i'm david suzuki how far away is your next meal the average lunch or dinner travels twenty four hundred kilometers to get to your table eating local means eating fresh or combat in global warming back r d n green building series is proud to showcase various eco friendly high performance buildings and renewable energy technologies in the region such as rainwater harvesting and solar power systems starting saturday september twenty sixth all activities are free to the morning welcome to changes the program on sustainability i'm susan gregory and today we're going to find out about nine miles longest running film series which is still probably the best way to see international films in the imo we'll talk a bit about the upcoming vancouver international film festival as well and a few other things including perhaps how film can contribute to sustainability since that's what our show is all about and for all of this my guest today is ron bottom who's a retired film studies instructor and i guess he was taught other things and who has well in the past and  organizes the series has been doing for a long time and we'll get into that in just a moment good morning rothko good morning good morning everybody out there i would like to start by asking you about the difference between seeing a film in the theater and watching it at home yeah it's an interesting question because of course in the theater we can't stop the film and go and have a snack or bathroom break or we don't have any interruptions with phone call so we're more immersed in the actual experience than we are in the theater and we have to catch it as it runs we can't really do the playing back but the more impor tant thing is going all the way back to good old marshall mcluhan he talks about how television is that cool medium where his film is the hot medium and i guess the difference is that of course a t v is made up of all these old pixelation which we have to integrate with our retina where is with film it's projected light and dark onto a screen and it's so it's a different kind of visual reaction visual response the last thing of course is that films are really collaborative and they're all about collaboration so if you're sitting watching it alone at home you're losing laughing people sighing people gasping about various things it's much more of an integrative kind of community thing thing that happens so there are some important differences yeah i really like film in the world rather than you know watching it on t v although sometimes that's all you can do you know that may be the only way you can actually find it that's right to see it you know not be available otherwise yeah but yes i totally agree i once belonged if you can imagine to the screen actors guild film society they of course are made up entirely of actors so when you get an audience of actors watching a new release these were they always showed hollywood's newest releases by who are they were available and they are in the theaters now that's a really interesting good hints does it with  yeah there's maybe a little audience participation for example especially if it's one where everyone understands that it's all in fun you know them they villain and things like that  would think that that sort of experience can happen in other film series as well and and at festivals i think that's a slightly different audience it is an audience is more stealth selective and particularly at festivals people have to make the choices the films are going to see usually they're done they've done some research in advance i think had some great conversations in lineups waiting to get into films that people that death you know really want to share their experience and so i don't course our audience here has being a lot of them are core people who have been coming for years and years they know one another they often go for coffee after the film you know while it's fresh in their minds to talk about it they share the experience and so it's not just the film alone it's kind an evening for a lot of people who are and having ongoing oh yeah so i think that brings us to the fact that this is called the alternative cinema series the one that we're specifically talking about today and it has been running on friday nights at v i you fall and spring semesters for how long well we started we started actually with showing films in sixteen millimeter well actually even before i arrived in one thousand nine hundred eighty three surely goldberg started off with a very short series of eastern european hundred seventy four seventy five actually like forty years forty years back is when i really started and we showed sixteen millimeter for quite a while even up to the present campus we  back at the old place on kennedy street now the nursing home and so that's where we began and we've gone through a lot of mutations since then so and then of course eventually the sixteen millimeter market dried up and so we turned to half heartedly i think in the early eighty's to using v h s tapes but the we were showing them on to a projector on to protected screen and audience really quite enjoyed it so we have been going sort of every since in that forum at since the eighty's of course getting d s and using our projector it is well suzanne can attest this it is like a theater experience because we you know we have the the larger image and we have the theater seating and so on so it actually yeah it's been going for a very long time in a lot of different sort of versions and mutations and for a while there were four of us working so we showed  the year we did write ups on them we were young and bushy tailed and did all kinds of things we had a ballot box is there people could review things and now here i am on my own this whole retired guy but still truckin on because people still