10/31/2014
Contest: Win 'Birdman' Prize Packs!
Birdman or (The
Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) is a hit! Thanks to all the readers who
made the last Birdman contest explode
with such fury, our friends at Fox Searchlight and Regency Enterprises are putting
up the Bird Signal once again, but this time Ottawa readers get to take the
call! If you want to win an amazing Birdman
prize pack, including some cool T-shirts and a copy of the film’s jazzy
soundtrack, enter the trivia below for your chance to win!
'How Much Do You Want It?'
Nightcrawler
(USA, 117 min.)
Written and directed by Dan Gilroy
Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Rene Russo, Riz Ahmed, Bill
Pullman
“How much do you want it,” asks Lou Bloom (Jake Gyllenhaal)
to Nina (Rene Russo) during a tense encounter in which the slimy freelance
videographer negotiates with the TV news producer over a particularly
titillating piece of footage. Lou, a petty thief and lowlife who catches a bug
for capturing sensational news stories after stumbling upon a fiery car wreck,
graduates to the league of news agents known as nightcrawlers who chase
ambulances and feed producers like Nina who live by the motto, “If it bleeds,
it leads.” Nina, actually, lives by the sensationalist FOX News-era philosophy
that pushes hard news to the point of fiction. Her idea of news, she says, is a
white woman running and screaming with blood spurting out of a gouge in her
throat. Nightcrawler knows how much
audiences have a taste for the rough stuff, and it gives them exactly what they
want.
Labels:
2014 Reviews,
Jake Gyllenhaal,
Nightcrawler
'Mommy' and 'Maps to the Stars' Open Today!
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Antoine Olivier-Pilon in Mommy |
10/29/2014
The Urban Planet and Tent Town, USA
Slums: Cities of
Tomorrow
(Canada, 81 min.)
Written and directed by Jean-Nicholas Orhon
The slums of the world have assumed a mystical, if not
fetishistic, quality in the movies ever since Slumdog Millionaire took the world by storm in 2008. Slumdog thrillingly, if problematically,
entrances audiences with its rags-to-riches romance that whizzes through the
slums of Mumbai. Settings of exotic poverty are frequent in the movies, but few
films actually tackle the significance of slums beyond the character and life
that breathes in these overlooked corners of the world. They’re unacknowledged
cities, really, as filmmaker Jean-Nicholas Orhon argues in the insightful
documentary Slums: Cities of Tomorrow.
This sobering film takes a matter-of-fact portrait of slums, which are rapidly
growing as some of the most populous places on Earth.
Labels:
2014 Reviews,
Canadian Film,
Documentary
10/28/2014
Bill Murray, Patron Saint of Comedy
St. Vincent
(USA, 103 min.)
Written and directed by Theodore Melfi
Starring: Bill Murray, Melissa McCarthy, Naomi Watts, Jaeden
Lieberher
Bill Murray puts the F in ‘Bill F***ing Murray’ with his
colourfully cuss-laden turn in the charming crowd-pleaser, St. Vincent. St. Vincent,
which opened at the Toronto International Film Festival earlier this year on
the festive celebration of Bill Murray Day, canonizes Murray as one of the
patron saints of comedy. Murray has been on something of a latter act
reinvention of his career since 2003’s Lost
in Translation brought his a well-deserved Oscar nod, and his turn as the grumpy Vin in St. Vincent
might be one of the finer fusions of his sophisticated dramatic streak with his
Caddyshack swagger. It’s a
competitive year for actors, but there’s reason to believe that a few comedy
fans will nominate their saint in the months ahead. St. Vincent sees Murray at his curmudgeonly best.
