TESLA IN NEW YORK - Greg Klymkiw's Report on the World Premiere of the work-in-progress Opera collaboration between filmmaker Jim Jarmusch and composer Phil Kline at the Centennial Concert Hall, January 26, 2014 during the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra's New Music Festival

History is made in Historic Winnipeg,
the Forgotten Winter City of Death, Dreams and Dashed Hopes

JIM JARMUSCH:
"MUSIC is the most beautiful form of artistic expression.
FILM is the most closely related artistic form to music.
IMAGINATION is always the beginning of any
Artistic or Scientific endeavour."

Tesla in New York (2014) *****
World Premiere - A work-in-progress of the New Opera
A Collaboration Between Filmmaker Jim Jarmusch and Composer Phil Kline
Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra's New Music Festival
Centennial Concert Hall - January 26, 2014
Artistic Directors and Curators: Alexander Mickelthwaite and Matthew Patton

Report By Greg Klymkiw

TESLA IN NEW YORK: Metal Machine Music on Lithium

A night sky, an ocean, wisps of white and a blue, so radiantly, yet alternately nocturnal and aquatic, cast a glow upon a stage empty of human figures on a landscape of instruments, music stands, speakers and amps - all standing forlorn in silhouette, waiting to be held, caressed and lovingly brought to life by the warmth of a human touch as the vaguely industrial aural pulsations of an unsettling drone wash over all in its path. It's like Lou Reed's "Metal Machine Music" on Lithium - so uneasy, so disorienting, yet so lulling - a magnet drawing us closer to either death or rebirth. Or both.

This is the appetizer to the main course of several new musical pieces performed by a myriad of brilliant, talented performers which, in turn reflects the public world premiere of the beginnings of a new opera entitled Tesla in New York, a collaboration between film director Jim Jarmusch and composer Phil Kline. These childhood chums, now well into their august years, have come together, bearing the armament of their mutual love, appreciation and admiration of the legendary inventor Nikola Tesla.

The performance is unveiled in the acoustically rich Centennial Concert Hall and though, in typical Winnipeg fashion, a Winnipeg Jets game proves to be enough of a rival that the 2000+ seats appear mostly empty - save for about one half the capacity of the majestic hall's Orchestra level - those Winter City denizens who are not eyeball-glued to the town's newly-restored-to-NHL-glory Jets are treated to an event of such artistic magnitude that they will carry the memories of it to their progeny and subsequent generations, long before they flutter away to their eventual respective deaths with the sounds and images of a work that seems destined for greatness, dancing across their cerebella and into the warm, white light that awaits us all.

This was, to coin a phrase from one of my mentors, the late, great Meyer Nackimson, the legendary octogenarian film distributor who refused to retire and ran the MGM/UA distribution branch office on Hargrave Street in Winnipeg until he was forced to leave the movie business when the office was completely shut down in the late 80s:

"Kid, Estelle and I saw the picture, the other night and it was ONE HELLUVA GOOD SHOW!"

TESLA IN NEW YORK

Though what we witnessed was indeed one helluva good show, it was not a motion picture in the traditional sense (and the late Meyer and wife Estelle could have only viewed the proceedings from the Heavens), Tesla in New York was most definitely a profoundly moving experience. Like so much great art presented within the picture-perfect magic of the proscenium, it was a visual and aural treat that made expert use of the stage in terms of the placement of singers, musicians and conductor/artistic director Alexander Mickelthwate (adorned ever-so stylishly in a perfectly fitting suit of Winnipeg Grey as he wielded his mighty baton).

The simple, but beautifully focused and operated lighting cast its sweet glow over the renderings of exquisite music whilst, most notably, the aqua-blue screen morphed into an astounding montage of early Edison motion picture footage, edited by Deco Dawson (who, according to Jarmusch, has "liquid hands") and Matthew Patton (the New Music Festival's fancifully chimeric co-curator) and under the guidance of Mr. Jarmusch himself (who self-decribed his own words of directions in this matter as an "oblique strategy").

Oblique or otherwise, it all pays off.