want to kind of continue to see some version of although i'm down to just six films now a semester so small they can you right but there are audience members who have been attending for years there are here are people that just they just don't want to see it and right and so they just keep coming back coming back and they look forward to it as they are relatively inexpensive experienced at the same time as something that more than just going out on your own to  see a film because that there is a feeling of it being a series or a collective experience yeah sure and like you say people sometimes go out afterwards for coffee yeah about the film but actually you this as a course in a way yes little different from just maybe putting a donation box at the door and just screening the film let's say or maybe charging admission or if you actually introduce the films you may have a whole history on the director or some other interesting background on the film that you give before it's used you actually screen it and then afterwards there's a discussion that the audience can participate in as well and to share their reactions sometimes i think we all need to de brief a little bit after especially after we've seen something quite our full so  choose to set it up that way well originally we didn't really do that billy just had the the sheet that had information about the film films that that was when there were the four of us then it  reduced to the two of us you surely and myself we decided that we'd both been teaching film and that this would be an interesting extension of that so maybe taking into our audience in the series some of the films that we maybe talked about in class or some of the same directors and maybe show some of their work can introduce to a bit so they would have some context maybe some historical context  some socio political context something about the director and just so that people had a little bit of a toehold into the film before seeing it without giving anything really important away and we have some people who actually don't like to come to listen to that in advance because they just want to have the peer experience so they tend to pop in you know a little bit later but most people do like to hear some things that are really you know with it being all you know alternative film series looking at alternative film we're not duplicating with the local theaters who doing we have to be careful not to do that but we don't want to do that anyways we want to really stimulate sometimes challenge had a teacher years ago who used to tell me that the best way to teach was education through irritation and so i think every now then what we do is try to throw a film or two that little bit more of an irritant to try to get people you know kind of worked up a little bit about it instead of seeing you know what what reactions it brings about or something that's really far out there you know  that's right we're seeing them in the context of a series so you can tell us what comes next week if we didn't like what yeah we try to vary it with you know but with heavier films with something that's a little bit lighter or maybe bring in a documentary or you know to just do a bit of a change up with different sort of modes  that are added on i think people are curious to find out more certain names about where the film came from why it was done who the people are who were involved and so that's that's something else that we you know those who attend this series will just have as yard of the pack and yes that's something that i draw upon quite a bit too and i do a fair amount of my own research and try to make sure that i you know really seen the films in advance and know something about the directors so that i'm not just coming into it cold you know and then making making choices is always a challenge yes indeed well we'll talk about that in a few minutes what you'll be bringing this fall and i should sort of perhaps just say at this point that these are in general international films not necessarily off the wall films you know so it's international independent and periodically a documentary that is you know really stimulating in some ways  and trying to make sure that we're meeting our audiences needs to with the variety of things and things that i try to choose through you know i always try to choose films that would be you know leading in some ways to discussion at the end not something they used to see and say well that was nice and walk away from it you know it's kind of something that maybe gives you in another window on the world looks into countries that maybe you get a chance to visit you know via film that you wouldn't get a chance to visit otherwise you know and and so trying to really it's yes i have been struck of course i've i have to confess disclosure here i've been the attending these myself for a number of years and some of the films that stand out are the ones that really show the inner life of someone living in another culture where we might never have an opportunity to see that's right and the other way  into what's happening in the culture and getting some of the behind the scenes looks sure and the secret lives of people that they don't even reveal to others that german culture be cause for whatever reason because in some cases maybe that's not acceptable just not done you know right or not done right indeed so would you say there's a particular demographic of people who are who go to this series i know you mentioned kind of having it be an extension of your university level courses but you know in a way i was sort of how it started out but who goes in now well not too often do we get students it's a bit unfortunate because i guess the business of coming back to university on friday night after having been there all week is not exactly