March, Book 1: Civil Rights history in comics

“Congressman John Lewis (GA-5) is an American icon, one of the key figures of the civil rights movement. His commitment to justice and nonviolence has taken him from an Alabama sharecropper’s farm to the halls of Congress, from a segregated schoolroom to the 1963 March on Washington, and from receiving beatings from state troopers to receiving the Medal of Freedom from the first African-American president.” (…)

“March is a vivid first-hand account of John Lewis’ lifelong struggle for civil and human rights, meditating in the modern age on the distance traveled since the days of Jim Crow and segregation. Rooted in Lewis’ personal story, it also reflects on the highs and lows of the broader civil rights movement. Book One spans John Lewis’ youth in rural Alabama, his life-changing meeting with Martin Luther King, Jr., the birth of the Nashville Student Movement, and their battle to tear down segregation through nonviolent lunch counter sit-ins, building to a stunning climax on the steps of City Hall.”

(Text from the publisher's website; see also the back cover)

Congressman John Lewis wanted to be a preacher. He grew up on his parents' farm in rural Alabama taking care of the family chickens (to whom he was practising preaching!). The story starts in his congressional office as he is preparing to go assist at Obama's inauguration. A black lady comes into the office with her children to show them up a place where history was made. Instead they meet with the Congressman himself who takes this opportunity to tell them a little about himself and the history of the civil rights movement. With the help of his uncle Otis and Martin Luther King, Jr., to whom he wrote a letter, he succeed to go to college in Nashville. There, he contributed to the Student Movement and, inspired by Gandhi's nonviolent protest, took many actions to fight against segregation.


The storytelling is excellent and the art is pretty good. It is a superb idea to bring back to life Congressman Lewis' memories, such as his actions of civil disobedience, for a new generation to understand what the civil rights movement was all about. It is very educational and it is probably even more relevant today than when it was first published (considering the “Black Lives Matter” movement and the fact that I discovered this book through a CNN report about President Trump insulting Congressman Lewis, saying he was “all talk and no action” !).

All in all, it's a nice way to teach the history of an important moment of our Western Civilization, but also an excellent occasion to talk about good moral values. The life of great role models like Congressman Lewis need to be recorded for the posterity, but not only in history books or museums but also as part of our popular culture. It's a good reading for the Black History Month and I cannot recommend it more strongly.

March: Book One, by Congressman John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell. Marietta GA: Top Shelf Productions, August 2013. 128 pg., Softcover, 6.5" x 9.5", 14.95 US / $19.99 Can. ISBN: 978-1-60309-300-2.

For more information you can check the following websites:

[ Traduire ]

S'enfuir - Récit d'un otage

“En 1997, alors qu'il est responsable d'une ONG médicale dans le Caucase, Christophe André a vu sa vie basculer du jour au lendemain après avoir été enlevé en pleine nuit et emmené, cagoule sur la tête, vers une destination inconnue. Guy Delisle l'a rencontré des années plus tard et a recueilli le récit de sa captivité – un enfer qui a duré 111 jours. Que peut-il se passer dans la tête d'un otage lorsque tout espoir de libération semble évanoui ? Un ouvrage déchirant, par l'auteur de Pyongyang, de Shenzhen, de Chroniques birmanes et de Chroniques de Jérusalem.” [ Texte du site de l'éditeur ]

“Être otage, c'est pire qu'être en prison. En prison, tu sais pourquoi tu es là et à quelle date tu vas sortir. Quand t'es otage, tu n'as même pas ce genre de repères. Tu n'as rien.” [ Texte de la couverture arrière ]


Continuez après le saut de page >>

Capsule reviews

The Giver

In a post-cataclysmic world, humanity survives in a small utopian society which is peaceful and content, but colourless and deprived of emotions. With his coming of age, Jonas (Brenton Thwaites) is assigned a role as Receiver of Memory and instructed by the Giver (Jeff Bridges), who telepathically shares with him all the memories from the ancient time in order to give him the wisdom necessary to advise the Chief Elder (Meryl Streep) in her decisions. With this knowledge comes the realization that this seemingly perfect society is in no way morally better than the previous one: citizens are drugged into conformity and when they become less useful or rebellious they are “released to the Elsewhere”, i.e. murdered by lethal injection! To justify their authoritarian ways, the Chief Elder says “When people have the freedom to chose, they chose wrong every single time” — true, but at least they have the freedom to be wrong! By reaching the distant borders of the community, the hero wants to reset the society in hope for a better future (and to save the woman he loves, Fiona (Odeya Rush)). Based on Lois Lowry's young adult novel, this science-fiction movie succeeds, with a relatively small budget ($25 millions), to create an entertaining and thought-provoking story, making us ponder the moral values of our society. Even if it’s a little reminscient of Logan’s Run, this is an excellent movie well worth watching.