With Mickelththwaite and company, plus the audience itself, being enveloped in the historic Edison footage (stolen for this production on, it seems, Tesla's behalf in a perverse retaliatory act for all that Edison stole from Tesla - and, in fact, what Edison pilfered from pretty much everybody), I simply cannot imagine any subsequent production of this work without motion picture footage.

Though I was somewhat embarrassed to have used the cliched word "electric" to describe the production to Messrs. Mickelthwaite and Patton in their sumptuous Green Room after the show (well stocked with a fridge full of lovely spring water from the majestic Loni Beach in Gimli, Manitoba), I think, in retrospect, that it's perfectly fine to have used "electric" to describe the performance of Tesla in New York. Tesla, the Serbian inventor from Croatia who eventually found fame in the New World was nothing if not the Father of all things electric (in spite of Edison's thefts) and it felt to me like the music and the performance were definitely infused with the very quality of electricity - aurally, emotionally, thematically and yes, at times, even visually.

Take, for example, the stunning, partially improvised Overture wherein Mickelthwate guided singers and musicians alike to provide both melody and a fluffy, comfy bed for the onstage extension of the Lou-Reed-like Metal Machine Music drones in the pre-show. Kline and Jarmusch took to opposite ends of the stage and created some of the most haunting electric guitar feedback I've yet to experience - signalling precisely what this show feels like it's all about - the force and power of electricity and all the ramifications and permutations of its magic as borne from the mad genius of Tesla's mind, and to put a perfectly appropriate fine point to it - Tesla's boundless imagination.

Once the several pieces beyond this staggering overture began, one could, at points, gently close one's eyes and launch into a very private place in our respective imaginations to recreate Teslas's heart and soul, allowing Kline's often heartbreaking and alternately, elatedly-soaring score to take us to those hidden, magical places of what Nikola Tesla wrought for us all, but what, he in fact, wrought for himself. The evening's musicians and singers were all in superb and inspired form, but it would be remiss of me to not make special mention of the stunning work wrought by mezzo-soprano Jacqueline Horner-Kwiatek whose voice took us to places of both darkness and romance.

I must also single out counter tenor David James (of the astonishing a cappella Hilliard Ensemble who so gorgeously opened the evening's program). James feels like he fits this score like a glove. When I think of Tesla, I am always infused with thoughts of madness, genius, passion and an overwhelming sense of the unrequited (in terms of both love AND career). James took me to places I both wanted to be and didn't want to be and I can think of no better approach to a figure as important and complex as Nikola Tesla.

In all, the importance of this event to the cultural fabric of our new century seems clear. This was history in the making and from this point forward, one can but marvel and dream as to what magic will ultimately be wrought when Kline and Jarmusch move forward with this work that will explore one of the great human beings to have ushered us all into the 20th Century.

Now, however, as we face in this 21st Century both the power and danger of manmade resources and accomplishments, Tesla seems even more vital a figure for us to consider. To do so with art, with imagination, with music, with a myriad of multi-media and live performance seems very much a no-brainer. After the evening's performance, Jarmusch cited the following inventions as the greatest manmade accomplishments: "Mapping the human venom, the Hubble telescope, the electric guitar and the bikini." One would like to think Tesla might approve.

Good Goddamn! My appetite has been whetted.

The buffet will follow and it will be sumptuous.

"Tesla in New York", a collaboration between Phil Kline and Jim Jarmusch is currently a work-in-progress for an opera that will eventually take the world by storm. Thanks to the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra's New Music Festival, the first gold bricks have been laid down to take all of us to the Castle of Operatic Oz - a place of beauty, of imagination and wonder. Nikola Tesla himself would have it no other way.

A similar scene to the one experienced by Jim Jarmusch and others in New York during the 70s and 80s and captured in the documentary BLANK CITY as well as many other works in the "Forgotten Winnipeg" series was happening in Winnipeg wherein a very cool explosion in indie underground cinema that I and many colleagues and friends were involved with was spawned. This period, coined by film critic Geoff Pevere as Prairie Post-Modernism included the works of John Paizs, Guy Maddin, Greg Hanec and many others.