you know something that inspires them they probably want to be away for the weekend also there are there's the world bridges that the students do attend so it's generally people who are from the community a wide variety of people but i would say it's more of a oh there are some younger members but i would say the average is more like a middle aged and then retired audience y ok i think it's time to find out if you're willing to divulge what films you'll be showing this fall ok yeah i've got my series organized and  are the dates extend from october sixteenth to december fourth and so there are a couple of dates in there that we miss will be six films shown in that particular stretch of time we nee at seven o'clock introduce the film and then begin the showing and then people either can stick around or leave at the end of the film we do have a q and a little bit of schmoozing a little bit of visiting that goes on have to the  so this year i've chosen on the basis of some of the things that i saw at this that then cooper international film festival last year or the year before and then some things that i know by by director some things i've heard about by word of mouth and some things that  most of the films i've selected have won various awards internationally i also like to make sure that i included documentary so there is going to be one and  then we have the strong canadian film are going to be showing his will so just as a quick run through i won't take up too much time but the films i'm going to show i'm not sure if this is going to be the order i'm doing them in but  probably going to start with a film called force measure which is they film made by a swedish director but made in the french alps and it has some elements of a little bit dark humor in it a family ghost the tomas takes off while his wife does the business of protecting the kids and so he kind of runs for the hills and so afterwards is the business of like you know what is he like is the man and  is you know where he says patriarchal since ability you know and so so there's a little sort of satire on patriarchy and also on the sins of i guess just of  and it's one a whole lot of awards throughout the world it scooped up pretty well all the words in and counted and so it's about a single widowed mother who has they really troubled  and look after him on her own and it's quite shocking and disturbing bit the same time there are some elements of humor and development of elements of grace in the film too so it brazilian who photographed throughout the world for over forty years and the director vendors follows delgado and still god who is looking for pristine territories in the world as a tribute to our planet's beauty but of course he in countering these beautiful pristine areas there's also of course the shock of it being sometimes you know really documentary it won three prizes at the cannes film festival and it's one whole package of audience who were its audience who really love this film because it really does touch the heart in many ways  it gives us an insight into what's going on in present day russia it's one best screenplay at the con film festival and looks at some of the issues there around  the inveighs of kind of capitalist thinking that's happening in russia where this man that has a chunk of land the mayor and some of the other members of the community that are rather corrupt types want to take over his chunk of land because it's near a port in the russian coastal town and so it's been about the struggles there and some sense  trailed as he brings in a friend of his from moscow who is the lawyer to try to help them out with this case but there's dimensions of the trail that happen in the film it's it's a wonderful film i've seen it and i thought it was one of the most stunning films that i saw last year so and then we're going to try to we're going to show winter's sleep which is the turkish film i always love turkish films this is  won the palme d'or the top prize at the cannes film festival it takes place in capital which is an area that i spent some time in in the past and it has the most surreal landscape  because the there's all these theri chimneys there and people build into them and create houses and hotels right in these structures so it's a fairy chimney fairy chimney old old erosion of the old mountains because these are some of the oldest mountains in the world of course and in these structures they're left and people build houses into the sides of them or in this case the hotel and small hotel and people go and stay there it's it's the most unusual kind of landscape and it's right near where a lot of the ancient ruins of the hittite culture are very ancient part of the world where many different cultures you know ward in fought and struggled in pass through and whatever so it's it's a fascinating part of the world and   his sister who has recently been divorced and they're all kind of holding up in this little hotel which is both the security as well as in some ways the prison i thin playing the mean character she's a wonderful actress she's a young belgian mother who finds out that her fellow employees have offered her  as a sacrifice for their own betterment that they the plan is that they'll be able to get a pay increase if she's dismissed and so she finds out about this and she  only a weekend to try to convince that the other employees that they need to be selfless and let her continue on with their job and not take the pay increase  because you know her her financial well being is really important to her and her family you know and so it's it's really a they always do these very realistic  of life types of films but it's always heightened a little bit you know really interesting the compression of film allows for that kind of heightening and so you know