Daniel Garber talks with Lina Rodriguez about So Much Tenderness

Posted in Canada, Colombia, Experimental Film, Family by CulturalMining.com on June 30, 2023

Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.

Aurora is an environmental lawyer from Bogota whose husband is murdered because of the work she does. So she flees to Toronto as a refugee. She’s later joined by her daughter Lucia. While Lucia quickly adjusts to Canadian life, things take longer for Aurora. And just when she starts to feel at home, with a steady job and a potential lover, she thinks she sees her late husband’s killer on the Subway. Will Aurora ever escape her past? And can she reconcile her new life with the one she left behind?

So Much Tenderness is a new, mature drama by Toronto’s own Colombian Canadian director Lina Rodriguez who also did the writing, production, editing and sound design.    It’s a tender and moving  experimental film about family, loss, mourning, guilt and new beginnings, as played out within the immigrant experience. This is her third feature-length drama, and her films have played at festivals including Berlin, TIFF and Locarno, with retrospectives in Spain, Argentina and Colombia. I last spoke with Lina in 2017 about her  previous film Mañana a esta hora.

I spoke with Lina in Toronto via Zoom.

So Much Tenderness opens in Toronto this weekend at the TIFF Bell Lightbox. 

“I” and “L”. Films reviewed: Every Body, Blue Jean

Posted in 1980s, documentary, Drama, Education, High School, Intersex, Sports, UK, US, Women by CulturalMining.com on June 24, 2023

Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.

Toronto’s Spring Film Festival continues with ICFF, the Italian Contemporary Film Fest, once again showing movies out of doors in the Distillery District. The seats are huge and comfortable, complete with large puffy earphones, and there’s a great selection of movies to watch, starting Tuesday with Freaks Out, a fantasy  about a circus in Rome in the midst of WWII. The festival continues through July 22. 

But this weekend, there’s another big event in this city, the Pride Parade. So, in honour of that, I’m looking at two new movies, a drama and a doc, that fall into the alphabet soup of  2SLGBTQQI+, specifically in the L and the I categories, meaning Lesbian and Intersex. There’s a gym teacher facing trouble in Thatcher’s England, and three Americans coming out as Intersex.

Every Body

Dir: Julie Cohen (RBG)

What is meant by intersex? And why is it kept a secret? And what medical practices and procedures and popular beliefs should be challenged? Intersex refers to people who don’t fall neatly into our typical male/female definitions of sexual anatomy, reproduction and genetics. But it’s not just one thing, it’s many things; there are over 40 different types of people who fall under that definition. And until recently, it was relegated to the shadows and almost never mentioned in public. This is changing.

This new documentary looks at three intersex Americans and what they’re doing to give people like themselves a public face.  Alicia Roth Weigel is a political consultant in Austin, Texas who rose to fame when she testified before state hearings on a so-called Bathroom Bill, intended to prevent trans people from using public washrooms that don’t match their “biological sex”. The thing is, although Alicia presents physically as a woman since birth, her chromosomes are XY — according to this bill she is “biologically” male, and thus should be barred from using women’s washrooms. River Gallo, a stage actor and  screenwriter from New Jersey, was born without male gonads but brought up by their Salvadoran parents as a boy. And as a teenager doctors surgically implanted prosthetic testicles so they could feel  more “male”. Now River presents as a woman but with a notably deep voice. They’re fighting to stop doctors from performing unnecessary cosmetic surgery on kids with atypical genitals. Sean Saifa Wall is a PhD student and intersex advocate originally from the Bronx who was raised as a girl. He was born with testicles inside his body, but doctors castrated him at puberty, saying they could lead to cancer. He ties his struggle for intersex rights with his equally intrinsic identity as a black man.

The documentary first follows all three subjects as they tell their stories, and then talks to them as a group. They are shown the notorious case of David Reimer. Born as a twin boy in Winnipeg, David’s penis was badly damaged in a botched hospital circumcision. Under the guidance of Dr John Money at Johns Hopkins University, he was raised as a girl. Money theorized any child’s gender is fluid until the age of two, and used him as a celebrated case study that proves his theory. But in fact, it didn’t work, and as a child he continued to strongly resist the gender and new name imposed on him, and upon reaching puberty he refused to go on female hormones. Though his case is now well-known in Canada — he made his story public as an adult — a generation of doctors were trained using his specific case as the basis of numerous medical decisions. Finally, the movie brings intersex people together as part of a movement, one that is little known but quickly growing.

