I’ve always wondered if the Comedy Of The Absurd is a criticism of the human condition: Life is a series of accidents that veer towards a pointless milieu of pain, frustration, and disappointment– with death as a subpar release of … more »
Taiwan’s contemporary cinema thrives with the personal story. Korean films glorify spectacle while Japan prefers its offbeat genre-benders. Contrary to this metric, Taiwan keeps to its path of elegant simplicity as it navigates through its perennial themes revolving around the … more »
Every year, I gravitate towards the anime offering for VIFF from classics such as Wolf Children and duds like Red Turtle, every year I roll a proverbial dice. Children of the Sea by Watanabe Ayumi is a bit of … more »
We fall because we’re alive, an adage that resonated throughout the film as a drunken warning by herald Sakamoto to protagonist Dazai as he set off in his plagiarism. Sakamoto returned later in the story to provide another clichéd piece … more »
How do we tell politically potent stories? How to do we resist stereotypes and champion marginalized voices in all their complexity? From October 21-27, 2019, The Vancouver Writers Fest will welcome more than 100 authors from around the world to … more »
We Are Not Princesses, directed by Bridgette Auger and Itab Azzam, tells the powerful stories from four women, Syrian refugees living in Lebanon, as they prepare for their roles in a production of Antigone. Antigone, the ancient Greek … more »
Weirdly enough, as a passage in my own work, I write about my stint as a venue manager at Vancouver International Film Festival in my novella The Seven Muses of Harry Salcedo. In a passage, I mention my passing … more »
When I saw the trailer for Birthday, my first impression of the film was that it would be a manipulative sob-fest, and I steeled myself for the emotional exploitation and the violin strings. But the film – about the … more »
Clifton Hill centers on pathological liar Abby’s return to Niagara Falls after her mother’s death, and follows her obsessive quest to solve the mystery behind a potential kidnapping she witnessed as a child.
The film is Toronto-based filmmaker Albert Shin’s … more »