Films from Whistler Film Festival '08

The Whistler Film Festival, which finished on Sunday (December 7), is like a weekend version of the Vancouver International Film Festival.

The plus side is that it's in Whistler so it's a great excuse to get out of town for the weekend. The only thing is that there's so much good stuff going on that you might not have time to get in any skiing or explore the great outdoors.

Another thing though is that because it is a tight time frame, there are often several events going on at the same time that you might want to attend. For instance, I was disappointed to have to miss seeing Waltz With Bashir (which is scheduled to open on December 26), Dim Sum Funeral, Journey of a Red Fridge, Adoration (which I also missed at the VIFF), and The Art Star and the Sudanese Twins due to other events I was attending at the same time.

Unlike the VIFF, each film only screens once (with the exception of the winner of the people's choice award). So if you miss it, you won't have a second chance until the film gets a theatrical release.

Which is the good news: a lot of the films will be released later throughout the year. (In fact, Who Is KK Downey?, which played at the festival, opens this week in Vancouver.)

Another plus is that the smaller number of films means it’s easier to look through them all and figure out easily what you want to see, compared to the huge project of looking through the massive, sometimes overwheling VIFF catalogue.

I took in the world premiere of the Vancouver-shot Girlfriend Experience by local director Ileana Pietrobruno.

It’s an intriguing faux documentary about johns, with a focus on a man addicted to prostitutes, even though he has a girlfriend. The film follows him as he cruises for girls, and intersperses scenes of him with sound bites from anonymous johns. Though fictional, the opinions and perspectives of how johns see themselves, their activities, and prostitution are thought-provoking and engaging.

What is a bit uneven, however, is the film’s attempt to present itself as non-fiction, complete with dramatic recreations of scenes. There are some technical and logical inconsistencies that destroy the illusion of the film as a documentary.

However, it is far easier to understand why the director decided upon the premise of this film as a faux documentary, due to the difficult and private material, than a mockumentary like Radiant City, which would have been much easier to film as a straight documentary.

One of three other documentaries I did catch was Food Fight. Although the subject matter was interesting, the way it was presented, unfortunately was not. A few people trickled out of the theatre as it played.

The film chronicles how Californian cuisine developed out of the counter-culture movement in the ’60s and ’70s. The development of an organic, local, and sustainable food scene is traced through the history of the American agricultural system into present day.

There’s a lot of intriguing information about why the American food system caters to national supermarkets and mass farming, and how local farmers’ markets sprung up in reaction to the corporate-controlled distribution systems.

One of the film’s weaknesses is how interviewees over-emphasize the importance of the taste of fresh food. It’s certainly an important point, but definitely not the only one. Taste is subjective, and talking about taste and aroma don’t translate well in a visual medium like film (unless you have Smell-o-Vision).

It’s unfortunate that the importance of health and environmental aspects, such as the reduction of pesticides, preservatives, and other chemicals in the food chain, tend to be downplayed since facts and statistics about those can be measured and presented on screen in a much more tangible way to viewers.

The film tends to be weak on statistics overall and leans towards being a self-congratulatory appraisal of Californian cuisine. There are a few jabs at the 100-Mile Diet as being “elitist”, without fully explaining why.

Nonetheless, the overall message and information it presents is important and encouraging.

In comparison, it’s easy to see why the National Film Board of Canada documentary RiP: A Remix Manifesto won the People’s Choice Award. While the subject matter, the battle between mash-up artists versus copyright laws, is topical and trendy, filmmaker Brett Gaylor adds to his first person perspective with a dynamic presentation of facts and figures, visual and audio effects, and interviews from a range of people from mash-up artist Girl Talk to lawyers and culture critics.

The piece is also a participatory media experiment, as Gaylor encourages viewers to visit www.opensourcecinema.org to sample and mash-up his footage.

Another interesting documentary I caught was Tiger Spirit, which explores Korea as a nation divided. Korean Canadian director Min Sook Lee travels to South Korea to interview and follow South Koreans seeking to reunite with North Korean family members some haven’t seen for about half a century.

Escapees from North Korea also explain that even after leaving North Korea, there are still difficulties to face in adjusting to South Korean society.

She includes footage from family members taken during brief reunions in the Demilitarized Zone, and also follows a woman whose job is to travel back and forth across the border several times a day as part of tentatively developing business relations between the north and south.

It would have been good to have captured more emotional expression from interviewees, and the documentation of a man in search of an extinct Korean tiger ends up being a red herring. But the film exposes a lot of intriguing details about the difficult and highly controlled relations between North and South Korea.

The festival reported today that over 7,596 people attended, which is up seven percent from last year. Quite a number of the screenings almost sold-out.

Next year’s festival will take place from December 3 to 6, 2009.