KANO Chih-Hsiang Ma’s KANO is an exhaustingly sentimental baseball picture that overstays its welcome to a huge degree. An ethnically diverse baseball team from southern Taiwan (what commentators call a “miracle team”) competes for the top prize at Japan’s Koshien baseball championship. Set in 1931, the film is essentially an underdog story, but it lacks […]
Don’t Think I’ve Forgotten The title Don’t Think I’ve Forgotten could be a mantra for third world countries that (having survived decades of colonialism) strive to preserve their national culture. Memory is a major player in constructing history; if a nation or group of people can coherently remember who, what, and where they came from, […]
We take a look at ten of the films playing this year's ecologically minded Planet in Focus film festival.
On the Trail of the Far Fur Country On the Trail of the Far Fur Country shows us the unique qualities of the Great White North while recreating the footage that was thought to be lost a very long time ago. 95 years ago in 1919, a film crew set out to capture the day […]
The Continent From blogger,novelist, and race car driver Han Han, The Continent is a socially interesting, but narratively slight affair about three small town friends hitting the road to find themselves. With a desire to get out and find his long time pen pal, Ma Hoahan decides to leave his small island community with his […]
Manny Boxing is still one of the most popular sports on the planet, and not since the sport’s heyday has there been a fighter that has captured the public’s interest like Manny Pacquiao. Manny is the chronicle of his life and how he made his from war torn slums to be a champion both in […]
Mourning Grave Mourning Grave borrows too much from the Japanese Horror wave of the late 90s and early 2000s – without giving back anything original – to be taken as anything but a dull knock off. In-Su (Kang Ha-neul) has the ability to see ghosts and it has never been a problem. He decides to […]
The Midnight After It’s important to kick off a film festival with something that makes a hell of a strong statement, and this installment of the Reel Asian Film Festival has done so in spades. The Midnight After is a mind bending tale that evokes a wide array of emotions, and managing to entertain like […]
The Dark Side of the Chew The Dark Side of the Chew, if you couldn’t tell by its title, is a documentary that’s not short on self-aware humour, yet in the process does not undermine the sincerity of its intentions. It explores the impact of chewing gum – yes, chewing gum–on our culture, and its perceived […]
Living on the Edge A collaboration between journalist Susan Woodfine and photographer Joan Sullivan, Living on the Edge takes a look at the effects of climate change via the lives affected in Northern Quebec along the edge of the Lower Saint Lawrence Gulf. Following a massive high tide surge in December of 2010, local residents […]
Honour Your Word Since 1991, the Algonquin of Barriere Lake (about four hours North of Ottawa) have been fighting a vital battle for their land and their rights, as outlined in Martha Steigman’s slightly overlong, but powerful look at governmental abuse of authority and trust. Forced already into living on a 59 acre reserve and […]
Trick or Treaty? ”In 2013 our people still have to do drastic measures in order to get acknowledged” is one of the painful truths stated in Canadian filmmaker Alanis Obomsawin’s newest exploration of the hardships faced by Canada’s oft abused Aboriginal peoples. Sadly, Trick or Treaty? would benefit from some of that radicalism, as the lack of […]
Just Eat It: A Food Waste Story Finally, a food advocacy stunt documentary where people not only immediately regret their project, but one that actually delivers a clear, coherent, easily agreeable thesis without seeming didactic or menacing. Grant Baldwin and Jenny Rustemeyer outdo their previous look at waste (The Clean Bin Project) with this funny […]
Family Farm In the documentary Family Farm, filmmaker Ari A. Cohen examines some of the challenges small scale farmers face in today’s world of mass production. Visiting farms between Prince Edward Island and Manitoba, Cohen speaks with several types of farmers dealing with a variety of hardships, from livestock disease to pesticides to the slack regulation […]
Radical Friends “On a planet of 7 billion, if I can’t even make my dad care about me, how can I make everyone care about anyone?” This and many other difficult questions are examined in the documentary Radical Friends as first time filmmaker Chihiro Geuzebroek uses her own introspective journey to showcase the personal difficulties of environmental activists. Feeling […]
