Settle in for some great movies as the Shuswap Film Society presents their Reel Weekend Film Festival Nov. 4 to Nov. 6.
The event kicks off with New Zealand’s Topp Twins: Untouchable Girls at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Nov. 4 at the Salmar Classic Theatre and plays again at 3:40 p.m. Saturday at the Grand.
Go an hour early to Friday night’s opening at the Salmar Classic and enjoy New Zealand-style desserts. Take your “twin” to win prizes for the duo that carries out the theme the best.
Fun, disarming and provocative, The Topp Twins are New Zealand’s finest country and western singers. This exuberant film captures the joy they bring, both to their performances and to their daily lives.
• Eco-Pirate: The Story of Paul Watson Runs 10:30 a.m. Saturday (Grand) and 1:20 p.m. Sunday (Grand). This portrait of Paul Watson is inspired by his book Confessions of an Eco-Terrorist. Watson, founder of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, readily admits he prefers the company of cetaceans to that of people.
• Vision: From the Life of Hildegard, a German/Latin film that tells the life story of the 12th-century German nun, composer and religious visionary, Hildegard von Bingen, runs at 10:35 a.m. Saturday (Grand) and 1:15 p.m. Sunday (Grand). At the age of eight, she was “tithed” to the church and grew up cloistered in a Benedictine order. Through diplomacy and strategy, she became its leader, author of spiritual books and an expert in herbal medicine. Her legacy lives on.
• Terri, a U.S. film about a misfit kid in high school who’s fat and weird but also much more than that. This smart, gentle, instinctively wise protagonist lives as the main caregiver for his Uncle James, who’s drifting into senility. See it at 10:40 a.m. Saturday (Grand) or at 3:40 p.m. Sunday.
• France’s The First Day of the Rest of Your Life (Le Premier Jour du Reste de ta Vie) covers 12 years and is structured around five key events in a French family’s life, each of which changes things forever. It will reel out at the Salmar Grand Saturday at 1:15 p.m. and twice on Sunday at 10:30 a.m. and again at 3:30 p.m.
• Italian with English subtitles, Loose Cannons (Mine Vaganti) provides a funny and insightful look into what happens when a traditional patriarchal Italian family comes under threat from the younger generation. See it at the Grand at 1:20 p.m. Saturday or 3:35 Sunday.
• Buck Brannaman was the original “horse whisperer,” the character who inspired the eponymous novel and who was hired by Robert Redford as the consultant for his 1998 film The Horse Whisperer.
Brannaman spent his childhood as part of the Idaho Cowboys, a blindfolded, trick-roping sibling act who also lived in terror of their abusive father. It was because of his abusive childhood that Buck learned how to treat horses with compassion and empathy and to turn traditional training methods upside down.
See Buck at 1:25 p.m. Saturday (Grand) or !0:40 a.m. Sunday (Grand).
• After the sudden death of her father in a tiny dusty town in Queensland, eight-year-old Simone shares a secret with her mother, Dawn, that the dad speaks to her through the leaves of her favourite tree, a sprawling Moreton Bay fig.
When the tree’s roots become troublesome to the plumbing and the branches start to infiltrate the house, the family is forced to make an agonizing decision.
See The Tree at 3:30 p.m. Saturday (Grand) or Sunday at 7:30 p.m. (Salmar Classic).
• Life in a Day runs Saturday at 3:35 p.m. (Grand) and again Sunday at 10:35 a.m. (Grand). This U.S. documentary, shot by filmmakers all over the world, shows what it was like to be alive on July 24, 2010. People are photographed living as they do normally, and the juxtaposition of the diversity of experiences is awe-inspiring.
• Starbuck, a Canadian entry filmed in Montreal, reels out Saturday at 7:30 p.m. (Classic) and again Sunday at 1:25 p.m. (Grand).
This amiable movie features David, a perpetual “man-child,” who is confronted by the fact that his casual donations at the local sperm bank (for money) in the late ’80s has resulted in hundreds of children being born.
Now, 20 years later, a large number of these offspring have filed a class action lawsuit to determine the identity of their biological father, known only by the pseudonym Starbuck.
Add to your enjoyment of the films by stopping in at SAGA Public Art Gallery on Hudson Avenue for a Reel Lunch.
Between 11:30 a.m. and 1 p.m. both days, enjoy a quick bowl of homemade soup, Blue Canoe bread and a cookie for only $7.