A great selection of early Guy Maddin, many of which that I produced and were written by George Toles, can be secured directly through the following links:



Another great film from Winnipeg during this period is Greg Hanec's extraordinary DOWNTIME which has the distinction of being a parallel cinematic universe to Jim Jarmusch's "STRANGER THAN PARADISE". Both films were made at the same time in two completely different cities and scenes and both Hanec and Jarmusch premiered their films at the same time at the Berlin Film Festival. One's famous, the other isn't - but now that the "lost" and "found" DOWNTIME has been remastered from original elements to DVD, it can now be purchased directly online.

Order DOWNTIME directly from the film's new website by clicking HERE

Perhaps the greatest Canadian independent underground filmmaker of all-time is Winnipeg's John Paizs. It's virtually impossible to secure copies of his astounding work which, frankly, is responsible for influencing the work of Guy Maddin, David Lynch, Bruce McDonald and an endless number of great indie filmmakers the world over. Paizs' great short film SPRINGTIME IN GREENLAND is available for purchase in a beautiful remastered edition from a fan website, the inimitable Frank Norman. Norman has Paizs' blessing to provide copies of the film, so feel free to directly make your request to Mr. Norman by clicking HERE.

Visit Frank Norman's CRIME WAVE
fan site by clicking HERE

Alas, it's super-impossible to get a copy of Paizs' masterpiece CRIME WAVE (not to be confused with the super-awful Coen Bros/Sam Raimi film of the same name that was released the same year Paizs' film was NOT released properly by its scumbag Canadian distributor Norstar Releasing, which eventually became Alliance Films (where the boneheads sat on the film and turned down several excellent offers from small indie companies to release the film properly on DVD in super-deluxe special editions because they lazily purported to be negotiating a massive package deal on its catalogue titles with some tiny scumbag public domain company that, as far as I can tell, has neither purchased nor released the film). This truly great and highly influential film is, no doubt, languishing in some boneheaded distribution purgatory within the deep anal cavities of the new owner of Alliance Films, a humungous mega-corporation called E-One. Feel free to repeatedly bug their stinking asses and demand a proper release. In the meantime, VHS copies of CRIME WAVE can still be found with the ludicrous title THE BIG CRIME WAVE. Here's a copy available on Amazon:

BLANK CITY and other works in the "Forgotten Winnipeg" Series can be accessed here:

Greg Klymkiw's TOP TEN CANADIAN SHORT FILMS 2012

TOP TEN CANADIAN SHORT FILMS

Greg Klymkiw Selects the 10 Best Shorts of 2012

By Greg Klymkiw

Keep a Modest Head dir. Deco Dawson
Oh, Glorious surrealism! Oh, Canada! Oh, Headcheese de Cinema! Deco Dawson delivers his most mind-blowing magic to date with this delirious ode to French surrealist Jean Benoit. No longer content to volley mere scuds into cinema’s boundaries, Dawson hits all the buttons from mission control at Burpleson Air Base in Gimli, Manitoba to launch several A-bombs and a few H-bombs (for good measure) at the sturdy bastions of convention, thus fulfilling the true glory, madness and poetic potential of the greatest art form of all.

Bydlo dir. Patrick Bouchard
In Patrick Bouchard’s astounding masterpiece of animation, the Earth pukes up its viscera and creates life in a coagulated enslaved cow that breaks free of its shackles to engage in an orgiastic battle with those who would seek to oppress all beasts of burden that will, in turn, eventually envelope all into a brand new mush that will return to whence it came – only to repeat the eternal cycle of birth, struggle, death and rebirth.

The Captured Bird dir. Jovanka Vuckovic
This high profile short,the directorial debut of “Rue Morgue” magazine’s former kick-butt editor Jovanka Vuckovic, features magnificent special effects from ace animatronics effects designer/supervisor Paul Jones (Silent Hill, INVASION [AKA Top of the Food Chain], Resident Evil: Apocalypse, Afterlife and Retribution) and brilliant cinematography by Karim Hussein (Subconscious Cruelty, Hobo With A Shotgun and Antiviral), Vuckovic delivers a delicious bonbon du cinema in spades. This grotesque taste-treat wherein a little girl's chalk drawing opens a door into a world of horrifying creatures suggests we can look forward to more chilling work from the clearly talented Vuckovic ("Rue Morgue's" loss, but in an odd way, their gain, since they'll have plenty of output from their former editor to actually write about over the next few decades.)