Every Body is the first documentary I’ve seen that turns to intersex people for their information, rather than using them as objects to be examined or as research subjects. It shows you a group of people more common than you think — up to 1.7% of the population share intersex traits —  and what should be done, politically, medically, and socially, to better recognize their rights. 

Every Body has fascinating stories — a real eye-opener.

Blue Jean

Wri/Dir: Georgia Oakley

It’s 1988 in Newcastle, England. Jean (Rosy McEwen) is a Phys Ed teacher at a state school. She’s pretty and athletic with bleached blonde hair in a pixie cut.  By day, she coaches the girls’ netball team. By night, she plays snooker at a lesbian bar. She loves spending time with her girlfriend Viv (Kerrie Hayes), who is buxom and butch with a buzz cut. But what she doesn’t want is for the two sides of her life to overlap. Boundaries are crucial. Especially since Thatcher’s government is introducing harsh anti-gay laws; Section 28 would prohibit the “promotion of homosexuality”.

Though broadly sweeping in its scope, the new measures seem aimed particularly at state schools. So Jean keeps her private life completely private. Boundaries! Then there’s her family life to make things even more complicated. Jean is divorced and wants nothing to do with her ex-husband. But when her sister suddenly appears with her  five-year-old nephew when their mom has a stroke, the privacy of her relationship with Viv is also called into question.

Meanwhile, there’s a new girl in her class. Lois (Lucy Halliday) is confident and outspoken with tousled brown hair. Jean likes her and encourages her to join the netball team. And Lois seems to have a bit of crush on her favourite gym teacher. But she has to deal with Siobhan a ginger rival on the team, who is loathe to lose her status as top player, and is prone to starting fights. As a teacher Jean knows how to defuse student problems — she does it on a daily basis. But everything starts to fall apart when she spots Lois playing snooker at her lesbian bar. If Lois comes out at school, and is somehow associated with Jean, her career would be finished. What is a woman  to do?

Blue Jean is an intimate drama about the problems facing a young lesbian teacher in Thatcher’s repressive England. It’s moving and romantic with a rising tension permeating the story. Radio and TV reports in the background about Thatcher’s Section 28 along with period music, provide a constant thread that holds the narrative together. And her mundane work life is presented in opposition to the sex, music and spectacle of her nightlife. This may be writer/director Georgia Oakley’s first film, but she manages to bring together great acting and a compelling story without ever resorting to treacle.

I liked this one a lot. 

Blue Jean is now playing at the TIFF Bell Lightbox and Every Body opens on July 30th in Toronto; check your local listings.

This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Saturday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com.

WAIT THREE SECONDS BEFORE TURNING OFF

Wrong place, wrong time. Films reviewed: The Blackening, Persian Lessons, Asteroid City

Posted in 1940s, 1950s, Black, Cabin in the Woods, Cold War, comedy, Horror, Satire, Science, Thriller, WWII by CulturalMining.com on June 17, 2023

Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.

Some movies make you think: that’s where I want to be, I wish that were me on the screen. But other movies have the opposite effect. This week, I’m looking at three new movies in the second category, about people who find themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time. There are friends at a reunion stranded in a cabin in the woods; a man in a  disguise imprisoned in a Nazi internment camp; and some space cadets quarantined in a New Mexican desert town.

The Blackening

Dir: Tim Story

It’s Juneteenth, and a group of friends are getting together for a reunion ten years after graduating from college. They’re meeting at an Air BNB to iron out old rivalries and past love affairs, catch up, drink, take drugs, and have fun. But little do they know what awaits them in this cabin in the woods. They’re deep in redneck country, and they all happen to be Black. And somehow, the doors are locking and unlocking, the power is being turned on and off, and their cars are all disabled. And when they discover one of their group is already dead, they realize something is very, very wrong. The only way to save themselves is to correctly answer a series of questions about Black culture and history, as dictated by a creepy, racist board game called The Blackening. The game centres on a hideous plastic head which talks directly to them. If they make a mistake, someone scary is lurking in the shadows with a crossbow loaded with arrows. Can they escape or defeat the deranged killer? Or will they all end up dead?

