MARIANNE FAITHFULL

A compelling reveal from the iconic singer herself talking about her days with Mick Jagger, her descent into drugs, living on the streets of new York, her stint as a theatre actor and her remarkable come-back. She confesses that her life has really been lived without much thought, taking opportunities when they were given to her. She obviously paid the price for entering a worked she could not cope with, for this beautiful woman is essentially shy and anti-social. Sandrine Bonnaire directed this and conducted the interviews. Marianne Faithfull really could not sing well, and today her voice is best suited for a Brechtian production. Her songs these days are very confessional, and despite her age, her charisma continues to captivate.

FIFA BRINGS GREAT ART FILMS TO US

L’HISTOIRES D’ ISRAEL

 A talking heads presentation by writers and other intellects who express their love fo the country and its many layers and faults.. Inevitably, the main topic is the conflict between Palestinians and Jews. (Screened at FIfA).

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

FOCUS IRAN – L'AUDACE AU PREMIER PLAN

A brilliant presentation of several female photographers and what they have to go through to be one. There is so much censorship, but these brave women risk a lot to get their relisitc and often quirky photographs. Many show the repression of women and the depression that is concurrent to being a woman in Iran. (Screened at FIFA)

                                         -------------------------------------------------------------------------------

JACQUES BREL

A black and white retrospective on this brilliant singer who sought solitude but attracted internatioanl fame with his songs and passionate performances. He left his first family and did a lot of roaming, A restless artist who suffered both in childhood and later. The clips were rare and illuminating. It is always a joy to watch and hear him. Sad, he is no longer with us. Clips were rare and illuminating. It is always a joy to watch and hear him. Sad, he is no longer with us. (Screened at FIFA).

                                       ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

BECOMING CARY GRANT

Beloved by all, Bristol-born, Grant (Archie Leach) was actually and somewhat ironically, a private person. In the late 1950s, all his life he felt his public persona was not fulfilling to his authentic self. Hollywood sucked him in. His quest is peace of mind. He wanted to rid himself of all hypocrisies. He consults a shrink and nothing seemed to get him what he wanted until he took LSD. This is a highly revealing film about a great actor and man. He took to the fusion of outward and inward “trips”. Judy Babalan was his best friend and she narrates a lot. She says he invented himself and everyone wanted to be like him. But his crisis he faced head-on. He became a different man after each weekly 5-hour session. His subconscious enlightened him after each therapeutic trip where a mosaic of past and present created for him a montage of his life and direction for the future. The film is a type of LSD trip as well as it shows his dreams. He says love eluded him. Manners took over. his mother left him. This gave him trouble with women. Three marriages later, lack of turst overcame in them due to abandonment issues.  Clearly, he suffered from poverty of affect. This film is a must for those in search of the real person behind the actor who was groomed to become the perfect gentleman.

                                    -------------------------------------------------------------------------------

THE MISSION OF KENT NAGANO

A wonderful film on the Montreal conductor’s prodigious journey to bring classical music to the young, starting right in Montreal at St-Remi School. In addition, “The Magic Flute” was performed in Hamburg with him conducting and directing the youth during rehearsals. Maestro Nagano’s greatest inspiration came from a teacher who settled in the village where he was raised on a farm. This maestro was multi-talented and his many artistic talents shaped the young Nagano. Intent to find out why classical music is not as connected as it ought to be to young people, he states so many reasons that this will change, thanks to his personal efforts. He reveals the power of music as it affects all humans. The documentary takes us to Montreal. Hamburg and Japan as the lens reveals the great  maestro’s contributions. (Screened at FIFA).
                                    ------------------------------------------------------------------------

MUSIC IS MUSIC

Soprano, Barbara Hannigan conducts the Ludwig Orchestra and sings Lulu and Crazy Girl. I think the filmmaker was more in love with her hair than anything else.. It made me think that Berg, composer of “Lulu” was usurped by Debussy, who composed “The Girl with the Flaxen Hair”.  Hannigan sings with the orchestra and the musicians play and sing too. The film lacked complete focus, and this subject needed a far more liner and logical approach rather then just showing her conducting and landscape scenes with a voice of a man remembering his childhood and excitement about his music teacher. Who this man behind the voice is supposed to be is unclear.

                          _______________________________________________________________

MARIANNE FAITHFULL

A compelling reveal from the iconic singer herself talking about her days with Mick Jagger, her descent into drugs, living on the streets of new York, her stint as a theatre actor and her remarkable come-back. She confesses that her life has really been lived without much thought, taking opportunities when they were given to her. She obviously paid the price for entering a worked she could not cope with, for this beautiful woman is essentially shy and anti-social. Sandrine Bonnaire directed this and conducted the interviews. Marianne Faithfull really could not sing well, and today her voice is best suited for a Brechtian production. Her songs these days are very confessional, and despite her age, her charisma continues to captivate.