Labels:
2014 Reviews,
Bill Murray,
Melissa McCarthy,
Naomi Watts,
St Vincent
10/25/2014
'Enemy', 'Grand Seduction' Top Directors Guild of Canada Winners
The Directors Guild of Canada awards were handed out in Toronto tonight. Enemy leads with three prizes, although Don McKellar scooped the prize for Best Director for The Grand Seduction. Oddly enough, Denis Villeneuve won the Canadian Screen Award for Best Director when Enemy led the CSA haul despite losing the top prize to Gabrielle, which went home from the DGAs empty handed. The winners are as follows:
BEST FEATURE FILM
BEST FEATURE FILM
Presented by Platinum Sponsor, Technicolor
BEST DIRECTION –
FEATURE FILM
Presented by Gold Sponsor, Deluxe
Presented by Gold Sponsor, Deluxe
Don McKellar – The Grand Seduction
ALLAN KING AWARD FOR
EXCELLENCE IN DOCUMENTARY
Presented by Silver Sponsor Rogers Group of Funds
Presented by Silver Sponsor Rogers Group of Funds
Watermark –
Jennifer Baichwal
BEST SHORT FILM
The Golden Ticket –
Patrick Hagarty
BEST PRODUCTION
DESIGN – FEATURE FILM
Presented by Silver Sponsor Pinewood Studios Group
Presented by Silver Sponsor Pinewood Studios Group
Patrice Vermette - Enemy
BEST PICTURE EDITING
– FEATURE FILM
Matthew Hannam – Enemy
BEST SOUND EDITING –
FEATURE FILM
The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones - Kevin Banks, Stephen Barden, Alex Bullick,
Nelson Ferreira, J. R. Fountain, Rose Gregoris, Jill Purdy, Nathan Robitaille
and Tyler Whitham
Please visit www.dgc.ca for the.complete list of winners including television categories.
Please visit www.dgc.ca for the.complete list of winners including television categories.
Labels:
An Enemy,
Canadian Film,
Grand Seduction
Don Draper Makes a Pitch
Million Dollar Arm
(USA, 129 min.)
Dir. Craig Gillespie, Writ. Tom McCarthy
Starring: Jon Hamm, Aasif Mandvi, Madhur Mittal, Suraj
Sharma, Lake Bell, Alan Arkin.
Don Draper knows how to make a pitch, so it’s no wonder that
“Mad Men” star Jon Hamm gamely steps to the mound in the feel-good sports flick
Million Dollar Arm. There’s some
Madison Avenue drive and showmanship behind the pitch that Hamm’s sports agent
JB makes to save his business in the film. The key to success, he thinks, is to
breed a new culture of fandom for American baseball and the best resource lies
in the untapped market of India where cricket fans are ideally suited for the American
pastime of hitting a ball with a bat. From Lucky Strikes to three strikes,
though, Hamm sells it with conviction.
Labels:
2014 Reviews,
Jon Hamm
10/24/2014
Oscar Predictions: Round 2 - Could Oscar Season Revive These Contenders?
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Marion Cotillard in The Immigrant |
Planet in Focus Announces Nominees for Green Screen and Green Pitch Awards
![]() |
Producer and Just Eat It film subject Jen Rustemeyer
looks over a pile of rescued food.
|
Labels:
Canadian Film,
PIF
10/23/2014
Ottawa's Inside Out Film Festival Runs Oct. 23-26!
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Tru Love opens Inside Out tonight at The ByTowne. |
Labels:
Best Foreign Lang Film,
Ottawa Arts
10/22/2014
Festival Japan Offers Free Films in Ottawa Oct. 24 & 25
![]() |
Until the Break of Dawn screens free at Festival Japan on Oct. 24. |
Labels:
CFI,
Ottawa Arts
Tickets Now on Sale for Ottawa's Cellar Door Film Festival!
![]() |
The Canadian horror film Dys- screens at Ottawa's Cellar Door Film Festival with director Maude Michaud in attendance on Nov. 8. |
Labels:
Cellar Door,
Ottawa Arts
10/21/2014
'Mommy' Becomes Highest Grossing Quebecois Film of 2014
![]() |
Xavier Dolan and Anne Dorval on the set for Mommy. Photo: Shayne Laverdière, courtesy Les Films Séville. |
Labels:
Best Foreign Lang Film,
Canadian Film,
Mommy,
Xavier Dolan
OIFF 2014: Festival Wrap-up and 'Best of the Fest'
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A Mile in These Hooves |
Labels:
OIFF,
Ottawa Arts
10/20/2014
OIFF Review: Shorts Programme 2
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The Lady in Number 6: Music Saved My Life |
Labels:
2014 Reviews,
Documentary,
OIFF,
Shorts
OIFF Review: 'In the Turn'
In the Turn
(USA/Canada, 90 min.)
