June 26 2006

Humour, Beauty and Politics mix it up for the Water Film Festival in conjunction with the World Peace Forum, Monday June 26th 7:30pm at Pacific Cinematheque. A fascinating line up of films, videos and installations have been selected from an open call. The festival features local and international shorts by artists, activists and youth. Reflections on Water will present issues important to Vancouverites such as water privatization and encroachments on the natural world and urban environment. We also celebrate water through its formal beauty, stories and memories. This event will provoke and inspire, with artists, water activists and a reception following the screening. Film scover a wide variety of genres from documentary, drama, comedy, animation, experimental, hybrid forms with some of the work created specifically for Reflections on Water. Tickets are $5-$10 sliding scale, but no one will be turned away for lack of funds.

The Program

OIL AND WATER
Corwin Fergus (26 min, 2005, USA)
The filmmakers uses the tragedy of the Exxon Valdes oil spill to examine how wilderness is critical habitat for the human psyche and how thousands of year of cultural history have led up away from this once most obvious truth.

TURN OFF THE TAP
Alex Flores (1min, 2005 ON)
A musical reminder of urban wastefulness.

WATER MADE VISIBLE
Bridges Youth (9 min, 2005, Kenya / Navajo Nation)
“Bridges to Understanding helps middle-school youth around the world create and share digital stories about important issues in their lives. “Walk in Beauty” (Reservation, Arizona) reveals the Navajo community’s struggles with drought, and how water issues intertwine with joblessness on the largest reservation in the US. In “Maji” (Takaungu, Kenya), students examine the intersection between water and faith in a small community on the East Indian Ocean. They also explain the role of water in their daily lives.

THE LAST DROP
Steve Rogers (13 min, 2006, BC)
This documentary explores the current state of River Management in BC and the role Kayakers play as "Stewards of the Rivers." It follows four high-end Kayakers as they take the audience down three out of the hundreds of rivers threatened by Microhydro dams, show ing the pristine wilderness and beauty of the canyons which are about to be lost forever. These adventurers turn to a political quest to have the rivers of BC properly managed.

REJHE
Carlos Hidalgo (4 min, 2006, Mexico)
Protests during the World Water Forum in Mexico.

TU SUDHUDIH
Helen Haig-Brown (12 min, 2003, BC)
It's 2008. Water is the most precious commodity on Earth. A powerful corporation controls most of the resources and is trying to control more.

SHE FLOWS
Josh Usheroff (3 min, 2006, QUE)
She flows
Quickly or slowly she goes
Around rocks and trees she speeds
Blown by the breeze
The river flows

SEA SONG
Richard Reeves (4 min, 1999, BC)
This animated film flows through a vibrant underwater landscape, shown at night time. Sound and picture are drawn directly on film - cameraless animation.

Intermission


AQUASNAZZ
Jacob Bauming (2 min, 2003, QUE)
Jacob Bauming is a fan of extreme animation, and his film is a marvellous manifestation of this. A whirling dervish of sensory overload, Aquasnazz has a tenuous connection to snazzy "aquatics," using them as a trigger for Bauming's wild and manic imagination.

WATER, WATER, EVERYWHERE...?
The Media Analysis Lab, SFU Communications (23 min, 2001, BC)
The public/private debate over ownership and access to water has intensified around decisions to build a filtration plant in one of Vancouver's water supplies. The Media Analysis Lab in the School of Communication at SFU has produced a thought-provoking documentary that explores the issue from local, national and global perspective.. The film includes an interview with celebrated ecological activist Vandana Shiva, and a revealing look at the GVRD Water Committee.

LIGHT AS A FEATHER / HEAVY AS LEAD
Irene Loughlin (5 min, 2005, BC)
This performance piece illustrates the impossible outcome of the water test used to determine witchcraft. The piece infuses the drowning/floating dichotomy with a sense of resistance and survival beyond political oppression. The work also hopes to evoke a sense of urgency in relation to the illogical context of our current ecological crisis.

UNTITLED
Mike Burnside (2 min, 2006, BC)
Urban Vancouver, quiet observations.

RAIN IS FALLING
Holger Ernst (15 min, 2005 Germany)
In a time in which all borders of ethnic, religious and cultural differences are being questioned, RAIN IS FALLING makes a connection, takes a look into a foreign world and encourages a dialogue between the worlds of strangers.

FISH OUT OF WATER
Lala Rolls (8 min, 2005, NZL)
A young man rows to work to escape the rush hour mayhem, but where can he go when it follows him onto the water?

The Installations

AQWAI
Meg Torwl (11.5 looped, 2006, BC)
AQWAI opens in Vancouver’s Fall with abstract images of rain, reflecting on leaf-filled puddles, winter Sunshine Coast beaches, lakes, and snow. To spring at the seas edge on Ayhus Island, light playing on the ocean floor, sea grass and shellfish beds, taking us underwater to Hawaiian coral and fish. Drawing to a close in summer, with the pebbled alpine streams, of Manning Park BC; Tongariro National Park, and Te Waipounamu - Aotearoa.

FALL OF WATER
Yun Lam Li (4 min looped, 2006, BC)
This unusual meditation on water recalls chromatography, where the most beautiful colors that separate out can represent the most deadly of substances. Sound and image work together to evoke our strong and necessary spiritual connection to water, as well as our fears that all may not be what it seems. Sound by Timothy Ralphs.

MAN.ROAD.RIVER.
Marcellvs L.(10 min Looped, 2004, Brazil)
A man. A road. A river.

Filmmakers Bios, Links and Extended Entries coming soon!

Reflections on Water is curated by Hadas Levy on Paradoc Productions



Reflections on Water Poster design by Andrea Curtis