The Blackening is a thriller/ horror/comedy that pokes fun at both slasher movies and Black pop culture. It’s meta-horror, like Scream, so everyone knows not to split up, but also that in slasher movies the “sole survivor” is never Black. This allows it to challenge a lot of horror conventions. I had my doubts about his movie — the director, Tim Story, made The Fantastic 4, one of the worst superhero movies ever (Correction: Fantastic 4, 2015, was dreadful, but was made by Josh Trank; I have never seen Story’s 2005 version)  and while I’m always up for another cabin-in-the-woods story, the last few I’ve seen (like Knock at the Cabin) have been less than stellar. Luckily, The Blackening is funny, strange, surprising and very entertaining. It’s an ensemble piece, starring Antoinette Robertson, Dewayne Perkins, Sinqua Walls, Grace Byers, X Mayo, Melvin Gregg and Jermaine Fowler. It’s also more funny than violent — with an emphasis on characters, humour and clever dialogue over blood and guts (but there are some scary parts, too.)

I like this movie.

Persian Lessons

Dir: Vadim Perelman

It’s WWII in German-occupied France. The Nazis are arresting Jews across western Europe detaining them in a French transit camp before they are sent to the Poland for extermination. Gilles (Nahuel Pérez Biscayart: BPM, Deep in the Woods) is a Belgian from Antwerp, a prisoner on a transport truck heading for the camp, when another man trades a book of Persian stories for Gilles’ sandwich. A few minutes later, the guards park the truck and start gunning down all the prisoners by the side of the road… but the book saves his life just before he is executed. He claims to be a Persian, named Reza — a name inscribed in the book — and not a Jew. Soon he’s working in the camp’s kitchen under the supervision of Klaus (Lars Eidinger). He keeps Gilles alive — and away from hard labour splitting rocks in the quarry — because he wants to learn Farsi. Of course Gilles doesn’t speak a word of it, and the book is incomprehensible to him, but to stay alive he has to invent a language and remember all the words, without the Commandant figuring out his ruse. But how long can he keep it up before his deception is exposed?

Persian Lessons is an ingenious and moving dramatic thriller set within WWII and the Holocaust. Strangely, most of the dialogue is in German, because, aside from Gilles and a few others, it’s mainly about the Nazi guards and officers, not the prisoners. Not sure why so much of the movie is about petty rivalries, love affairs and cruelties among the guards, rather than the lives of the prisoners. Even so, it’s still an interesting story with a surprising twist. Argentinian-French actor Nahuel Pérez Biscayart beautiful plays Gilles as a frail, doe-eyed waif, always on the brink of angsty collapse. While Lars Eidinger, as Klaus — I’ve seen him in at least a dozen movies — is good as always, this time as a cruel but conflicted man with dark hidden secrets.  

This is a good one, too.

Asteroid City 

Co-Wri/Dir: Wes Anderson

It’s the 1950s in a tiny desert town in New Mexico named Asteroid City after a meteorite hit the earth there. The Space Race is gaining momentum, while the Cold War is chillier than ever.  Augie Steenbeck (Jason Schwartzman) is a news photographer with his teenaged son Woodrow (Jake Ryan) and three little daughters. They’re there for Woodrow to reserve a national science prize. In a local diner he meets Midge Campbell (Scarlett Johansson) a famous Hollywood movie star, accompanying her teenaged daughter, also up for a prize. She’s divorced and he’s a widower. There are also tourists, military brass, scientists, astronomers and cowboys, as well local hucksters out to make a quick buck. But everything changes when — in front of everybody — a space ship lands there, and an alien steps out to grab the asteroid and fly away! The government declares emergency measures, and no one is allowed to leave Asteroid City. Will romance bloom in this time of isolation? And will they ever get out of this place?

Asteroid City is a meticulously-crafted, comic pastiche of American pop-culture in the 1950s. It’s filled with atomic bomb tests in the background, and a roadrunner saying beep-beep between scenes. And there are wonderful scenes shot through adjoining motel windows.x As in all Wes Andersen’s movies, there are dozens of characters and an equal number of tiny side-plots. It has cameos by Tom Hanks, Tilda Swinton, Liev Schreiber, Adrian Brody, Hong Chau and Matt Dillon, among countless others. The art direction is impeccable, as is the music, editing, costumes and sets. But for some reason, this time we also have actors breaking the 4th wall, taking off their makeup and talking about the making of this movie. And these actors are also appearing in a stage play about it. And the stage play is being performed on live TV, with a narrator — all set in the 1950s. While it’s fun to watch all this, it takes an interesting and funny plot and sadly turns it into just another example of Hollywood navel-gazing. For the life of me, I don’t know what all these meta dimensions add to the story. 