with the business of having only a weekend to you know convince all these people to turn them around it's quite a challenge that i think i'm going to try to show that film i think it would probably generate some interest in a period of time when a lot of people are losing jobs and jobs are kind of collapsing and people are being forced into part time situations and where they do you know are doing multiple jobs in order to try to survive and people are working away and yet they're still going to you know food sources soup kitchens and so on because they can't afford you know to to continue on with their lives and so you know you know we live in a very fortunate you know kind of climate part of the world we still do have a fairly distinct poverty line here and a lot of people that are currently suffering from lack of employment and and that kind of selfishness is you know it's human nature i guess like if i can get a raise you know at your expense perhaps you know so it's an it's an interesting topic will kind of experience and i like to try to keep some things in well thank you for all of that so let's go to information on how people can sign up for this i think i would like to give a phone number because i actually managed to get through to this phone number the other day and sign up right away and the person you exactly what i was talking about that was lovely the nj phone number is one eight six six seven three four six two five two we'll put that in the description on our podcast as well when we podcast the show let me tell you that again  mention it one last time near the end of the show one eight six six seven three four six two five to say you would like to sign up for the alternative cinema series there is a number of course number that i can mention but the person i spoke with didn't even need that it's p i c i p like paul i  one section just the one section oh right yes so and we also have a spring one we're doing six films in the spring so people can sign up for both fall and spring if they wish or fall only spring only i guess sure spring only of spring will start in january and finish in early march i think is my day said on the weather i brought them with me here today but that's yeah right ok and the cost is just thirty dollars plus g s t and you just give your credit card number your you're set your house send you the information on where and where and then all of that  want them to spend a lot of money and also i come cheaply because they just give me a small and they're very i'm for being there to kind of cover some of my expenses because i usually end up by buying the films  they're not so readily available any other way we have very few video shops in town and they don't really carry necessarily what i want to show so so the that helps to cover off my costs but that's but since audience is always terrifically supported even if they didn't like film that i showed they usually are supportive of the whole enterprise institute of say well we'll give you that one make sure you come up with something better you always do announce next week's yeah yeah and there are a lot of people who love everything like they so shape or lie didn't necessarily get everything but i certainly love did it was great sometimes it's worth just having the experience even if it made you uncomfortable yeah sure sure and you do actually i should say give out a list with some descriptions that's right you know at the first screening  on i'm just going to mention now some events that are coming up in the next few days around and imo and elsewhere but first i'll just remind everybody that you're listening to c h o i want to one point seven f m and c h l wired dot ca your listeners supported campus and community station in the imo now saturdays we have a chance to meet members of the then go grannies who will be part of a group that cycling from campbell river to victoria to raise funds to support grandmothers in africa in various countries in africa who in the face of many challenges are caring for their aids orphan and grandchildren the vancouver island grannies will be stopping at my field sutton park at noon on saturday september twelfth for a refreshment break so that's a good chance to meet them learn more and make a contribution and if you want to find out more about what it is that they're supporting you can check the stephen lewis foundation which is triple w dot stephen lewis foundation dot org steven is with a ph and louis is ilya w i s so triple w dot stephen lewis foundation dot org and on to the next the georgia straight alliance is holding its annual general meeting and a twenty fifth anniversary celebration at the vam city theater in vancouver on sunday september thirteenth during a break in the vancouver festival of ocean films for more films now that festival will screen just actually two feature length documentary he's one's a matinee and the others in the evening audiences will be taken to northern greenland alaska a tiny polynesian island and to the depths of south america along the chilean coast you can experience a breathtaking cinematography that shines light on the global challenges that our waters currently face and then in between those two screenings will be the g s a for georgia stray alliance a g m that's from six to eight pm and they're having of course there's celebration as well with refreshments and cake because they've been going for twenty five years and g s a and mountain equipment co op members can receive discounted ticket prices to both of those films screenings profits from the festival be donated to further g mission of protecting in restoring the marine environment and promoting the sustainability of the georgia strait and its adjoining waters and communities and for more information you can see v f o f dot c a for