Children of the Dark (2012) dir. Scott Belyea
WOW! This is a deeply moving post-apocalyptic thriller with superb production value, gorgeous photography and the most impressive mise-en-scene I've encountered in a genre short in some time. Programmed at Toronto After Dark to precede the feature film Citadel, I somehow repressed the idea I was watching a short film and actually thought I was seeing Ciaran Foy's film. When Children of the Dark drew to its haunting, breathtaking close I was gobsmacked. I was so into the emotional layers of this movie - it's genuinely more mature than many genre shorts (and features for that matter) - that I was mildly disappointed it had to end. Exploring a world gone awry through the eyes of children can so easily fall into cliche. Belyea's film doesn't at all. It's mixture of that which is horrifying, sad and deeply truthful. It even suggests we might eventually see a feature from this filmmaker that is imbued with the qualities of Spielberg's Empire of the Sun, Rene Clement's Forbidden Games or Louis Malle's Au Revoir Les Enfants. A tall order, but this short is THAT terrific. Whether in wartime or a dystopian near-future, the role of children is one that requires taste, delicacy and an unerring eye for human behaviour. If children are our hope amidst a world without any shred of it, then their stories must retain humanism without sliding into soap opera. In fact, their desire for hope and connection, as exemplified in Belyea's work, does that astounding double duty of being as profoundly moving as it is deeply, disturbingly dark. By the way, though disappointed it was over when it was, I must stress that the short has a perfect ending. It's certainly not the filmmaker's fault that his movie was so good I forgot where I was while watching it.

Durga dir. Paramita Nath
This haunting elegy works successfully as documentary, narrative, biography, visual tapestry and poetry – all of which exist on the filmmaker’s palette as parallel strands that bleed into one another and create an alternately delicate and wrenching examination of the contradictory elements of Goddess worship and acts of violence against women in India. This is cinema to incite change, broker awareness and perhaps, through its exquisite handling of the medium itself, inspire enough love, understanding and healing to someday, somehow, yield equality – for the sake of all humanity.

Frost dir. Jeremy Ball
A fine Canadian short drama directed by Jeremy Ball that expertly tells a haunting, mysterious tale against the backdrop of Canada's northern aboriginal peoples. This story of a young woman confronting a terrifying spiritual presence linked to her ancestry is blessed with a subtle apocalyptic subtext as well as narrative elements dealing with both quest and familial acceptance. It's super creepy AND it's actually ABOUT something - both of which go a long way to remove the ever-so faint whiff of "calling card" that wafts gently from it.

Hangnail dir. Cavan Campbell
Shot completely in one take, this exquisitely written, acted and directed kitchen sink domestic drama examines a great divide between a couple in their bathroom. He's an immature video-game-and-porn-obsessed mall employee. She's a "dancer" in a "gentleman's club". He's taking a dump. She's taking a shower. Both of them are smoking cigarettes. The sniping is vicious, the pain is palpable. Love, however, finds itself in the strangest of places and in the most unusual circumstances. It's rare to find this level of maturity and dramatic resonance in short films these days when the emphasis in this medium is usually on one-note jokes and empty "calling card" endeavours. Hangnail takes us into the territory of despair among the disenfranchised. Though these characters live on the fringe and are often the types whose existence we'd prefer to repress, this evocative slice of their life is more universal than most will care to admit. Out of anguish can come incredible tenderness and compassion. This is a powerful work. It creates levels of complexity within a simple framework and I have to admit the film has continued to haunt me since first seeing it. I am especially eager to see more films from this clearly gifted filmmaker. He's the real thing.

