BIFF 2009, Day 3: Non-voting America’s What Now?

Last night I saw the 12th annual Bermuda Film Festival’s first dud.

The Dutch documentarians’ naïveté is undeniably charming as they set out across America in a run-down camper van, to answer the question of why so many Americans don’t participate in the democratic process.

But by the end of the film this very premise proves faulty, because folks do get out and vote — partially because Oprah throws her considerable media influence behind then-Senator Barack Obama, but for a lot of other reasons revealed in course of the film.

And so, Dear Oprah: Non-Voting America’s Wildest Dreams ultimately proves to be as confusing as its title. And clocking in at a mere 55 minutes it’s probably more suitable as an hour-long piece of TV fluff than a big-screen doc.

BIFF 2009, Day 2: Canadian Films That Don’t Suck

Yesterday I did two back-to-back screenings at The Liberty Theatre. First up was Of Time and the City, a documentary about Liverpool by a director who hates The Beatles.

Commissioned to celebrate Liverpool’s year as Cultural Capital of Europe, the striking archival footage certainly made me want to visit this “capital of the north”, but the biting narration damning the Catholic Church was a bit lost on me.

Next up was À l’ouest de Pluton (West of Pluto) yet another fantastic Quebecois film that highlights the disparity between English and Francophone cinema in Canada.

On the plane ride down to Bermuda I chose to watch a feature called Toronto Stories, and it was awful. The dialogue written for the two child actors was particulary bad — was there no parent on the production to raise their hand and say: “Kids don’t really talk like that…”?

The makers of À l’ouest de Pluton, on the other hand, auditioned and improvised with students from their old high school rather than trained actors — and got predictably more authentic results. The portrayal of suburbia as an alien landscape was also a stroke of genius.

And the title? You’ll have to see the film to get the clever double entendre, which I highly recommend you do.

BIFF 2009, Day 1: An Evening with Crack Whores

Don’t mean to be glib here — this was the inescapable theme of the first two screenings I saw at the 12th annual Bermuda Film Festival.

The first of the two, the Bahamian Rain, was clearly anticipated by fellow Caribbeans — there was a waiting list to get into the small venue where it was playing. And it didn’t disappoint.

Beautifully shot and superbly directed, Rain is an encouraging reminder that anything is possible — and it’s a lot more believable than the trite piece of pap that got the Best Picture Oscar this year.

Representing Senegal, The Absence screened at the festival’s largest venue — but at curtain more than half the seats were still empty. Shot on video, The Absence didn’t have quite the same polish as the previous film, but its look was a good fit for the raw and abrasive story.

The message here? You can’t go home. Or maybe you can, but don’t.

The Absence was bleak enough that I kind of wish I had seen it first, then Rain afterwards…