vancouver festival of ocean films or georgia straight dot org and straight there of course is s t r t finally tonight elizabeth may leader of the federal green party will be a park auditorium with paul manley the green party candidate for an and i am a lady smith at seven o'clock it's a town hall meeting so bring your questions and this is important remember to check elections dot ca to make sure that your voter registration is there and up to date someone mentioned on the show a while back that his voter registration had disappeared so we want to make sure that doesn't happen to you because even though the polls may look good for the party that you like the only poll that really counts is the one on one action day so make sure there are no barriers to casting your vote now the program that you are listening to on c h o y is changes and i'm susan gregory and today ron bonham is here to fill us in on well we've just talked about the alternative cinema series that vi you but we thought we'd talk a little bit about the vancouver international film festival as well because that's coming up and as you mentioned drawn earlier you tend to select films from that for later saturday night the series last year they showed three hundred sixty five films over the ten day period and a lot of things i wanted to see were in conflict with other things or trying to get from one  another is a challenge and so usually what i do is try to choose maybe three or four days and go over and really do an intense experience of film over those days trying to get i've  decided this year i've booked ten films to see ten films over the three days and then sometimes i squeeze something else in if i get a chance but the i chose ten that i really do want to see for varying reasons either because of the country or because they were major award winners or because of some of my research on the might seen at the really interesting i've selected this time to see three canadian films there this is really terrific because it it's the fifth biggest film festival in north america films from washington oregon their other major specialized nation is southeast asia they show more so theses films than any other place in the world i guess except the east asia but they do a huge number of films from that part of the world so documentaries canadian and especially films that take place in i guess what we might call cascadia going up you know it alaska right down the west coast cound and do the films for the festival circuit so they have about somewhere close to three hundred sixty some odd films this coming year again so it's go be a major festival starting in late september and going through till the fifth of october so it's always scheduled at that particular time just sort of in late september and then up to a bit of time just before thanksgiving usually is there is there period and they bring in some big directors as well who often  you're questioning after the film where they bring in some of the actors producers so they have it's a really a a corn you kopi of films it's really tough to make your choices as to what you're going to see and there's always things i look at that i think i desperately love to see that but it's just not fitting into my plan you know and so that gives me a impetus to show some things later on in my own film series  count some of those have to do with first nations and as you say west coast like kind of quiet but i noticed there's a film by paul gross that's right and another one by out of magoi yes yes that deals with the group of seven and actually paul gross to some of the narrating in that particular film and they so the film goes to the area of lake superior and algoma and in that region where the group is seven did a lot of their landscape painting and looked at some of the landscape in comparison to the paintings to see you know what really was going on behind the scenes in creating these these paintings  painting and so on and so they go up to the interlake three june in manitoba and they often just go in rugged you know with her attaching across the land there and set up and do reading the description on that one i have an impression that this is not a safe quiet little no film about landscapes there are so almost some extreme sport in there because it's not as easy as you might think to get to some of these poor he says yeah so they go through some interesting challenges actually to reach the places where the paintings were young yes it's not not easy and even that much more of a challenge at that time in the redoing the paintings than it would be today and of course they were inspired by tom thomson who suggests remains a mystery as to what happened to him you know and  o so the lives are quite it's quite a challenge you know that lauren harris went up and painted those icebergs you know up in the extreme north and so they they faced some really difficult conditions and they were characters those you could step in and they had some of their own little conflicts and things too so it's interesting interesting stuff and i also want to see a politically it's a challenge because of the chinese control of the area and the difficulties that the tibetans experience under those circumstances and  also i want to see a film called taxi done by the iranian director or not he and not he we've shown a couple of his films already in our series including this is not film because tonight he has been silenced for making films in iran because his views have been considered too i would spoken into critical so this is not a film had to be snuggled out smuggled being shown and course it was called this is not a film because he's not allowed to make films and so his most recent one he decided that he would make a film by becoming a taxi driver and just driving around  tehran and the