Best of the New York International Children’s Film Festival HHHH That film is both a visual and a narrative medium makes it an ideal form for children’s entertainment. That is not to say that the collection of shorts that is the Best of NYICFF packages are simpleminded, not in the least – some of these rival the best grown-up features in terms of economy of storytelling. Brave the toddlers with Programme 1 (for ages 4—8), featuring some stoner-hilarious shorts like the colourful German confection das Flederschwein in der Underwelt, featuring a very polite flying pig, and the Canadian-made Dinner for Two (remember those greedy chameleons!) or try the beautiful pastel-drawn fairytale, The Green Man on Knowledge. Programme 2 is for older kids, 8—14, and includes the multiple award-winning Canadian production, Village of Idiots. The Nickelodeon stop-action cartoon Prometheus and Bob proves that commercial animation houses are capable of more than Saturday morning advertainment. That last one, about a sophisticated alien trying to instruct a caveman on the uses of glue, is pretty much the funniest film ever made, hands-down. Sun, Mar 9, 1 pm @ GARN – MARI SASANO

Biggie and Tupac (UK, 2002, Dir: Nick Broomfield) HH1/2 Nick Broomfield is a notorious celebrity hound, gaining prominence as the director of Aileen Wournors, Portrait of a Serial Killer, which he followed up with Heidi Fleiss: Hollywood Madam and Kurt and Courtney. Now with Biggie and Tupac, he has entered the arena of gangsta politics, his press package speculating whether he will make it through the year. However, he becomes as much the topic of his documentaries as his supposed subjects: a fair amount of screen time devoted to shots of Broomfield fielding cell phone calls from sources (often leading to refused interviews) or the filmmaker with a Nagra recorder slung over his shoulder chasing down another witness. Heavy on posturing and tenuous conspiracy theories, even a relative coup such as a prison-yard conversation with Death Row kingpin Suge Knight turns into a dull talking-head moment devoted to "a message to the kids."  Interviews with Voletta Wallace, Biggie’s mom, and archival footage lend some credibility, but Broomfield should rest easy: no-one appears to be telling him the truth. Sat, Mar 8, 9:30 pm @ GARN – MARI SASANO

Black Republic (South Korea, 1990, Dir: Kwang Su Park) HHH Delving into the struggle for workers rights in South Vietnam, Black Republic takes place in a little mining village where the black, coal covered landscape is as worn as the film stock the movie’s shot with. The film is seen through the eyes of the enigmatic outsider, Kim Ki-young (Sung-keun Moon), a man on the run for political crimes. Ki-young comes to the village for refuge but soon finds that there’s no escape from the fight for labour rights. As the local economy crumbles, so does the unstable balance of power. The plot is simple and poignant, but it’s impossible to ignore the abysmal job done in translating the dialogue from Korean to English. Some sentences seem to be ignored in the subtitles, others are rendered into gibberish. Thu, Mar 13, 8 pm @ PRIN – ERIKA THORKELSON

Cinemania (USA, 2002, Dir: Angela Christlieb, Stephen Kijak) HHH1/2 Cinemania is a documentary following the compulsive habits of five avid film buffs in New York City. Part celebration, part public service announcement – take heed, festival-goers! There is a thin line between those who love the cinema and those just who have a problem. Jack, Eric, Harvey, Bill and Roberta live to see movies. None have jobs – four are on social assistance and one inherited from a rich aunt, and none are married or have social lives outside of the theatre. They don’t seem particularly keen on making films, being critics or lecturers "Film is a substitute for life," they say, having never really participated in the latter. With computer databases to help them plan their screening schedule, they march off like butterfly collectors, each with their own special brand of craziness. I mean, it IS important that your cell phone is off and that the film (ugh – never video) is projected in the proper aspect ratio and in focus, and no one can debate that a couple extra sandwiches and some medicine for the sniffles are handy during the festival? – Fri, Mar 7, 7 pm @ GARN – MARI SASANO