Long Branch dir. Dane Clark, Linsey Stewart
She wants a one-night stand. He's into it - bigtime. Her place is not an option. Luckily, his is. The problem, as it turns out, is that he lives two hours away via public transit. Subway. Bus. Bike. All in the frigid, snowy climes of a Canadian winter. She wants simple, fun, no-strings-attached sex. Two hours, however, leaves many opportunities for conversation. The last thing she wants is to get to know him. He's too nice. Like Willard's journey into the heart of darkness neither is quite sure what will be waiting for them in deepest, darkest suburbia. Hopefully, it won't be Col. Kurtz. Long Branch is a bright, breezy and thoroughly delightful romantic comedy. The dialogue is crisp, gorgeously performed by the two attractive leads, shot with clear, simple and direct compositions to let the magic and movement work within the frame so that every cut counts as a truly resonant dramatic beat. Though the soundtrack is peppered with far too many whiny, upbeat indie-styled songs for this curmudgeon's liking, most normal people - especially those who are not curmudgeons - will love it as much as everything else in the picture that truly deserves - uh, love.

Malody dir. Phillip Barker
A young woman, sicker than those who dare eat the food at the all-night diner she’s perched in, catches an eerie reflection of herself as a child, inspiring a topsy-turvy cataclysm, hermetically sealed within a huge wheel rolling through a movie studio in Phillip Barker’s astounding mind-fuck that proves, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the greatest manifestations of worlds in collision are etched upon the rivulets of an artist’s cerebellum that’s subsequently fed through cinema’s sausage tube of joy to produce mounds of minced delights encased in rapture.

Onion Skin dir. Joseph Procopio
Gorgeously photographed, well written tale of a young man who has a major crush on a beautiful young lady who is new to his high school. Instead of utilizing the contemporary communication techniques of text messaging and cel phones, he takes the time to craft a series of hand-written love letters. In our age of technologically convenient approaches to getting a message across, the young lady is initially flummoxed by this "odd" approach. Infused with heartfelt sentiment and romance, Procopio demonstrates a natural gift for creating images that are as beautiful as they are dramatically resonant. There isn't a single performance in the film that rings any less than true. All this said, there is a gorgeously acted and directed scene in the middle of the film that, from a writing standpoint provides a too convenient impetus for the young lady to discover and accept the approach of this wildly romantic suitor. It's a minor quibble, but given how terrific the film is, it's one of those elements that sticks out prominently. In time, however, I have no doubt Procopio will discover any number of narrative shorthands that will allow him to craft many more fine films that avoid the sorts of pitfalls that are ascribed in a knee-jerk fashion to young filmmakers, but are, in fact, quite prominent in any number of mainstream works made by people with far more experience and who should ultimately know better.

Wintergreen (Paparmane) dir Joelle Desjardins Paquette
An exquisite ode to romantic comedy – Montreal style, of course, A lonely couple – he’s a parking lot attendant, she’s a birthday party clown – live out the dreariest of winters in La Belle Province, only to find common ground and happily discover that cats do indeed have nine lives. Replete with deadpan humour and a sweetness always tempered with pickling salts and peppercorn, we’re treated to magnificent facsimiles of Buster Keaton and Paulette Goddard, as if directed by a Paul Cox who’d been dropped on his head at birth upon the floor of an East End Montreal hospital instead of his Holland homeland and ended up infusing his filmmaking spirit into a clearly gifted Canadian filmmaker.

Greg Klymkiw's TOP TEN CANADIAN FILMS of 2012

GREG KLYMKIW'S TOP TEN CANADIAN FILMS OF 2012

By Greg Klymkiw

Tonight (December 4, 2012), The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) will be unveiling their choices for both the Top Ten Features and Top Ten Shorts (TIFF CTT 2012). I'm certainly looking forward to the announcements this evening. I'm especially looking forward to the free drinks and food, but this year, I might actually restrain myself from bringing a doggy-bag.

So, until TIFF reveals their own selections at 6:45pm (ET), here are my own choices for Canada's Top Ten. In ALPHABETICAL ORDER, here's the GK CTT 2012 - The Greg Klymkiw Canadian Top Ten:

AMERICAN MARY dir. Jen and Sylvia Soska
American Mary is a dazzlingly audacious sophomore effort from the Vancouver-based twisted twin sisters Jen and Sylvia Soska. With this new picture, the sisters are on (at least for some) shaky moral ground (and/or crack), but happily, they maintain the courage of their convictions and do not tread lightly upon it. This movie is some mighty nasty stuff - replete with elements of slashing satire that hack away and eventually tear open "normally" accepted versions of right and wrong whilst grasping the exposed nerve endings of morality, holding them taught and playing the jangling buggers like violin strings. The picture will provoke, anger, disgust, horrify and scandalize a multitude of audiences - it's one grim, horrific and darkly hilarious fairy tale. On its surface, the picture is a rape revenge fantasy set against the backdrop of body modification, but deep below, it roils with the sort of subversion Canadian filmmakers have become famous for all over the world.