[ Amazon — Biblio — IMdB — Wikipedia — Youtube ]

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Victoria

This British drama TV series depicts the reign of Queen Victoria from her accession (after the death of her uncle William IV) to her mariage with Prince Albert (Tom Hughes) and the birth of her first child (also named Victoria). It was produced by ITV in the UK and will premiere on PBS’s Masterpiece next week. In a way, it is very similar to the series The Crown that depicts the early reign of Queen Elisabeth II. It is quite interesting to see all the politics and trials that play out around the English monarchy at such an important time in history (the Victorian era was particularly characterized by the industrial revolution and the development of railways). It’s also funny that there is so much German blood (from the House of Hanover and the House of Saxe-Coburg) in the British monarchy, and it created quite a stir at the time. But I must admit that what first caught my attention is the fact that the title role is played by Jenna Coleman (who has also interpreted Clara Oswald, one of the best companions in the new Doctor Who TV series, but also acted in Julian Fellowes’ Titanic and in Dancing on the Edge). Also starring is Rufus Sewell, who plays Victoria’s counsel and Prime Minister, Lord Melbourne. I also liked the haunting music theme. I really cannot resist a British historical drama, even less a very good one. Don’t miss it!

[ Amazon — IMdB — Wikipedia — Youtube ]

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Dark Angel

This is a two-part mini-series (although it feels more like a TV movie cut in two) produced by ITV in the UK and starring Joanne Froggatt (Anna in Downton Abbey). It will be shown on PBS’s Masterpiece later this year. Inspired by David Wilson’s book Mary Ann Cotton: Britain's First Female Serial Killer, it tells the sordid story of Mary Ann Cotton, a black widow who poisoned three of her four husbands as well as eleven of her thirteen children in order to collect insurance money and survive the harsh conditions women had to endure in nineteenth century England. You can’t help but feel some sympathy for her. A good period drama as it is often the case with Brit TV. Recommended.

[ Amazon — IMdB — Wikipedia — Youtube ]

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Eye in the Sky

An interesting movie showing, from the British point of view, all the procedures and decisions behind a drone strike in Somalia, as well as the moral questions it raises. If you could eliminate three top wanted terrorists as well as two suicide bombers preparing for an eminent attack that could kill up to eighty civilians, would you do it even if it meant probably killing one innocent girl? The collateral damage question is always a difficult choice between two evils. In a way, nothing much happens in this movie as the story is told almost in real time. Everything is in the debate, which makes it clearly a political movie. But is it an apology of war or a critic of the politicians inaptitude? Maybe both? Interesting indeed!

[ Amazon — Biblio — IMdB — Wikipedia — Youtube ]

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A Ghost of a Chance

Emi (Eri Fukatsu) is a lawyer whose client is accused of murdering his wife. But he couldn’t have done it since the night of the murder he was pined down in his hotel room by a ghost! What sort of defence can you build when your only witness is the ghost of a samurai? You manage to make him testify, of course! A funny japanese movie just as I like them, with a great line-up of actors (Toshiyuki Nishida, Hiroshi Abe, Kiichi Nakai, Koichi Sato, Takayuki Kinoshita, Yūko Takeuchi, Tadanobu Asano, etc.)!

I stumbled on this movie while watching TV Japan — a New-York based Japanese language channel operated by NHK Cosmomedia America and broadcasting a compilation of the best programming from the top Japanese networks and studios, including news and entertainment programs such as movies, dramas, variety shows, anime, sporting events, etc. (and available in Canada thanks to Bell Fibe TV!). I am glad that they show movies subtitled in english once in while.