Written and directed by Erica Tremblay
Ah, now here’s an empowering documentary for audiences at
the 2014 International Film Festival. Ottawa audiences will love this story
about Crystal, a ten-your-old girl from Timmins, who struggles while growing up
in a small town that hesitates to accept people who challenge their idea of
normalcy. Crystal’s mom introduces her daughter and explains how life in the
snowy Shania Twain town isn’t easy for Crystal, who first expressed thoughts of
suicide in relation to her gender dysphoria at the age of five. Crystal’s
trouble at school, her mom explains, sums itself up best/worst with the school’s
decision to deny Crystal the ability to play on sports teams because they don’t
know whether to put her with the boys or with the girls.
Labels:
2014 Reviews,
Documentary,
OIFF
10/19/2014
OIFF Review: 'The Lost Key'
The Lost Key
(USA/Venezuela, 88 min.)
Dir. Ricardo
Adler, Ricardo Korda, Belin Orsini
You know a doc’s a dud when it preaches about sex and
intimacy and the only take away from the film is the thought, “Whatever
happened to Meg Ryan?” The unfortunately absent has-been star of the 1990s
appears in a fleeting snippet of one of her romantic comedies with Tom Hanks in
the dismal documentary The Lost Key.
Time is better spent watching Ryan’s Hanging
Up than this one.
Labels:
2014 Reviews,
Documentary,
OIFF
OIFF Review: Short Programme 1
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A Mile in These Hooves |
Labels:
2014 Reviews,
Canadian Film,
OIFF,
Ottawa Arts,
Shorts
10/18/2014
OIFF Review: 'American Descent' and 'Subsurface Flow'
American Descent
(Canada, 83 min.)
Dir. Brooks Hunter, Writ. Brooks Hunter, Robert Menzies,
Maggie Newton
Starring: Eva Link, Madeline Link, Olivier Suprenant, Caedan
Lawrence, Mark Slacke, Rachel Cairns, Katherine Dines, Timothy Paul Coderre.
Found footage strikes again. American Descent, the latest film from Brooks Hunter, director of
OIFF 2011 alumnus and 2011 turkey train runner-up Kennyville, makes an admirable stab at mockumentary but falls victim
to the same tired clichés and conventions that make found footage one of the
most insufferable forms of filmmaking. American
Descent, which should really be titled Stupid
People: The Movie, is so dumb, dull, and repulsive that a not even
cheerleader for local content could love it.
Labels:
2014 Reviews,
Canadian Film,
OIFF,
Ottawa Arts,
Shorts
OIFF Review: 'My Father and the Man in Black'
My Father and the Man
in Black
(Canada, 87 min.)
Written and directed by Jonathan Holiff
Johnny Cash is an American icon, so it only makes sense that
the untold story of the man behind the Man in Black is the story of a Canadian.
The late Saul Holiff, reserved and modest(ish), receives a posthumous tribute
from his son, Jonathan, who mines the archive of his father's life in the folksy
documentary My Father and the Man in
Black. This personal Canada production, which screened at the Ottawa International Film Festival on Friday, walks the line between sweetness and
sentimentality, but Holiff provides both an intimate tale of fathers and sons
and a revealing glimpse into music history.
Labels:
2014 Reviews,
Canadian Film,
Documentary,
OIFF
10/17/2014
Trailer for 'Elephant Song' Starring Bruce Greenwood, Xavier Dolan and Catherine Keener
Photo: Les Films Séville |
OIFF Review: 'Girlhouse'
Girlhouse
(Canada, 99 min.)
Dir. Trevor Matthews, John Knautz; Writ. Nick Gordon
Starring: Ali Corbin, Adam DiMarco, Erin
Agostino, Chasty Ballesteros, Alyson Bath, Alice
Hunter, Slaine.
Sexy coeds get porked and butchered in the local slasher Girlhouse
and the result is pretty nasty. Girlhouse,
which had its world premiere as the opening night selection of the 2014 Ottawa International Film Festival to an
energetic and decently-sized crowd at the Mayfair Theatre, certainly marks one of the most professionally assembled and
commercially viable genre flicks to emerge from the local film scene. A heaping
dose of sex and violence makes this diversionary gore-fest a prime contender for
the Netflix queue, although audiences outside of the local film scene might not
be as forgiving of the clichés and overall derivativeness of the film. Still,
Ottawa audiences should appreciate the technical efforts of their peers while teen
target demos could bring some interest akin to the locally shot moneymaker House at the End of the Street.
