More on The Available Light Film Festival from the Yukon 2021

 

The Available Light Film Festival from the Yukon 2021 only lasts for two more days.

Yesterday I decided to do some binmovie watching, trying to catch up on the lost days of viewing this week. The hours were spent on other projects, but certainly I missed watching films from this film festival.

I entered my festival watching phase,  and brought the following films to my screen:

Achilles Escape (Charles Officer, 2020). -- In a crime-noir about the urban child-soldier, Akilla Brown captures a fifteen-year-old Jamaican boy in the aftermath of an armed robbery. Over one gruelling night, Akilla confronts a cycle of generational violence he thought he escaped.

No Sign of Trauma  (Marc Serpa Francoeur and Robinder Uppal 2020). The film documents several allegations of abuse of power against the Calgary Police.

Driveways (Andre Ahn, 2019)  A lonesome boy accompanies his mother on a trip to clean out his late aunt's house, and ends up forming an unexpected friendship with the retiree who lives next door. 

Little Orphans
Starring  Patricia Andrews,
Marthe Bernard, and Emily Bridger |

Little Orphans (Ruth Lawrence, 2020). Still struggling with their childhood abandonment, three sisters reunite at a wedding. But coming home and making a new family can come at a high cost.

Crock of Gold: a Few Rounds with Shane MacGowan (Julien Tempe, 2020). A look at the life of Irish singer/songwriter and Pogues frontman Shane MacGowan.

I watched two of the film's Friday night and 3 on Saturday.

Just to get the worst film out of the way, No Sign of Trauma is a CBC production about the Calgary police force, a documentary film that left me sick at my stomach, as it opened my eyes to how systemic racism can enter a police force culture and be so invisible the perfidies at the same time. I told Rebecca I didn't know if she needed to watch that film since she teaches Crim law and comes to these ideas through text and law cases instead of through film. Only the brave should watch this show, or those who needs to be convinced that the term Starlight Tours maybe part of the police culture in Calgary. This should probably be mandatory watching for anyone who can stomach it.

Now getting that out of the way, I watched the other four films with curiosity. I come to the indie films with a different set of expectations, namely knowing that what I am about to see is outside of the high-tech, high gloss Hollywood productions. I did feel a festival charm, sitting there in a comfortable chair with a beverage and a quilt over my knees. 

Little Orphans saves its punch to the end of the show, just as the reviews said it would. This morning I woke up thinking about Crock of Gold because it's the story of Shane MacGowan, an Irish folk singer whose music I don't know but whose band Rebecca recognizes. I think what is curious about this film is that Shane MacGowan is interviewed when but he's very old, not the best place in life for any of us to be seen on film, if our shoulders have started to drop or our speech to slur or where a memory doesn't retrieve facts as it used to. The documentary did give me a chance to sit at the feet of the old and look as though I were still young. If nothing else the movie helped me understand where I may be someday, if I should live so long.

The protagonist in Driveways is an 8, almost 9 year old boy, but the circumstances around his life, make the movie rich and rewarding. I am thinking about that high pitched energy of thrillers, the low emery I am seeing in the films about the early Arctic and now this quiet meditation on a young boy’s life. 

 Film always reminds me of reasons to change gear.

Arta