[ Amazon — AsianWiki — IMdB — Wikipedia — Youtube ]

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Suffragette

Maud (Carey Mulligan) works in an industrial laundry house and gets involved by chance in the suffragette movement. Participating in illegal protests causes her to be outcast by her husband, which in turn drives her even further into political activism. Protests become more and more violent with property damages and bombings, hunger strikes when they were jailed, but it fails to really attract attention since the government controls the press… Until one woman, Emily Davison, is killed on a race track in front of the king. In 1928, women’s rights were finally recognized in Britain. But it took fifteen years to get there and the movie doesn’t show how Maud managed to survive during that time (if she could). Meryl Streep has a brief cameo as one of the movement’s leader, Emmeline Pankhurst. It’s unbelievable to see how bad were women’s living and working conditions in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. For that, it’s an interesting movie but I found it was lacking passion.

[ Amazon — Biblio — IMdB — Official sites — Wikipedia — Youtube ]

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[ Traduire ]

English Extensive Reading Manual

One of my Japanese friends, Kazu-chan, has just published a book!

Ten years ago, he came to Montreal through the working holiday program in order to learn English and French. He first got a job at the restaurant where my wife is working, Sakura Gardens, but he realized that a Japanese restaurant was the worse place to learn a new language, so he went to work at the Tim Horton's on Saint-Denis street instead. After graduating from the prestigious Tokyo University, he was hired by a big venture company, but he quickly discovered that he had no taste for the abuses a junior salaryman (office worker) must endure in Japan (remember Amélie Nothomb's novel, Fear and Trembling ?).

Choosing a more independent (but alas poorer) lifestyle, he founded with a friend (Akira Sakaizume, a senior in Buddhist literature) the language school Philosophia. While pursuing English learning methods that are more suitable for Japanese people, they are helping students not only to prepare for the college entry exam but also to develop useful English skills. For him it was a dream to help children realize their hope while broadening their mind through English education.

Movie capsule-reviews

Pompeii

Another totally unrealistic catastrophe movie. Kiefer Sutherland with a ridiculous brit accent and “John Snow” [Kit Harington] as a slave hero pointlessly saving the damsel in distress. Entertaining but not historic.

[ Bibliothèque — IMdB — Wikipedia — Youtube ]

Big Eyes

A Tim Burton movie about the life of American painter Margaret Keane, famous for her children with big eyes art, who had to fight her husband Walter Keane up to court as he took credit for her very successful work. He was a genius of marketing but, as a frustrated wanna-be painter, couldn’t resist to flatter his ego and take credit for “their” success until she got tired of the fraud (and found religion with the Jehovah’s witnesses). Interesting subject, but a quite ordinary delivery.

[ Bibliothèque — IMdB — Official site — Wikipedia — Youtube ]

Les Visiteurs: La Révolution

En 1123, le chevalier Godefroy de Montmirail, dit « le Hardi » (et son écuyer, Jacquouille la Fripouille) voyagent dans le temps grâce à la potion d’un mage. Mais rien ne va comme prévu et, dans ce troisième opus, le duo (Jean Reno et Christian Clavier) se retrouve en 1793, soit en pleine Terreur révolutionnaire! Amusant mais la formule commence à se faire vieille.

[ Bibliothèque — IMdB — Wikipedia — Youtube ]

Race

An interesting film about the struggle of a black athlete to get into the 1936 summer Olympics and to show that black lives matter — while teaching a good lesson to Nazi Germany. More interestingly, it’s what the movie fails to show that is the most important: despite his four olympic medals, Jesse Owens will be totally ignored after his return to the U.S.A.. After all, the blacks in America were not that much better off than the jews in Germany. He died of cancer at 66 years old, poor, after holding small jobs and making a few business ventures. He was recognized only posthumously with a Congressional Gold Medal awarded by George W Bush in 1990! Not totally accurate, but a moment in history worth remembering.

[ Bibliothèque — IMdB — Official site — Wikipedia — Youtube ]

[ Traduire ]

Salon du livre 2016

Mercredi, après le travail, j'ai profité de l'offre d'une entrée gratuite aux détenteurs de cartes des Bibliothèques de Montréal et de la BANQ pour faire ma visite annuelle au Salon du Livre de Montréal.

En passant chez mes amis d'Alire j'ai remarqué, entre autres, le dernier Patrick Sénécal, L'Autre reflet, l'impressionnant Détectionnaire de Norbert Spehner (qui était d'ailleurs l'un des invités d'honneur du salon), et noté la parution prochaine de L'Année de la science-fiction et du fantastique québécois 1996 (enfin)! Étrangement j'ai remarqué qu'il y avait au salon cette année beaucoup de livres de cuisine végane (un signe des temps, sans doute) et j'ai aperçu ce qui semble être la réédition (pas si récente que ça) du manga de UFO Robot Goldorak. Toutefois, je n'ai rien remarqué de frappant dans les nouveautés et je n'ai pas trouvé le manga de Marie-Antoinette que je cherchais (une nouveauté qui date quand même de septembre! — ça m'a tout de même aidé à mieux résister à la tentation d'acheter quoi que ce soit!).