Labels:
2014 Reviews,
Canadian Film,
OIFF,
Ottawa Arts,
Shorts
10/16/2014
'Citizen Marc': A Grassroots Campaign (of Sorts)
Citizen Marc
(Canada, 93 min.)
Dir. Roger Larry, Writ. Roger Larry, Sandra Tomc
Civil disobedience goes up in smoke in the raucous
documentary Citizen Marc as famed
and/or notorious marijuana activist Marc Emery positions himself as the Gandhi
of ganja. Yes, that statement sounds like hyperbole, or like the words of a guy
taking a toke, but Marc irreverently positions his cause as something akin to a
holy war. Citizen Marc playfully
magnifies this large-than-life character and posits his grandiose narcissism as
one of his superhuman strengths. Marc’s delusions might also be his kryptonite,
for director Roger Larry frames the story of Marc’s fight for marijuana rights
within his recent legal battle and extradition to the United States for selling
pot seeds across the border. This sassy doc asks if such a brazen personality
is ultimately a help or a hindrance for cultivating social change.
Labels:
2014 Reviews,
Canadian Film,
Documentary,
Ottawa Arts
10/14/2014
Ottawa International Film Festival Runs Oct. 15-19!
The Ottawa International Film Festival returns this week!
Running from Oct. 15-19, Ottawa’s little festival that could makes a big step
forward in its fifth year. This year’s OIFF features the largest line-up yet
with an impressive six features and 17 shorts from a mix of local, national and
international talents. Even more impressive is OIFF’s new residency at Ottawa’s
historic Mayfair Theatre, which gives the festival a new home with more seating
capacity (and far better popcorn!) than its previous homes at the now-defunct
World Exchange Plaza and other venues around the city. OIFF is not without its
humble origins, as anyone starting up a project in Ottawa’s arts scene needs to
keep in mind, but year five shows that business is a boomin’ for the local film
scene!
Labels:
Canadian Film,
OIFF,
Ottawa Arts
10/10/2014
Contest: Win Tickets to 'The Best of Me' in Ottawa and Toronto! (CONTEST CLOSED)
Labels:
Adaptation,
Best of Me,
contests
10/09/2014
'Nolo Contendre'
The Judge
(USA, 141 min.)
Dir. David Dobkin, Writ. Nick Schenk, Bill Dubuque
Starring: Robert Downey, Jr. , Robert Duvall, Vera Farmiga,
Vincent D’Onofrio, Jeremy Strong.
How many high stakes courtroom flicks plead ‘no contest’?
The legal plea lets a defendant play it safe by neither admitting to charges
nor fighting them. It saves a potentially dramatic episode of legal proceedings
as one avoids disputing one’s guilt. It’s dignified, I guess, if the
potentially guilty party has nothing to prove.
Labels:
2014 Reviews,
Jr,
Robert Downey,
Robert Duvall,
The Judge,
Vera Farmiga
10/08/2014
Contest! Win Tickets to see 'Birdman' in Toronto, Calgary, and Vancouver! (CONTEST CLOSED)
The Oscar race is on! Birdman
or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) has had critics and
audiences flapping their wings with praise ever since it opened at the Venice
Film Festival this summer. Birdman, directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu and
starring Michael Keaton, opens in Canadian theatres from Fox Searchlight
Pictures Canada beginning Oct. 24, but if you live in Toronto, Calgary, or
Vancouver and want to catch a sneak peek of Birdman,
you are in luck! Answer the trivia below for your chance to see Birdman before it hits theatres!
10/07/2014
Cellar Door Film Festival Announces Line-up
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The Bulgarian horror/thriller Roseville opens the 2014 Cellar Door Film Festival. |
Labels:
Canadian Film,
Cellar Door,
Ottawa Arts
10/06/2014
Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage (and Then a Lot More Hateship)
Gone Girl
(USA, 149 min.)
Dir. David Fincher, Writ. Gillian Flynn
Starring: Ben Affleck, Rosamund Pike, Neil Patrick Harris,
Tyler Perry, Kim Dickens, Carrie Coon.