That said, of course I enjoyed and appreciated this film. Wes Andersen’s movies are always a joy to watch… I just wasn’t as dazzled by this one.

The Blackening, Asteroid City and Persian Lessons all open this weekend in Toronto, with Asteroid City expanding nationwide next week; check your local listings.

This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Saturday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com.

From Paper to Film. Films reviewed: My Name is Andrea, The Zen Diary

Posted in 1980s, Buddhism, Cooking, documentary, Feminism, Food, Japan, Poetry, Protest, US, Vegetarianism, violence, Women, 日本映画 by CulturalMining.com on June 10, 2023

Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.

Toronto’s Spring Film Festival season continues with the Jewish Film festival closing this weekend and the Japanese Film Festival just starting up. And ICFF, the Italian Contemporary Film Festival starting in two weeks.

This week, I’m looking at two new movies playing at the two TJFFs, both based on writings and their writers. There is a radical feminist on violence against women, and a zen Buddhist on sustainable vegetarianism.

My Name is Andrea

Wri/Dir: Pratibha Parmar

Based on the writings of Andrea Dworkin

Andrea Dworkin was a poet, a writer and a radical feminist theorist who wrote about the outrage of violence against women, abuse, harassment and rape. Born in the 1940s in Camden, NJ, she grew up in a happy, middle-class family in suburban Cherry Hill. She was assaulted as a teenager, and later, as a college student protesting against the War in Vietnam, she was arrested and sent to the notorious Women’s House of Detention in New York. There she and other political prisoners were subject to horrible abuses by the doctors there. (Her testimony against the prison led to its eventual closing.) She travelled to Europe where she was exposed to the writings of Franz Fanon, Kate Millet and others, which, together with her own experiences, helped develop her radical feminist theory that the patriarchal system of power was based on violence against. And as a poet and writer, she expanded her critique to include the arts by deconstructing the male gaze within literature 

She was also an activist, participating in movements like Take Back the Streets, the aftermath of the École Polytechnique massacre and later, along with Catherine McKinnon, in the movement of Women Against Pornography. She died in 2005. 

My Name is Andrea is an unusual biographical documentary, that looks at Dworkin’s life, her writings and her philosophy. It includes early home movies, TV footage and personal letters and notes. What’s unusual is there’s no outside narrator or recent talking heads; instead it relies on recordings of her own voice (and those of other people she talked to) to advance the narrative. And since much of her writing was never recorded, a number of actors — including Christine Lahti, Ashley Judd and Amandla Stenberg — take on her role. I’ve read some of her writing before but this is one of the first times I’ve heard her voice and she was an extremely passionate speaker, whether giving a speech at Cambridge or on the Phil Donahue show. And it also lets her own voice defend herself from misrepresentation of her ideas (at various times she was accused of hating men, of calling intercourse rape, and of advocating obscenity laws). My Name is Andrea is a fascinating tribute to Dworkin’s work.

The Zen Diary

Wri/Dir: Yuji Nakae

Based on the book “Tsuchi wo Kurau Hibi; Waga Shojin Juuni ka Getsu” by Mizukami Tsutomu

Tsutomu (Sawada Kenji) is a prize-winning Japanese novelist who lives alone in a remote farmhouse in the mountains. His wife died 13 years earlier but he still keeps her ashes. He’s under pressure by Machiko, his publisher (Matsu Takako ) to write another book, so he decides to record what happens each month over the course of a year (hence the title). Interestingly, while this includes big events in his life, it’s also about the minutiae of living. As a kid, he was a novice monk at a Buddhist monastery in Kyoto, where he was trained in cooking, cleaning, planting, harvesting and foraging for food. He brings those childhood memories into play as an elderly man who is also a vegetarian.

Everything he does is done by hand: from cleaning rice to finding edible roots in the garden. He digs up bamboo shoots in a forest and looks for mushrooms and fiddleheads on the hillside. Even seemingly inedible vegetables — like the first sprouts of certain tree leaves in the spring — are delicately picked, scrubbed clean, cut-up and cooked. He shines the wooden floor on his hands and knees. He also visits his elderly mother-in-law who lives in a tiny shack, and trades foods with far-off neighbours. But a surprise death — and the threat of his own mortality — makes him rethink his daily life. Should he settle things and prepare to die? Or forge ahead with new projects?