Je ne comprends vraiment pas pourquoi les éditeurs et distributeurs poussent au salon seulement leur gros titres et meilleurs vendeurs alors que le salon devrait être le lieu pour faire connaître et promouvoir les nouveautés et les titres moins connus!

Autre étonnement: je constate l'absence de kiosques pour les bibliothèques de Montréal et pour la BANQ. Pourtant, par les années passées, ils avaient au moins des kiosques statiques (juste des affiches et des dépliants) ou même partageaient ensemble un kiosque (comme l'an passé). Mais, cette année, rien du tout! Pourtant si les biblios ont besoin d'une chose c'est bien de promotion. Ils pourraient faire la démontration des nouveaux postes d'auto-prêt, ou du catalogue Nelligan Découverte, parler des nouvelles biblios, de celles avec des projets de rénovations, des services en ligne, du prêt numérique, du tout nouveau service de prêt d'instruments de musique, offrir des abonnements (pour augmenter le taux d'abonnés par habitant qui est plus bas au Québec que dans le reste du pays), etc, etc.

Bien sûr, avoir un kiosque au salon et du monde sur le plancher ça coûte de l'argent et la ville (ou le gouvernement) semble penser que la culture c'est pas important. Et pourquoi investir et promouvoir si au bout du compte ça rapporte rien? Les bénéfices rapportés par les bibliothèques, c'est bien connu, ça ne se voit pas alors ça ne compte pas vraiment. C'est tellement Trump! On est vraiment entré dans une nouvelle ère. Argh! Quelle horreur… Saint-Lovecraft venez à notre secours!

Donc, cette année, un salon plutôt décevant. Heureusement que je ne manque pas de livres à lire!

[ Translate ]

Vegan Fest

Last week my wife dragged me to a vegan festival. I went only because I was curious to see what vegans looked like…

I mean, I’m all for eating healthy and I want to encourage local production so I was appalled that people would want to eat food from a distant solar system. And I had never seen little green people up-close…

Oh… You mean Vegan are not actually people from Alpha Lyrae, a.k.a. Vega? So why are they also called the green people? Umm. I was wondering why someone would bother to import food from a place 25 light-years away. Now it makes sense. My mistake.

So I stand corrected: Vegans are practitioners of veganism and therefore abstains from consuming any animal products like meat (including fish and seafood), eggs, dairy and all their derivatives (might even includes honey!). It also sometimes goes as far as opposing the use of any animal products (like leather) and advocating for animal wellfare. They must not be confused with vegetarians, who abstain only from consuming meat, but can sometimes be called vegetalians (because they consume only food from the vegetal order: seeds, vegetables, fruits, mushrooms, etc.). For some it’s not only a diet, but a philosophy, a religion even.

I am a very tolerant person and believe that people can do whatever they want as long as they don’t bother me with it. Lives and let live. I think that we should consume locally-produced food as much as possible and that we should be very careful with what we eat: avoid eating too much red meat for example and avoid processed food. However, I really don't understand those vegans.

More on this after the jump >>

A Tale of Samurai Cooking

“Haru has an excellent sense of taste and unsurpassed skill in the kitchen, but her impetuous character leads to her husband asking for a divorce after only a year of marriage. One day, she is approached by Dennai Funaki, a samurai chef from Kaga, to marry his son and heir, Yasunobu.”

“Serving the Lord of Kaga not with the sword, but with the kitchen knife, the Funaki family has been known as “Kitchen Samurai” for generations. However, Yasunobu’s lack of culinary skills has placed the Funaki name in peril. To save her new family and its status as “Kitchen Samurai”, Haru decides to teach her new husband the refined art of Kaga cuisine from her point of view. Inspired by a true story.”

(Text from the Cinémathèque website)

Sue, Mai and Sawa

“A heartwarming drama based on Miri Masuda's comic strip series, Sue, Mai & Sawa: Righting the Girl Ship offers a warm and tender depiction of the lives of three women, former colleagues whose friendship has endured over the course of 10 years. Now in their thirties, the three friends each harbor anxieties about their future, their professional paths, their love lives, and their family ties.”

