World Perspective

(UK, 2008, 100 mins)

35mm

Directed By: Steve McQueen

Producers: Laura Hastuings-Smith, Robin Gultch
Screenwriter: Edna Walsh, Steve McQueen
Cast: Michael Fassbender
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If nothing else, Hunger is a film that is both brutal and breathtakingly beautiful in a way you probably never thought a film could be. It plunges viewers into the world of the early 1980s H-Blocks uprising and of republican prisoner Bobby Sands (played with formidable force by Michael Fassbender), who died 66 days into a hunger strike. In 1981, the UK was in the thick of the Margaret Thatcher years and in Belfast’s Maze prison, the IRA prisoners had started a blankets and no-washing strike, refusing to conform to the prison rules until they were recognized as political prisoners and not criminals. Davey Gillen, a new prisoner, has come in at the height of this protest and fallen in line with his cellmates including Bobby Sands, H-block’s leader. What should be just passive resistance takes on a terrifying tone as the brutality of the IRA outside the prison through several well coordinated executions soon makes the guards realize that no one is safe. As it seems that the strike can’t get any worse, in walks a priest with a few words for Bobby.