environs and meeting people and it's i gather it's quite a joyful sort of film we meet all kinds of characters in and out of the taxi and we learn some things that about you know what's he has to find various devious ways to you know kind of continue with his art into make you know to make his creations possible but it makes us aware of  you know the the repression that often happens around that film it makes us aware that film is pretty pretty hot you know they used to talk about how the old thirty five millimeter film was michael shannon john and it's about a story of a cop from hamilton ontario who was living a very ordinary sort of life until he got  doing some devious kind of underground sort of surveillance stuff and he got into trouble and he left the country and he ended up in  thailand where he he lived for a while he was eventually shot to death in the philippines and interestingly after he died it turned out that they found out that he had another family in thailand and that with some grotesque sense of humor he had named his children in thailand the same name michael and shannon so his children michael and shannon who try to kind of recreate his family i guess you know over in thailand that he had left behind in encounter so it sounds quite intriguing actually an interesting save documentary film oh my goodness yeah that's one of those truth is stranger than fiction that's right yeah it's a thing yeah you saw that in a soap opera you would say i'll come on you know forget it it's this gap happened but here it is it's the reality  house that name about it is really interesting a lot of people have you know gotten tickets for for that particular film and also the canadian short films are doing really well over there  which is great considering that you know we have our own short film festival here in ny mo and a so there seems to be a great love for short films and a lot of young people are going out to to see them there is a youth real festival that's going to be showing some films over there as well some short films for young people it's interesting to note that last year out of the three hundred sixty odd films they showed only about five of them were actually down with with film the others were all done the digital cameras and so that's the way things are now you hardly get anything made with the actual film stockett's  it's expensive it's also kind of laborious you know and all airy throwdowns consuming but it has a kind of a stunning look some of the time which you can't get with digital you know the the depth of  i really like the black and white where you're using the real film stock it has a real incredible sort of infinity of variation of of shading you know which you can't get so well  with with digital stuff but but any rain you can now make films fairly inexpensively you know we're used to be take years to actually make them oh you take years just to get it final to get to finance yeah yeah yeah and it's interesting now how much it's kind of become that much more it intergroup the global because you will look at a lot of films and they're made by four different countries and you can get countries that are quite poor collaborating with other countries to be able to you know really reflect their identity to the world which would not have been otherwise possible so rumania for example has a great do wave of filmmakers that would not have been possible for them to do anything if they didn't really because there's hardly any theaters in romania you know to show film health level only really to get an international market unless you know they really have the collaboration so so there's a lot of interesting stuff going on in the politics of filmmaking that it's quite intriguing you know indeed and of course things that have past system i think that's the title oh you know actually that was imposed on first nations i had no idea that we had that in canada it was something that was done in south africa during apartheid but we had it here in canada you couldn't leave the reserve without your pass apparently for that's right length of time so yeah it's gone out and interviewed people who actually were in that situation and that wilma's really doing well too in terms all the way into the one nine hundred thirty s and so people wanted to move around at all and they were living on a reserve they could only do so if they were granted a pass to do so and so the  internment of people and control of them is really really quite was really quite spectacular at that minute hand you know it's it makes us aware that this we  see you know racism elsewhere you know our own country has not come out of this whole thing unscathed and it's there it's there are still vestiges of it and it still affected a lot of people but this is an important film because it's the timing is really important because a lot of these people are not going to be around to be interviewed and so trying to actually catch some of these things that are really historical that are important to our own fabric you know it's you have to really be you know attentive and on the spot you know goodness e s c s before before the opportunity vanish that's right all right and we no longer have quite the same looked at world bridger fringe flick no one i think maybe then and imo north branch of the library might be screening some film so there's lots going on lots to see ron thank you so much really glad to be here it gives me a chance to kind of talk about one of my great passions you know it's been i was a you know i was really involved with film series all the way back when i was a college university student you know and though it remains an abiding love wonderful when i will am that phone number once again one eight six six seven three four six two five two to sign up for the alternative cinema