(Text from the Cinémathèque website)

FFM 2016 wrap-up

Here we are concluding our coverage of the Festival des Films du Monde (FFM)…

Unfortunately, only two Japanese movies won an award this year: Tatara Samurai by Yoshinari Nishikori won “Best Artistic Contribution” and Ken-san by Yuichi Hibi won “Best Documentary” (ex-aequo with a Canadian film). Although, there's almost always a Japanese film in the list of the winners, even if it's often just a token price. That's probably why Japanese producers keep presenting their films here and generally come with a big delegation. You can find on the festival website the complete list for the laureates of the 47th Student Film Festival and of the 40th Montreal World Film Festival competition.

If I look back I can say that this year's festival really had a hard time. Almost everything was against it: stingy governmental agencies, ungrateful chain of theatres, sceptical employees, hostile media, and, to top it all, even a member of the jury dying in his hotel room just the day before the closing ceremony! It's a miracle that it happened at all. However, despite all this and the chaos that ensued (which affected mostly the scheduling), they managed to keep showing movies (as long as there's movies, there's hope) and, all in all, it was a pretty good festival. The public was there. The movies were there . They met at the Cinéma Impérial (mostly, but also at a few other venues). A beautiful love story. The end? Beside this, why bother with all the media doomsday fuss?

After all, it was not that much more chaotic than the previous years (ok, I admit this time there was no press room, no film market with its screening booths, no “5 to 7” to bond & meet with people of the industry, no outdoor screenings, screenings were spread all over town and the schedule kept changing so I could see only FOUR of the twelve announced Japanese movies — but, I mean, beside that (which was an annoyance mostly for the press), it wasn't that bad, isn't it?). The good thing with this year situation is that, with only one screen, there wasn't any schedule conflict anymore! Also, I might I've seen only four movies, but at least I saw something and I am happy with it.

However, I would reserved very harsh words (that I would rather not repeat here) for the various levels of government who let down the movie-loving public and, particularly, for the Cineplex Forum (hey! If you were to start showing movies in the end — presumably because you've reached an agreement with the festival or felt too ashamed that the Outremont and Park theatres were picking up screenings — why not have accepted from the start and save us all the trouble of the flip-flopping screening schedule! That behaviour is down-right insulting and you will not catch me anytime soon in a Cineplex theatre).

Through all this the press has been pretty harsh on Losique and his festival. All he wanted was to celebrate the 40th anniversary of his baby and they all pooped on his party. In the end, seeing it was rather a success, many rallied in the festival support but it might have been too little, too late. Nathalie Petrowski, of La Presse, was one of the few who covered the festival with a positive attitude from the start.

Amongst her comments, she offered an interesting speculation on the future of the festival: maybe the Chinese firm that donated the prize money for the awards would be interested in investing more in the festival or even buy it from Losique in order to keep promoting Chinese cinema in North America?

In another article, she quotes Pierre-Henri Deleau, who was in charge of programmation at the Cannes festival's Quinzaine des Réalisateurs. He was happy to be in Montreal, watching so many good films: “What is amazing is that despite the disorganization, chaos, pips and all the disparaging about the festival, look at that line! People are coming despite everything. Nowhere in the world you will see that. And to think that the City of Montreal continues to pretend it does not exist.”

We are hopeful for the future since Serge Losique has announced at the Closing Ceremony that there WILL be a festival next year (from August 24 to September 4, 2017) and hinted that he was planning his succession. Let's hope that the various levels of government will, this time, agree to support this iconic event just in time for the 375th anniversary of the city! But with or without subsidies, the public and the young movie-makers deserve a festival. All we need is the cinema aficionados to be there, a few screens, some beautiful movies and it will be love all over again!

Thanks to the organizers (those who stayed), volunteers, the selected film-makers who came to present their movies (and to Serge Losique) who all made this festival another interesting cinematic experience. See you next year, hopefully.