The Zen Diary is a subtle, low-key drama about life off the grid. It feels almost like a documentary, but the parts are actually all played by actors (Sawada Kenji has been a pop idol, composer, actor and celebrity for 60 years.) And the book it’s based on is real — it’s Mizukami Tsutomu’s last work (he died in 2004). There’s something deeply satisfying and inspiring about watching the foods being made from the dirt to the table — and some of the dishes he makes, like tofu made from sesame seeds and daikon with miso, look truly delicious. It’s also a  bittersweet story about death and remembrance, family, kinship and relationships. The storyline is simple, and the film is extremely low-key, but it leaves you with something you didn’t have deep inside you before you saw this movie.

The Zen Diary is playing at the Japanese Canadian Culture Centre on June 17th, at the Toronto Japanese Film Festival; and My Name is Andrea played at the Toronto Jewish Film Festival.

This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Saturday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com.

Daniel Garber talks with Valerie Kontakos and David Bourla about Queen of the Deuce

Posted in 1930s, 1960s, 1970s, documentary, Family, Feminism, Greece, LGBT, Movies, New York City, Porn by CulturalMining.com on June 3, 2023

 

Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.

New York City in the 1970s is a gritty city with a chip on its shoulder. Crime is rampant, and its government faces bankruptcy. But it’s also exploding with creativity and freedom of expression, in film, theatre, music and art, while the sexual revolution, the women’s movement and gay rights are in full swing. The city’s centre is 42nd street, and the strip running from Times Square to the Port Authority and north on 8th ave is filled with porn theatres and peep shows. And on top of it all sits a Jewish Greek-American woman, Chelly Wilson, ruling over her porn empire. 

Queen of the Deuce is a fantastic new documentary about Chelly’s life, her work, her family and the world she built. Born in Thessaloniki, she hid her children, escaped the Nazi invasion, and gradually made her way to the top of the NY porn movie industry. The doc includes personal photos and letters, period footage, animation and talking heads to give a first-hand look at a previously unknown hero. 

The film was directed by Valerie Kontakos, a well-known documentarian, founder of the NY Greek Film festival and on the Board of Directors of the Greek Cinematheque. The film features members of Chelly’s family, including her grandson, David Bourla, a screenwriter in his own right, known for action films like Push.

I spoke with Valerie in Athens and David in New York City from Toronto, via Zoom.

Queen of the Deuce is playing in Toronto at the Hot Docs Cinema as part of TJFF on June 3rd, 2023.

With love, from Poland. Films reviewed: March’68, Norwegian Dream, Bones of Crows

Posted in 1920s, 1940s, 1960s, Clash of Cultures, Class, Communism, Cree, Indigenous, LGBT, Norway, Poland, Unions, WWII by CulturalMining.com on June 3, 2023

Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.

Spring film festival season continues in Toronto in June. The Inside Out festival which ushered in Pride Month, closes tonight with a jukebox musical called Glitter & Doom, a love story based on songs from the Indigo Girls. And TJFF, the Toronto Jewish Film Fest, is just starting up, with an excellent selection of comedies, dramas and documentaries from four continents, viewable online or in person with a number of special guests. And keep your eyes open for the other TJFF, Toronto Japanese Film Festival, beginning next week. 

This week, I’m looking at three excellent new movies: two Polish romances, one each from Inside-out and TJFF, plus an epic indigenous drama made in Canada.

March’68

Co-Wri/Dir: Krzysztof Lang

It’s 1967 in Warsaw. Hania (Vanessa Aleksander) is a talented young actress studying theatre. She’s in a rush to view a controversial new play from backstage. It references Adam Mickiewicz, the 19th century Polish poet and playwright. But on the way she is bowled over by a young stranger. Janek (Ignacy Liss) is a student at the same university. She brushes him off but he doggedly follows her as far as the theatre. And — perhaps because of his relentless pursuit — Hania gradually begins to like him. Like turns to love, and soon they’re a couple.