The adaptation of Gone
Girl employs near clinical fidelity to its source material, yet one feels
like an adulterer watching the delicious drama unfold onscreen. The book by
Gillian Flynn inspires me to be on Amy’s side of the affair for every page of
the novel from beginning to end, yet the film by David Fincher puts me on Team
Nick for every frame of the movie from open to close. Gillian Flynn writes both
versions and they’re nearly identical in terms of words, story and structure, so
this adaptation poses a fascination re-reading by the film author that draws
out all the social resonance embedded within Flynn’s texts. This wicked
thriller by David Fincher is one of his best films yet.
Labels:
2014 Reviews,
Adaptation,
Ben Affleck,
David Fincher,
Gone Girl,
Rosamund Pike
10/05/2014
uOttawa Human Rights Film Fest Review: 'I am a Girl'
I am a Girl
(Australia, 98 min.)
Written and directed by Rebecca Barry
This second University of Ottawa Human Rights Film Festival
closes with the nice and timely documentary I
am a Girl from Australian director Rebecca Barry. Barry follows six girls
in different pockets of the world—Australia, USA, Afghanistan, Cameroon,
Cambodia, and Papua New Guinea—and provides a global snapshot of what it means
to be a young woman in the contemporary world. I am a Girl takes these six stories and weaves together an
optimistic outlook for girls around the globe.
Labels:
Capsule reviews,
CFI,
Ottawa Arts,
uOHRFF
10/04/2014
uOttawa Human Rights Film Fest Review: 'For Those Who Can Tell No Tales'
For Those Who Can
Tell No Tales
(Bosnia and Herzegovina, 73 min.)
Dir. Jasmila Zbanic, Writ. Jasmila Zbanic, Kym Vercoe, Zoran
Solomun
Starring: Kym Vercoe, Boris Isakovic, Simon McBurney, Sasa
Orucevic
Well, here’s a fascinating film that Ottawans should see at
the University of Ottawa Human Rights Film Festival. For Those Who Can Tell No Tales is arguably the best film of the
fest. This film blends art and life as it follows Australian performance
artists Kym Vercoe (played by Australian performance artist Kym Vercoe) as she
travels to Bosnia and finds herself shell-shocked when she learns the truth
about one of her picturesque stops recommended in her travel guide. Vercoe, adapting
her own play Seven Kilometers North East
about her own travels in Bosnia, strips back the veil of touristic ignorance
behind which citizens of developed countries often hide. For Those Who Can Tell No Tales is powerful in its haunting
realization of trauma and memory, and especially for how it honours victims of
violence by sharing their story as art.
Labels:
2014 Reviews,
CFI,
Ottawa Arts,
uOHRFF
uOttawa Human Rights Film Fest Review: 'Portraits in a Sea of Lies'
Portraits in a Sea of Lies (Retrators en un Mar
de Mentiras)
Portraits in a Sea of Lies easily has the most poetic title of all the films screening at this year’s University of Ottawa Human Rights Film Festival. Like most books of poetry, though, Portraits is a bit tricky. This well-intentioned film by Carlos Gaviria easily delivers more on the message than it does the medium, but the multi-award-winning Portrait in a Sea of Lies smartly lets the lessons of the film leave a lasting impression. The film takes audiences to a contemporary Colombia where, as the final titles cards of the film reveal, an estimated ten percent of the population is displaced by violence. What begins as a run-of-the-mill road movie ends as a compelling essay on forced migration.
(Colombia, 91 min.)
Written and directed by Carlos Gaviria
Starring: Paola Baldion, Julián Román
Portraits in a Sea of Lies easily has the most poetic title of all the films screening at this year’s University of Ottawa Human Rights Film Festival. Like most books of poetry, though, Portraits is a bit tricky. This well-intentioned film by Carlos Gaviria easily delivers more on the message than it does the medium, but the multi-award-winning Portrait in a Sea of Lies smartly lets the lessons of the film leave a lasting impression. The film takes audiences to a contemporary Colombia where, as the final titles cards of the film reveal, an estimated ten percent of the population is displaced by violence. What begins as a run-of-the-mill road movie ends as a compelling essay on forced migration.