Press reviews:

• Houleux 40e Festival international des films du monde (Le Devoir)
• Isabelle Adjani en actrice engagée (Le Devoir)
• André Forcier, double primé au 40e FFM (Le Devoir)
• Le septième art contre les autorités culturelles (Le Devoir)
• The Festival des films du monde’s chaotic 40th edition is over. Now what? (Montreal Gazette)
• Montreal film maven wants to storyboard a new FFM (Montreal Gazette)
• FFM: deux récompenses pour Embrasse-moi comme tu m'aimes (La Presse)
• FFM: sublime Adjani (La Presse)
• Le vieillard fou de cinéma japonais au FFM 2016: Quand passe Susanoo (Shomingeki)
• Festival coverage (Le Devoir)
• Festival coverage (The Gazette)
• Festival coverage (La Presse)

[ Traduire lamentablement ]

The Seal of the Sun

“On March 11, 2011, the Eastern Japan Great Earthquake struck.”

“On that day, Japan faced the dangers of a catastrophic event that threatened a large segment of the population. The Earthquake knocked out the electricity at the Fukushima Daichi Nuclear plant located in Northeastern Japan. The emergency cooling system failed and the temperature inside the nuclear reactor kept climbing. A crisis equal to the Chernobyl’s nuclear disaster was looming.”

“The power plant metamorphosed into a gigantic and menacing monster. Scientists, surprised and shocked by the crisis which quickly expanded well beyond what they had predicted, made several erroneous judgements and decisions. The Prime Minister’s office was thrown into chaos with very little accurate information available to them.”

“Meanwhile, residents were hastily evacuated, forced to say good-bye to their homes. However, a time bomb was ticking without any credible solution to the crisis. Then, the catastrophe began with the explosion of the Unit 1 building. It then cascaded into explosions inside of the Unit 2 and 3 buildings. The countdown to the complete meltdown and total destruction continued and never stopped.”

(Text from production flyer)

MWFF update Day 1

We are continuing our coverage of the festival…

What a crazy world! But as long as there's movies being shown, there's hope!

Yesterday, we went to the festival office to pick up our press passes. It was chaos and lots of people were running around like headless chicken. We were told that due to a “computer problem” all the accreditation submissions had been lost (bug? crash? lock out of their system? ex-staff sabotage? who knows). I understood that we had to resubmit the request in paper (losiqual if the computer are down), so (taking time off from my day job) I went back this afternoon with a print out of the forms and pictures. It was quieter today at the FFM HQ, but apparently, they simply wanted us to email the pictures again. So I ended up taking a picture of the pictures with my phone and emailing them so they could print them on the press cards.

Now we have our press cards, but they look terrible !

REMINDER: The movies are shown ONLY at the Imperial Cinema, but the schedule has changed (several times) and it KEEPS CHANGING so please check it day by day !

Also note that if you purchased a ticket for a screening that has been re-scheduled, I've been told that they would exchange it without problem for a ticket of the screening at the new schedule.

For us, aficionados of Japanese cinema, the festival starts tonight! The first movie shown is:

Friday August 26, 19h00 (CI.26.6) REG

The Seal of the Sun (太陽 の 蓋 / Taiyō no futa) : Japan, 2016, 130 min., japanese with english subtitles; Dir.: Futoshi Sato; Scr.: Takashi Hasegawa; Phot.: Yukio Komiya; Prod.: Kaoru Ohtsuka; Cast: Yukiya Kitamura, Kenji Anan, Sota Aoyama. At 2:46 PM on March 11, 2011, the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant experiences a black out due to the aftermath of the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami.

So far, there are no movies announced for Saturday and Sunday. Barring any further schedule change, the next Japanese movies will be:

Monday August 29, 18h40 (CI.29.6) COMP

Tatara Samurai (たたら侍): Japan, 2016, 135 min.; Dir.: Yoshinari Nishikori; Phot.: Akira Sako; Mus.: Seikou Nagaoka; Cast: Shun Sugata, Denden, Masahiko Tsugawa. When the Amago samurai withdraw their protection of the village of Tatara, famous for their manufacture of the legendary swords, the younger generation — erroneously -- believe that guns will suffice.

Tuesday August 30, 19h40 (CI.30.6) HC

Black Widow Business (後妻業 の 女 / Gosaigyō no onna / lit. "Woman of the second wife industry") : Japan, 2016, 128 min.; Dir./Scr.: Yasuo Tsuruhashi (based on the novel by Hiroyuki Kurokawa); Cast: Masatoshi Nagase, Masatô Ibu, Machiko Ono. With 4000 matchmaking agencies across Japan serving some 600,000 clients, especially men and women over 65, the pickings are ripe for “black widows”. But the daughter of one victim decides to investigate.