Claude Jutra: an Unfinished Story (Canada, 2002, Dir: Paule Baillargeon) HHH 1/2 Home movies, interviews and film clips are used to excellent effect in this biography/remembrance of the talented Quebecois director Claude Jutra, whose life was cut tragically short when, suffering from Alzheimer’s, he went for a walk one day only to be fished out of the St Lawrence River a few months later. Baillargeon, a friend and occasional Jutra actor, follows the director from youthful days spent rubbing shoulders with Jean Cocteau and Francois Truffaut in Paris to his return home where he became an influential and respected icon of Canadian film. A warm and personal homage to a true Canadian original. Screening with two short Jutra films, A Chairy Tale (1957) and the Devil’s Toy (1966). Mon, Mar 10, 9 pm @ SMLT – KARL MUNDT

Edi (Poland, 2002, Dir: Piotr Trzaskalski) HHHH Some stories are about the Hero, his struggles and triumph. Around him are the shadowy characters that observe, often silently advancing for the leading men and women who ride off into the sunset. Edi is about those shadows, two men who ask for nothing more out of life than to be left to fend for themselves and to have a beer after work. Edi (Henryk Golebiewski) and Jurek (Jacek Braciak) are old friends who collect scrap metal from the streets of Warsaw. Edi is also an avid book collector, finding peace in those classics that he salvages from the trash. Because of this, he is hired by two local thugs to tutor their sister, Princess. Princess is more determined to spend her evenings with her secret lover than study with gentle Edi, who eventually gives up and lets her go out. Three months later, she is pregnant and claims that Edi is the father. A beautifully shot film, deservedly the winner of a number of awards and the official Oscar nominee from Poland. Fri, Mar 7, 7 pm @ PRIN – MARI SASANO

Eight Scottish Shorts HHH If you plan to heed the call of tartan celluloid, and check out Eight Scottish Shorts, don’t go only for Billy "Pippin" Boyd in Sniper 470 because you may be disappointed. The Lord of the Rings actor appears in the longest (25 min) and most tedious of the bunch, playing a restless spaceman at a lonely outpost. The under-lit film has a few neat low-budget effects but gets lost in the minutiae of Boyd’s existentialist character as he targets unseen space baddies, disposes of space trash, and works on his space tan. Among the best entries are Unscrewed, the mischievous tale of a spurned girlfriend taking what she’ll miss most about her ex-boyfriend; Bass Player, a period comedy of errors about a musician losing more than his dignity; and a bright three-minute splash of animation with a John Zorn soundtrack called Nightwindows. The best of the bunch, however, is Cry for Bobo, the super-silly downfall of a stick-up clown in a world where circus folk can’t catch a break. Alas, this short cannot unite them all, but overall the program’s far from craaap! Sat, Mar 15, 7 pm @ GARN – DAVE ALEXANDER

Flower and Garnet (Canada, 2002, Dir: Keith Behrman) HHHH A bleak and solitary existence in small-town BC isn’t the only thing that’s stuck a sullen expression on the face of ten-year-old Garnet. His father has kept him at arm’s length ever since his mother died giving birth to him; and his sister, the only one who seems to care much about him, is embarking on a rather troubled phase of her adolescence. Keith Behrman’s feature debut is a quietly intense, starkly beautiful window on Garnet’s growing world of troubles: the rejection and isolation he feels start express themselves peculiarly. You have to be impressed by the uniformly excellent performances and unerring tone the movie sustains, never straining to get at the emotions that lurk beneath its placid surface. See it. Fri, Mar 14, 7 pm @ GARN – NOEL DRUMMOND

Is the Crown at War with Us? (Canada, 2002, Dir: Alanis Obomsawin) HHH1/2 Alanis Obomsawin, the internationally acclaimed director perhaps best known for Kanehsatake: 270 Years of Resistance, the first of four films about the Oka crisis, delivers another scathing indictment of the federal government’s treatment of First Nations people. This time she focuses on the conflict between the Mi’gmaq fishing community of Esgenoopetitj (Burnt Church), the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, and the nearby Acadian community, pushed to violence over what they perceive as special treatment for Native fishermen. Unapologetically set up as a thesis in support of the Mi’gmaq fishermen, Obomsawin has delivered an insightful and uncompromising documentary. Tue, Mar 11, 9 pm @ SMLT – KARL MUNDT