Labels:
Capsule reviews,
CFI,
Ottawa Arts,
uOHRFF
10/03/2014
uOttawa Human Rights Film Fest Review: 'El Huaso'
El Huaso
(Canada/Chile, 78 min.)
Dir. Carlo Guillermo Proto
El Huaso: 1. a Chilean countryman and skilled horseman from the Quechan work huakcha, meaning orphan, not belonging to a community, hence free.2. a man of wealth and nobility, a free horseman3. an unsophisticated country bumpkin
“The one certainty in life is death,” says Gustavo Proto
towards the end of El Huaso. “Taking
your life is a natural death.”
Labels:
2014 Reviews,
Canadian Film,
CFI,
Documentary,
uOHRFF
'Left Behind': Or the Top Ten Signs that Nic Cage is the Rapture
Left Behind
(USA, 110 min.)
Dir. Vic Armstrong, Writ. Paul Lalonde, John Patus
Starring: Nicolas Cage, Lea Thompson, Chad Michael Murray,
Nicky Whelan, Cassi Thomson.
“Either I’m going crazy or the whole world is insane,” says
Rayford Steele (Nic Cage) as he commands an airplane against the violent
headwinds of the rapture in the spiritually-themed disaster flick Left Behind. It’s a little from Column A
and a little from Column B on both sides of the crazy scale, Rayford, since our
fascination with Nic Cage craziness is in top flight in Left Behind. Some moviegoers might want to bust out the origami
vomit bags they made with the screenplay of Flight
(that other weirdly religious airplane disaster) while others upchuck their
popcorn in the so-bad-it’s-goodness of Left
Behind. Left Behind, however,
remains enjoyably ridiculous thanks to the canon of Nic Cage craziness in which
viewers inevitably approach it. Left
Behind features a much more subdued, wholesome Cage as he navigates the
family-friendly flight path of Left
Behind, so the question remains up in the air whether Nic Cage is going to
save filmgoers from the rapture or whether he himself is the rapture.
Labels:
2014 Reviews,
Nicholas Cage
10/02/2014
Contest! Win Tickets to see 'John Wick' Across Canada! (CONTEST CLOSED)
Whoa! Keanu Reeves is back in John Wick and it looks like a wild ride! John Wick, which is already netting great reviews and looks like a potential
sleeper/cult hit of the fall, opens in theatres October 24 from eOne Films, but
readers across Canada can win tickets to sneak peeks! If you live in Calgary,
Edmonton, Halifax, Ottawa, Toronto, Vancouver, Victoria, or Winnipeg, answer
the trivia below for your chance to win!
10/01/2014
Contest! Win Tickets to See 'St. Vincent' Across Canada! (CONTEST CLOSED)
Who are the saints of Hollywood? Bill
Murray is a saint. I nominate him. The man hails from comedy heaven and his
latest film, St. Vincent, is proof of
that. The film keeps earning cries of “halleluiah!” and Oscar buzz galore ever
since it had its World Premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival
earlier this fall where it won a runner-up prize in the race for the People’s
Choice Award. (Heck, Bill Murray is such a saint that the Festival even named a
whole day after him!) Audiences can see St. Bill in action when St. Vincent opens in theatres October 24th
from eOne Films, but lucky readers can win tickets to sneak peeks of the film
across Canada! Answer the trivia below to win!
Labels:
Bill Murray,
contests,
St Vincent
uOttawa Human Rights Film Fest Review: 'The Supreme Price'
The Supreme Price
(USA/Nigeria, 75 min.)
Written and directed by Joanne Lipper
Hafsat Abiola has a political conviction that runs through
her blood. It’s a life force, fuelled by the loss of both her mother and father
to violence as they fought for democracy in Nigeria. Her parents paid the
titular supreme price as The Supreme
Price chronicles Hafsat’s own motivation to continue fighting oppression
for a cause she believes in. How many lives the cause is worth fighting for
remains the ultimate question of the film, but Hafsat’s plight, director Joanne
Lipper shows, argues that at least one more life is worth the wager.
Labels:
2014 Reviews,
CFI,
Documentary,
Ottawa Arts,
uOHRFF
Can You Guess These Cellar Door Films?
Labels:
Cellar Door,
Ottawa Arts
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