Enjoy the festival while you can because, who knows, it might be the last one. Ultima forsan…

Press reviews:

• 16 millions de cinéphiles plus tard… (La Presse)
• Trois invités de marque au FFM (La Presse)
• FFM: Denis Coderre «en mode attente» (La Presse)
• Le FFM envers et contre tous (La Presse)
• FFM: Benjamin Ross Hayden in limbo (The Gazette)
• Pluie d’étoiles sur un festival assombri (Le Devoir)
• Gallery: Festival des films du monde kicks off (The Gazette)
• La veillée triste du 40e FFM (Le Devoir)
• Diehard cinephiles despair demise of Montreal Film Festival (The Gazette)
• FFM: André Forcier à la rescousse (La Presse)
• Cinéastes en plein désarroi au FFM (Le Devoir)

[ Traduire ]

Dear Deer

“A woman stares at a deserted exhibition in the local museum, a place said to be haunted by the phantom of a deer, “Ryomo-Shika”... Twenty-five years earlier three siblings reported seeing the deer, becoming first famous, then infamous when their claim was debunked. The fallout was devastating. The second son, Yoshio, is now living in a psychiatric institution; Akiko, the unsociable youngest daughter, lives in the country with an older man; and the eldest son, Fujio, who has remained in town, is burdened with debt from the family’s failing business. Now, with their father dying, the three siblings along with their respective partners and friends, have returned home, their first reunion in many years. But time hasn’t dulled their rivalries and or their rancour. They find themselves once again at a crossroads in life.”

(Text from the Festival's program)

Haman

“A tragic story of a girl who becomes a monster. Deeply in love, Haruka decides to have sex with her boyfriend. But the results are catastrophic: she accidentally kills him. Traumatized, she flees the scene. Her cursed life has begun. Does she have any hope of escaping the malediction? A dark fantasy about life, sex and love. ”

(Text from the Festival's program)

The Next Generation Patlabor — Tokyo War

“Over the years since 1988, the "Mobile Police PATLABOR" franchise in Japan has become a pioneer in multimedia, combining anime comics, videograms, films and novels. Until now the films have been animated. The story has now gone live-action... Labor is a robot specifically designed for heavy industry work. The rise of Labors has sparked a revolution in industry, but also an increase in crime. To combat these new Labor crime wave, the police have created a special unit: The Patrol Labor known as the Special Vehicles Section 2 (SV2). This is the birth of "Patlabor". We are now in the 21st century and the Tokyo Metropolitan Police’s SV2 so-called Patlabor still looks out for misbehaving Labors, but Patlabor is no longer considered necessary because of its cost and care. When Tokyo is attacked by an organization of terrorists using stealth helicopters, SV2 is called in to neutralize the threat.”

(Text from the Festival's program)

Early Spring, Sakurajima

“Takashi Arimura had been working in Kyoto. Now that he’s reached the age of retirement he’s returned to his hometown, Kagoshima. A beautiful city with a volcano overlooking it, but the vista can’t make up for the fact that life in retirement is depressing. With the encouragement of his wife, Kyoko, he takes up a new hobby -- drawing. He picks a paintbrush for the first time. The world now looks very different. He now has a goal in life. Can he reach it?”

(Text from the Festival's program)

Blowing in the winds of Vietnam

“Misao Sasho teaches Japanese in Hanoi, Vietnam. One day she receives a phone call from Japan informing her of her father’s passing. Upon returning to Japan for her father’s funeral, she realizes that her mother has deteriorated and is becoming senile. She decides to take her back to Vietnam. The new environment works wonders. Misao’s mother enjoys the company of Misao’s acquaintances. She is suddenly the centre of attention...”

(Text from the Festival's program)

Blood Bead

“Tokita, already into his middle age, has been teaching at a film school in Kyoto for a while. He would prefer to be directing films rather than teaching about them but it pays the bills and life isn’t bad. Indeed, he is having an affair with Yui, the pretty secretary of the film school. Still, the fact that he hasn’t been able to finish his script and find funding for his project nags him enormously. He is a filmmaker not a schoolteacher... Then, on the street, he runs into a striking young high school girl and his life changes. Not necessarily for the better. He is immediately smitten with Ritsuko. He begins to stalk her. He becomes delusional. His life itself becomes a film. And its ending has not been written.”

(Text from the Festival's program)