Le Fils (Belgium/France, 2002, Dir: Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Luc Dardenne) HHHH The first 20 minutes of this film seem meandering and dull. As the camera follows the actions of unassuming Olivier (Olivier Gourmet), a carpentry teacher at a trade school, you can’t help but wonder where it’s all going. But the relationship between Olivier and Francis (Morgan Marinne) adds an excruciating underlying tension to every mundane action. Francis has been failed by life and is desperately seeking a father figure. Olivier is still mourning the death of his son; Francis mistakes his fascination with him for fatherly affection. The situation becomes more complicated as Francis becomes more humanized by his interactions with Olivier and revelations about his cruel past. Shot with handheld cameras that give the film a documentary feel, it seems a commentary on the bizarre coincidences of everyday life and the ability of normal people to deal with incredible situations. Wed, Mar 12, 9 pm @ GARN – Erika Thorkelson

Le neg (Canada, 2002, Dir: Robert Morin) HHHH A young black man (Iannicko N’Doua-Legare) destroys a racially offensive garden ornament on a farmhouse lawn in rural Quebec. Someone winds up dead. When the police show up the next day, the social mores of the neighbourhood comes oozing out in all their redneck glory as each witness tells his version of the story, Rashomon-style, with intermittent fantasy/narrative pantomime featuring the characters as shellacked lawn figurines in shiny, lurid colours although in real life, they are just as stereotyped. Although the press screening showed an unsubtitled version, this could easily be one of the best Canadian features at the festival even with only a rudimentary understanding of French. A wry look at race relations in language-conscious Quebec, it doesn’t take much more than context to understand a couple of insane, screaming pure-laine types beating up a black man (who never once speaks) and then asking "Do you speak French?" to see the irony. Mon, Mar 10, 7 pm @ PRIN – MARI SASANO

Little Sister’s vs Big Brother (Canada, 2002, Dir: Aerlyn Weissman) HH1/2 Things really started to heat up for the three-year-old Little Sister’s book shop in 1986 when Canada Customs began holding back books and magazines bound for the store, destroying the shipments even after the Supreme Court of Canada ruled it was an illegal seizure. The gay-owned and operated bookstore has battled customs ever since, enlisting more and more people in a fight that is clearly about censorship and homophobia. Weissman, the award-winning director of A Winter Tan and Forbidden Love, has all the elements in place for a great documentary. But somehow, despite access to the feisty and likeable bookstore staff and some pretty cool footage, the film quickly turns into a tiresome talking head fest. Mon, Mar 10, 10 pm @ SMLT – KARL MUNDT

Long Life, Prosperity and Happiness (Canada, 2002, Dir: Mina Shum) HH1/2 Mina Shum’s follow-up to Double Happiness. The appealing Sandra Oh plays a divorced mom slaving in a Chinese restaurant while her daughter dabbles in Taoist magic to try to find her a new partner. But that amateur conjuring instead wreaks havoc in the lives of a couple of other members of Vancouver’s Chinese community, making the film unevenly three-pronged. Some of the acting – particularly that of Chang Tseng as an aging security guard who loses his job just shy of retirement – is subtle, engaging, but the broad comedy and overwrought drama are as lumpy and forced as the plot contrivances that lead to the blatant tear-baiting at the close of play. Wed, Mar, 12, 7 pm @ GARN – NOEL DRUMMOND

Looking for Leonard (Canada, 2002, Dir: Matt Bissonnette, Steven Clarke) HHH1/2 A deadpan comedy, equal parts Hal Hartley and Jim Jarmusch about three small time crooks scraping by in Montreal. Bored and restless with her slacker existence, Jo (Kim Huffman) drifts apart from scheming boyfriend Ted (Ben Ratner) and his brother Johnny (Darcy Belsher). While the brothers plan for bigger crimes, Jo keeps to herself in their shared apartment, incessantly reading Leonard Cohen paperbacks and taking a night course with best friend Monica (Molly Parker). Her desultory life is soon jolted when an unexpected encounter with Czech computer programmer Luka (Joel Bissonnette) leads to romance and trouble. Co-directors Bissonnette and Clarke deliver a solid, intermittently funny first feature that wobbles slightly only at the edges. Fri, Mar 14, 9:15 pm @ GAR – KARL MUNDT