But these are not ordinary times. Władysław Gomułka’s one-party state is cracking down on intellectuals and student dissidents. At the same time, it’s running a harsh purge of all Poles of Jewish descent within the Party’s apparatus. This repression soon spreads to University campuses and throughout the country at large. How does this affect the young couple? Hania’s dad is a neurosurgeon who has just lost his prestigious job in the anti-Jewish campaign. While Janek’s father is a Colonel in the Interior Ministry — basically a spy who holds everyone’s secret files, and is a major figure behind both the crackdown on student protesters and the anti-Jewish purge. Can this Romeo and Juliet couple stay together despite the purge? Or will politics cross generations?

March’68 is an excellent romantic drama set in Warsaw during that dark, tumultuous and repressive time. (The title refers to the month when the government imposed their harshest laws.) It deftly combines real historical events and figures — from Gomulka to Adam Michnik, a future intellectual and journalist — with the fictional heroes. Through the use of period footage and reenactments, it brings you right into the middle of riots, mass arrests and interrogations alongside Hania and Janek.

This is an excellent movie.

Norwegian Dream

Dir: Leiv Igor Devold

Robert (Hubert Milkowski) is a 19-year-old boy from Bialystok, Poland. He’s starting a new job in Norway at a remote salmon processing plant. He shares an apartment in a crowded, overpriced dormitory with Marek and the rest of the Polish workers at the plant. The foreman assigns Ivar (Karl Bekele Steinland) a young Norwegian man, to train him. He’s patient and thoughtful, and befriends Robert. He’s also Black. Knowing Robert is in need of income, he offers him a weekend job in Trondheim handling the lights for Ivar’s performance. But when Robert finds out what kind of performance it was, he quits in a panic and runs away. Ivar’s a flamboyant drag queen, and Robert is terrified at being seen with him. Is he repulsed by Ivar, or is there a mutual attraction? And could Robert handle a gay relationship within a racist and homophobic environment?

Norwegian Dream is a touching romantic drama set within the lives of migrant Polish workers in Norway. It’s made in a realistic style, with conversations happening while hundreds of dead salmon roll past on a conveyor belt. It also deals with the bigger issues of class, race, and sexuality. And while told in a simple and straightforward way, it also poses many paradoxes. Ivar may be black, but he’s also the adopted son of the owner of the fish plant and lives in a houseboat, while working-class Robert is just trying to keep his head above water. And though the casual behaviour of the Polish workers’ may be racist and anti-gay, they are also trying to form a union to get a decent wage from their exploitative employers. And while the dialogue — mainly in Polish and English — feels a bit stilted, it actually adds a further element of authenticity to the film. 

I like this movie.

Bones of Crows

Wri/Dir: Marie Clements

It’s the early 20th century in Canada. Aline Spears (Grace Dove) is a girl from a Cree nation in Manitoba. She, her brother and sister are taken away from their parents and forcibly put into a residential school. It’s run by priests who feast on fine food and wine while the kids are left hungry. But Aline is given special privileges when Father Jacobs (Remy Girard) discovers she’s a prodigy on the piano. He nurtures her talent and assigns her a special tutor. But despite her new status, she is far from safe, and after suffering unspeakable acts, she and her siblings try to escape the school.

Much later, she joins the military in WWII and is assigned to London where she becomes part of a crucial team sending telegrams in Cree, this creating a code impossible for the Germans to crack. There she falls in love with and marries Adam (Phillip Lewitski) an indigenous member of the Canadian military. But despite their their bravery, they face a hard life back in Canada, their deeds forgotten. Much of her efforts are now spent caring for their family and trying to protect her little sister Perseverance (Alyssa Wapanatâhk) who has fallen by the wayside.  Can Aline’s past violations and injustices ever be rectified?

Blood of Crows is an epic drama with a gripping story about one woman’s amazing life. Although its about Aline, it’s also a  metaphor for the treatment of an entire people. It’s a 100+ year long story. Stretching back to confederation, it includes the wiping out of the buffalo,  residential schools, the lack of status and Canadian citizenship, denial of services, and the widespread incarceration, death and disappearance suffered by indigenous women. But, don’t worry, this is not meant as a depressing story suffering, it’s actually inspiring, about her descendants who fight for rights and redress. This movie, with its large indigenous cast and crew from the director on down, is both convincing and compelling. I saw this one last fall at TIFF, and it was one of my favourite movies there; I’m so glad it’s finally hitting theatres. 

Don’t miss it.  

Bones of Crows opens this weekend in Toronto; check your local listings. Norwegian Dream played the Inside Out Film Festival, and March’68 is coming to the Toronto Jewish Film Festival.

This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Saturday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com.