TEHRAN TABOO (Directed by Ali Soozandeh) ****

This exquisitely animated feature uses rotoscope to create a remarkably realistic rendering of characters caught in the jaws of Islamic hypocrisy. They include a musician in need of finding money to give to a girl he thinks he got pregnant; a woman who induces abortions to escape her husband’s hold; another woman who whores herself out to a judge to get papers to divorce her husband. Her child is mute but he, like us, watches the drama unfold. Restrictive Iran forces people to live well below the radar to survive. But some get caught or others take their own lives to avoid shame. Freedom and happiness are not within their reach. A wonderful film that daringly shows how bad things are, and how like everyone else, people can do awful things to fulfil their own agenda. Women are the ones who suffer under the male yoke there. This is a German-Austrian co-production.

ATTACK OF THE SOUTHERN FRIED ZOMBIES (Directed by Mark Newton) ***

 Meat pies and the killer corp kudzu seem to be a big part of the Zombie transformation.  This vicious crop is killing all and turning them into zombies. But Lonnie - who flies a dust crop plane -- leads his marginalized group of Zombie-fighters. They're stuck having to take them all out.  Fun horror but so gory, you'll never want to eat a meat pie again. What an entertaining kudzu-kitsch movie to watch! Great for Montreal’s Fantasia Festival if it’s selected. It should be. 

FESTIVAL ACCES ASIA: SIX FABULOUS CONCERTS

Oracle Bones , Friday May 4 at 8pm at  Sala Rossa 4848 St-Laurent  

Indivisible , From Thursday May 10^th to Sunday May 13^th, 8pm at MAI (Montréal, arts interculturels) 3680, Jeanne-Mance

Eau douce, Eau trouble, Friday May 11^th 8pm, at Gesù – Centre de créativité 1200, de Bleury

Strings of Romance, INDIAN MUSIC CONCERT, Saturday May 12^th 7:30pm,  at  Bourgie Hall  Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal 1339, Sherbrooke W.

Golestan, Friday May 18^th 8pm, at Sala Rossa 4848, St-Laurent

Wind of Asia – 7^th edition, OUTDOORS EVENTS, Saturday May 26^th 2pm to 5pm, at Jardins Gamelin Place Émilie-Gamelin

PEEK PREVIEW OF MY NEW CREATION

TAPPING TANGO  is my new animation film about two payphones in a Montreal metro who tap and tango their way into love. 

Have a look

 

         Attention: Distributors and festival programmers! 

View TAPPING TANGO  in its entirety. 

Contact me at: hovecreekproductions@gmail.com   

 Looking forward to its public premier!

WINTER CALLING ME AGAIN AT CAP SAINT- JACQUES:

                                  BACK AGAIN EXACTLY A YEAR LATER
It was sunny - just as it was February 18^th one year ago - almost to the day. Once again, I was greeted with smiles and assistance. Christine, who is in charge of rentals right inside the welcome centre fit me out with Rossignol cross-country skis and boots. I tossed the ones I had brought from home into their inner room. I felt great knowing I was using the park’s top-of-the-line skis and was not fearful of going alone on the trails (last winter Diego, one of the park guides) accompanied me. This is one park whose signs of where you are with different trails (rabbit, beavers and squirrel) are well indicated and in colour.

In this office, I also met Eric, who grooms the trails. What an interesting guy! He’s a tree man, an arborist who also reads a lot about them. In fact, he’s right at home in this park, since the Cap is laden with them.  many are being tapped for maple syrup season.

The trails aren’t hilly but still form fun gentle mounds for a gliding that give a hint of an adrenaline rush. 

 The snow was melting; it was kind of crispy-sugary. I fell at one point on a small icy spot and couldn’t get up. Celine, whom I met on the trial five minutes earlier tried to pick me up. She too fell at the exact same spot. Fortunately, a young woman appeared and hoisted me back up; I was amazed at her strength. She blurted out laughing, “I’m a fire fighter. You have to be strong.” When I got back to the welcome centre, another woman who had seen it all, told me the fire fighter fell about a minute later. 

                                                                We laughed.

I took the yellow beaver trail that’s just a bit more than 6 kilometres. I was glad to see how much snow there was, to see the lakes again that give expansive views to other towns, including Oka.

Here I was, only 30 minutes from Montreal, but the relaxed treed landscape , cut through by winding trails edged in stream and lakes,  transported me into a realm of peace, prettiness and awfully friendly folk inside the park.

Read about last winter and summer at the park