Open Hearts (Denmark, 2002, Dir: Susanne Bier) HHHH A tragic accident causes two couples lives to intersect in this powerful, deeply felt drama shot in Dogme 95 style. Joachim (Nikolaj Lie Kaas) is left paralyzed after a car crash involving Marie (Paprika Steen). He angrily brushes off his fiancée Caecilie’s (Sonja Richter) attempt to comfort him, so she instead turns to Niels (Mads Mikkelsen), a doctor at the hospital, for consolation. Prompted by the guilt-ridden Marie, who is his wife, Niels attends to Caecilie, answering calls at all hours and spending increasing amounts of time with her. Excellent performances and deft direction keep this film from sinking into melodrama. Tue, Mar 11, 7 pm @ SMLT – KARL MUNDT

Ravi Shankar: Between Two Worlds (U.K., 2002, Dir: Mark Kidel) HH1/2 With daughter Norah Jones carting away an armload of statuettes at this years Grammy awards, it probably wouldn’t be a bad time to look back on the long, successful career of the man called "the Godfather of World Music" by disciple George Harrison. Director Kidel manages to fit in the many high points of Shankar’s musical journey, from scoring Satyajit Ray’s Apu trilogy to collaborations with violinist Yehudi Menuhin to his warm embrace by the ’60s counterculture. An amazing life to be sure, but unfortunately rendered cinematically dull by poor sound and lackluster interviews. Tue, Mar 11, 9 pm @ PRIN – KARL MUNDT

Respiro (Italy/France, 2002, Dir: Emanuele Crialese) HHHH Amidst the displacement of conventions divorced from convictions in a modern, rural, Italian fishing community, a family chafes under repression of spirit and the daily, instinctual drive for survival. Respiro follows a teenager, Pasquale, through disillusioning attempts to fulfill his fragmented roles as a young man within his antiquated, male-dominated society, and as a member of his family, coping with siblings, rivals, and a mother whose unrestrained spirit is at risk of being smothered if Pasquale does not find a way to restore faith in her. Although rife with blunt, guilty, and even incestuous imagery, Respiro nonetheless offers a breath of fresh air by refraining from indulging in the jarring gratuity that so often accompanies candid films under the guise of "honesty." Mon , Mar 10, 9 pm @ GARN – RYAN ROTH

Saint Monica (Canada, 2002, Dir Terrance Odette) HHH The young daughter of a single Portuguese mom living in Toronto steals costume angel wings from her church after getting passed over for a part in a religious pageant, only to lose them and have them turn up on the back of a delusional homeless person. Director Terrance Odette’s family drama isn’t entirely convincing, but nine-year-old Genevieve Buechner’s assurance and restraint before the camera takes the edge off the film’s pathos. Nelly Furtado contributed a song to the soundtrack, which is mostly comprised of Portugal’s haunting fado music. Wed, Mar 12, 7 pm @ PRIN – NOEL DRUMMOND

Scumrock (USA, 2002, Dir: Jon Moritsugu) HHH Is it artfully crude or just badly made? This feature by cult filmmaker and festival darling Jon Moritsugu applies the punk aesthetic (why should we know how to play guitar?) to film in raw Hi-8 video format. It’s the story of two wannabe artists, Miles Morgan (Kyp Malone), a filmmaker and Roxxy (Amy Davis), a rocker, who basically piss everyone off in the course of realising their artistic visions. While it may not be a masterpiece, it’s certainly worth a watch, if only for the soundtrack, which includes The Gossip and Casiotone for the Painfully Alone among a collection of punk rock whiz kids you may never have heard of. – ERIKA THORKELSON

Strange Fruit (USA, 2001, Joel Katz) HHH1/2 If you figure Billy Holliday wrote the song Strange Fruit, the gruesome elegy for victims of racist lynching, Joel Katz’ documentary will set you straight and then some. Strange Fruit introduces us to Abel Meeropol, the Bronx high school teacher who actually wrote the words; in so doing, the film takes a sweeping look at the civil rights movement and progressive politics in America. Sadly, the picture is seldom pretty: right-wing demagogues throughout the 20th Century demonized proponents of peace and equality with great success. Well-known interviewees add personal perspective and chip in a few renditions of the song: in one fast-moving hour you’re reminded of how far civil rights has come and how far it still has to go. The screening at the Yardbird Suite features post-movie music by Melody Diachun and her band. Sun, Mar 9, 8 pm @ YBS – NOEL DRUMMOND

