The Boy and the World is a kaleidoscope of crayon, pen and ink images made to give life to a world where Cuca (Vinicius Garcia), a young boy, is desperate to see his father come home.
By Ed Sum (The Vintage Tempest)
3:00pm Feb 9
Mary Winspear Centre
Charlie White Theatre
6:00pm Feb 9
The Vic Theatre
The Boy and the World is a kaleidoscope of crayon, pen and ink images made to give life to a world where Cuca (Vinicius Garcia), a young boy, is desperate to see his father come home. He hopped a train in search for work, but in the weeks that follow, everything he experiences are that of loss, hope and necessity.
Opening night at the 2015 Victoria Film Festival must have had Heaven watching. Audiences treated to a live choir performance before the start of the gala movie, Boychoir, to set the mood.
By Ed Sum (The Vintage Tempest)
7:15pm Feb 6th
The Odeon
Opening night at the 2015 Victoria Film Festival must have had Heaven watching. Audiences treated to a live choir performance before the start of the gala movie, Boychoir, to set the mood. For those who missed this movie, let’s hope there’s a repeat engagement or a wider release being planned.
Newcomer Garrett Wareing is fantastic at playing Stet, a troubled 11-year old with nowhere to go. With a deadbeat mother and a strange father he never met, just what’s revealed is the fact that he has no family or friends. The only thing he has is his angelic voice that this movie describes as “on loan.”
Continue reading “[VFF’15] Searching for the Family Ties that Bind in Boychoir, A Review”
By Ed Sum (The Vintage Tempest)
4:30pm Feb 7
9:45pm Feb 10
Odeon Theatre
The art of free-falling as an extreme sport can be dangerous. When done right, the euphoria experienced might be like that of experiencing heaven shine upon one’s face like a bright sparkling diamond. Sunshine Superman is an aptly titled documentary about Carl Boenish, the father of BASE jumping. His work in the 70’s and 80’s helped further interest amongst the masses, and the challenges he faced typically meant disobeying the law. Not everyone in enforcement liked the idea of miscreants breaking into buildings or climbing high mountaintops only to leap off it.
Continue reading “[VFF ’15] Sunshine Superman Flies High with Inspiration, A Review”
The documentary Gone South: How Canada Invented Hollywood is a very informative and tongue in cheek look at a different kind of invasion that’s still infiltrating the entertainment industry today. It’s only fitting that this movie is part of the opening night of movies to start the 2015 Victoria Film Festival. This movie is part of the Canadian Wave program.
Film historians will enjoy the retrospective that begins by describing how Hollywood began. For example, Jack Warner (born in London, Toronto) formed Warner Bros and with his brothers Sam, Albert and Henry (all born in Poland). Jack was the studio head.
Continue reading “[VFF’15] “Gone South” to Look at the Rise of Hollywood, A Review”
By Ed Sum (The Vintage Tempest)
With only a trailer to go by, this animation by the production house Cartoon Saloon, who produced Secret of Kells, will go far. It’s a guaranteed winner for its cultural aesthetic and expansion of a traditional mythic tradition about the Selkie, supernatural creatures found in Irish and Scottish folklore. They can transform from seal to human and vice versa. These beings are well-known to those living in the Orkney Islands, and their proliferation into Celtic popular culture can be found in many a piece of literature or found featured in a play.
On an island located west of Canada, there’s some Scottish tradition to be found. Some audiences may have been introduced to the lore about the Selkie during last year’s Victoria Fringe Festival by Voice Box Theatre Company’s low-budget Cirque du Soleil style performance, “Selkie Tales.” To have a follow-up of sorts as part of this year’s Victoria Film Festival’s Family Day Program is a blessing of the faeries.
To understand what these supernatural sea-faring folk are about means delving into what little documentation there is. In the surviving folklore, there is no agreement as to how often the selkie-folk were able to carry out the transformation. Some tales say it was once a year, usually Midsummer’s Eve, while others state it could be “every ninth night” or “every seventh stream.” (1)
Continue reading “[Victoria Film Festival ’15] Examining the Folklore behind Song of the Sea”
By Ed Sum (The Vintage Tempest)
In the movie The Rocket, irrepressible 10-year-old Ahlo (Sitthiphon Disamoe) is more than just the black sheep of the family. He’s cursed because of a Laotian superstition that says those born as twins will represent the most opposite of extremes — either good or bad fortune will come. When his brother died at birth, making what he represents an uncertainty, Grandmother Taitok (Bunsri Yindi) thinks he will bring bad fortune to everything dear. That also includes holding on to the beliefs that the old country and traditions that Grandma represents. But for Ahlo, he can lay a spark for the future, if his people accept him.