BEYOND THE BLACK RAINBOW dir. Panos Cosmatos
Beyond The Black Rainbow features one of the most thrilling directorial debuts in years. Panos Cosmatos, who both wrote and directed this supremely enjoyable first-feature - a 70s/80s-style "head" film that has "cult" emblazoned upon its celluloid forehead. Gorgeously shot, vigorously edited, blessed with a cool score/soundscape as well as an imaginative production design, the movie is replete with a delicious combination of creepy psychiatric experimentation sequences, dollops of shockingly grotesque bloodletting and several dreamscape montages that are pretty trippy all by their lonesome. If truth be told, the movie can work quite nicely without added stimulants, but far be it from me to deter anyone from enjoying the movie with a massive ingestion of some fine west coast weed. So settle back, folks. Fire up a fat doobie and enjoy!

CLOUDBURST dir. Thom Fitzgerald
The Hanging Garden director delivers a beautifully written ode to love on the run - replete with k.d. lang music, pickup trucks, roadside cafes, Olympia Dukakis, Brenda Fricker and a Nova Scotia that's never looked more heart-achingly beautiful. Fitzgerald's tale is a sort of gentle retirement-age Thelma and Louise. He wisely and bravely delivered a story that's as mature as it's downright universal. Love should have no boundaries and his direction indelibly captures a love story that's familiar, but bolstered by such genuine compassion, that I frankly can't imagine any audience not succumbing to its considerable charms.

THE END OF TIME dir. Peter Mettler
Nobody makes movies like Peter Mettler, so it stands to reason that when Peter Mettler makes documentaries, you're in for an experience like no other you've ever seen before. This hypnotic, riveting, provocative and profoundly moving exploration of time is one of the most original films of the new decade. And yes, time! TIME, for Christ's sake! Of all the journeys a filmmaker could take us on, only Mettler would have the almost-gentle Canadian audacity to explore the notion of time. And damned if Mettler doesn't plunge you into an experiential mind-fuck that both informs and dazzles. Lava flows both scarily and beautifully in Hawaii, Switzerland's particle accelerator seeks answers to the questions of creation, the place of Buddha's enlightenment reveals that the end of time, might just well be the beginning - all this and more are all under the scrutiny of Mettler's exquisite kino-eye (one of the best in the world, I might add). Mettler always journeys far and wide to seek answers, enlightenment and maybe, just maybe, both terrible and beautiful truths. And he lets us all come along for the ride.

FORTUNATE SON dir. Tony Asimakopoulos
This stunning personal documentary is a perfect companion piece to Sarah Polley's Stories We Tell. Telling a brave and identifiable story about love, loyalty and family that extraordinarily mirrors the lives of all who watch it, the picture demonstrates the inescapable truth that love is not easy. For love to BE love, for love to really count, it takes work, courage and fortitude. It means giving up ephemeral happiness for the happiness of endurance, of perseverance, of never giving up - the happiness and fulfillment that really counts. Tony Asimakopoulos is one of Canadian cinema's great unsung talents. His work has been charged with a unique underground flavour - a kind of Greek-Scorsese "boys in the 'hood" quality of obsession, dapplings of George Kuchar melodrama and lurid high contrast visuals. And Fortunate Son is, quite simply, a genuinely great film.

GOON dir. Michael Dowse
A Great Canadian Hockey Movie to follow in the footsteps of Canuck "Lumber-in-the-Teeth" Classics as FACE OFF, PAPERBACK HERO and, of course, the most Canadian Movie Never Made By A Canadian, George Roy Hill's Classic SLAP SHOT. Etching the tender tale of the kindly, but brick-shit-house-for-brains bouncer recruited to a cellar-dweller hockey team in Halifax as an enforcer, Dowse captures the sweaty, blood-spurting, bone-crunching and tooth-spitting circus of minor league hockey with utter perfection. The camaraderie, the endless bus trips, the squalid motels, the brain-dead fans, the piss-and-vinegar coaches, the craggy play-by-play sportscasters, the bars reeking of beer and vomit and, of course, Pogo Sticks - it's all here and then some. GOON delivers laughs, fisticuffs, mayhem and yes, even a dash of romance in a tidy package of good, old-fashioned underdog styling.