TEN (France/Iran, 2002, Dir: Abbas Kiarostami) HHHHH Despite the courage of some seventy Saudi women, who staged in 1991 a driving demonstration through the streets of Riyadh, manning an automobile remains to this day illegal for women in the Kingdom. And like The Wind Will Carry Us and A Taste of Cherry, Kiarostami’s latest masterpiece is a film about driving. This time, his camera never leaves the inside of the car, watching intimately from the dashboard (with a grand total of only two back-and-forth shots) an ultra-modern woman from Tehran and her various passengers. While clearly a woman in the driver’s seat, Kiarostami’s subject is not given one-dimensional glory for her vehemently self-determinant choices, particularly in what we witness, between she and her remarkable ten-year old son, of the consequences of divorce. And yet, most moving through the final act of self-emancipation by the driver’s lovelorn friend, we are left simply awestruck by a complex feminism all the more profound for the Islamic Republic of Iran passing unseen beyond. Sun, Mar 9, 9:15 pm @ PRIN – JOHN KOLSKOG

To the Starry Island (South Korea, 1994, Dir: Park Kwang-su) HHHH Moon Chae-Ku (Moon Sung-Keun) and his friend Kim Chul (Ahn Sung-Ki) attempt to transport the body of Moon’s father back to his birth place of Kwisong Island for burial. The angry islanders, who still resent Moon’s father’s informant activities against Communist sympathizers in the 1950s, refuse to allow the boat to dock. Intercut with this drama are a series of flashbacks about the Korean war and how it affected the islanders, as various members of the village use their new political status to oppress old enemies. Beautifully filmed but often painful to watch. Wed, Mar. 12, 8 pm @ MHT – KARL MUNDT

Tom (Canada, 2002, Mike Holboom) HHH Mike Hoolboom is one of Canada’s better known experimental filmmakers. His widely shown short, Frank’s Cock, for example, is notorious for its graphic depictions of gay male sex. But he is usually hit-or-miss in terms of his actual work. Tom is an atmospheric visual semi-documentary about his friend and fellow filmmaker, Tom Chomont. Blending found footage, clips from Chomont’s works, home movies and video interviews, this is typical Hoolboom fare. There are moments that are riveting, both visually (where did he find all those rampaging elephants?) and as narrative. But there are stretches where it’s just ugly, which is a shame. As interesting as his life has been – a horrific incestuous childhood, struggles with various illnesses, a fertile creative life, and his involvement with the S&M and fetish crowd, for starters – it seems really lazy to show us a talking head or karaoke-video quality shots of the man sitting on a park bench with crappiest audio to narrate it. Nevertheless, the film’s subject is inherently interesting, and the beauty of the rest of it makes up for much of the shortcomings. Thu, Mar 13, 1:15 pm @ PRIN – MARI SASANO

Touch and Go (Canada, 2002, Dir: Scott Simpson) HHH Jeff Douglas (better known as Joe Canadian) stars as a Halifax tour guide with no ambition: he’s only interested in the good times at hand. His best friends are moving out of town for marriage and careers, so he tries to shape up and face reality, but has a hard go of it. Scott Simpson’s feature debut pulls up just short of everything it attempts – comedy, romance, character development, narrative arc – which results in a movie that, despite its impressive visual polish and hints of easygoing charm, doesn’t leave much of an impression on the memory. Sat, Mar 15, 9:15 pm @ GARN – NOEL DRUMMOND

Tribute (USA, 2002, Dir: Kris Curry, Rich Fox) HHHH Directors Kris Curry and Rich Fox train their camera on bands who imitate other, more famous bands for a living and come up with some pretty weird characters: a bitter Mike Nesmith impersonator, an unstable Gene Simmons wannabe who turns pyromaniac, and a self-described "Queen superfan" whose obsession with the tribute band Sheer Heart Attack qualifies him for shock therapy. There’s a bit of point-and-laugh about it, but the strange little stories that eddy around each band raise interesting notions about fame and the transcendent power of music for bands and audience alike. That said, Tribute overflows with Spinal Tap-quality moments of unmerited self-aggrandizement, ego-deflation and pettiness. Don’t miss it. Thu, Mar 13, 9 pm @ GARN – NOEL DRUMMOND