KEEP A MODEST HEAD (Ne crâne pas sois modeste) dir. Deco Dawson
Oh, Glorious surrealism! Oh, Canada! Oh, Headcheese de Cinema! Deco Dawson delivers his most mind-blowing magic to date with this delirious ode to French surrealist Jean Benoit. No longer content to volley mere scuds into cinema’s boundaries, Dawson hits all the buttons from mission control at Burpleson Air Base in Gimli, Manitoba to launch several A-bombs and a few H-bombs (for good measure) at the sturdy bastions of convention, thus fulfilling the true glory, madness and poetic potential of the greatest art form of all.

KRIVINA dir. Igor Drljaca
Not a single shot is fired in Canadian director Igor Drljaca's stunning feature debut, but the horror of war - its legacy of pain, its futility and its evil hang like a cloud over every frame of this powerful cinematic evocation of memory and loss. The film's hypnotic rhythm plunges us into the inner landscape of lives irrevocably touched by man's inhumanity to man - a diaspora of suffering that shall never escape the fog of war. Krivina is an astounding film - a personal vision that genuinely affects our sense of self to seek out our own worth, our own place in the world. Like Olexander Dovzhenko, Sergei Paradjanov and, to a certain extent, Tarkovsky, Drljaca achieves what I believe to be the fullest extent of what cinema can offer - the ability to touch the souls of its characters and, in so doing, touching the souls of those lucky enough to experience the magic that can only, I think, be fully wrought by the art of the motion picture.

PEACE OUT dir. Charles Wilkinson
This a powerful, persuasive and important film that focuses upon the environmental decimation of Canada's northwest. It's about energy and the horrible price we all pay for our hog-at-the-trough need for Hydro. The picture takes you by surprise and leaves you breathless. Diving into this vital film, we're witness to activist cinema of the highest order. Clever, subtle juxtapositions, smooth transitions between the beauty of nature, the destruction of the environment, the fluorescent-lit government and/or corporate offices, the dark, almost Gordon Willis styled shots of energy executives and in one case, an utterly heartbreaking montage of energy waste set to Erik Satie's Gymnopedie #1 - all of these exquisitely wrought moments and more, inspire sadness, anger and hopefully enough of these emotions will translate into inspiring action - even, as a Greenpeace interview subject suggests - civil disobedience.

STORIES WE TELL dir. Sarah Polley
Sarah Polley’s latest work as a director, a bonafide masterpiece, is first and foremost a story of family – not just a family, or for that matter any family, but rather a mad, warm, brilliant passionate family who expose their lives in the kind of raw no-guts-no-glory manner that only film can allow. Most importantly, the lives exposed are as individual as they are universal and ultimately it’s a film about all of us. Love permeates the entire film – the kind of consuming love that offers (as does the film itself) a restorative power of infinitesimal proportions. Sarah Polley is often referred to as Canada's “national treasure”. She’s far more than that. She’s a treasure to the world – period. And so, finally, is her film.

THE WORLD BEFORE HER dir. Nisha Pahuja
What is the future for the young women of modern India? Is it adherence to thousands of years of subservient tradition or finding success through beauty? Is it deepening their love for the Hindu religion through rigorous paramilitary training or maintaining their ties to religion and culture while engaging in the exploitation of their sexuality? The chasm between these two polar opposites couldn't be wider and yet, as we discover in Nisha Pahuja's extraordinary and compelling documentary feature The World Before Her, the differences are often skin deep as parallel lines clearly exist beneath the surface. All of this makes for one lollapalooza of a movie! Vibrant, incisive, penetrating and supremely entertaining, director Pahuja and her crackerjack team deliver one terrific picture - a genuine corker!

Oh, you might have noticed there are actually 11 films here. Don't like it? Fucking sue me!