Encounters - not of the extraterrestrial type

Cinema on the Bayou

Sunday 1/29/12

Link to Film Festival webpage...
http://www.cinemaonthebayou.com

 

photo credit: www.cinemaonthebayou.com one of the many taking off in the canoes scenes...

Encounters

Link to the description of the film...
http://www.cinemaonthebayou.com/onefilm.cfm?film_id=193

 

photo credit: from the film makers webpage www.mofilms.ca in French, the orig cover...
and in French Encounters = Rencontre

Encounters (Louisiana Premiere)

Melanie Carriere and Olivier Higgins

2011 52 min. Color

This documentary film tells the story of a group of young Innus, Huron and non-Aboriginal Quebeckers, who together travel an ancestral land and water path, 310 km long, which joins Lac Saint-Jean and Quebec City. Along the way, they learn about themselves and each other. This is another wonderful film from the award-winning filmmaking team of Melanie Carriere and Olivier Higgins, based in Quebec, for whom questions of identity, social fabric, land protection, and social justice inspire their projects. 

French with English subtitles.
Click for filmmaker's web site (MoFilms)

photo credit: Lise Breton 2010 took this & put it on InfoCulture.Biz from the couples/the film makers Asiemut film project at the time...

(they look so happy & so young, to be film makers - or to be a couple that rode bikes from Mongolia to India & still looking this good?!)

photo credit: again from their Asiemut film, biking from Mongolia to India...uh, if I could read French I may be able to tell you who took the photo-could be they set up their own camera...but never the less, it was on this webpage...

http://www.teteslibres.com/lesailesdemoncoeurlourd/2007/04/04/asimut/

(note: so they went from a huge bike riding adventure in Asiemut to the journey with the native teenagers in Encounters, again on bikes & hiking & canoeing as well--with their camera?! do I detect a theme, besides full on nature--does there have to be hardship...)

Link to their film webpage - Mo films...

www.mofilms.ca

"films is a production company based in Quebec city, who wants to linger in the debates and social issues of our times. Questions of identity, social fabric, land protection and social justice are all subjects that inspire our projects..."

From my evening of viewing, finally almost the whole entire film too...

~lots of nature, Canadian nature, beautiful (I have never been to Canada & I have a passport...)
~lots of teenagers, but native ones trying to understand their culture & how it relates to 'others' - no matter which 'others' & just trying to make it from the beginning to the end of this specific journey & it does look like it was a journey through the wilderness (camping & riding & hiking--often in the rain, I would of been done with it all very quickly...)
~lots of sitting around the campfire at the end of the day to ask How was your day? which surprised me, they showed up & they said something, they shared & they also shared with the camera--because after awhile I'm guessing it faded into the background of the film makers holding it, this couple that went along on the adventure with them...
~lots of healing going on, though I haven't a clue about native peoples in Canada--one can imagine...

At the end (this is not a spoiler) you saw that the kids were going to stay in touch, as the one girl brought a group of the others to her village--I can't even say which native tribe of Canada she is, it doesn't matter really in the end...she was the one though that had never finished anything up until that journey...
It was a kind of Wisdom Quest I think for her & many of these teenagers...they shared a long hard endurance adventure together in the wilderness - at one point a Shaman came to speak with them too, which would of been awesome if you were or weren't a native person (or I'd of called him that, I may be wrong, he could of just been an Elder of a tribe--I wasn't there & I can't rewind the movie now either) & I would hope they're still staying in touch today & that other kids like them continue to go on this Nature Adventure in Canada, along a river that their ancestors probably used as well (also possibly without a camera crew following along with them the whole time...)

It was great too at one point in the film, they got lost--plain & simple...
Going up a mountain trail in the woods, so there's that decision--do we go back, do we go ahead...
Wondering if you'll find 'the' trail that you need, again I would of been so done/Done even before then--being rained on for days, wet clothes, wet shoes, it would of been a drowning, bogged down feeling all over (but these kids/teenagers came thru the other end of that, so it was great to watch that too...)

How far is 300 km? About 186 miles?!
Oh my I would of fallen down & never gotten up at like mile marker 10 or maybe 20--tops?!

Délivrance - of the French Canadian kind

Cinema on the Bayou

Sunday 1/29/12

http://www.cinemaonthebayou.com/

7th Cinema on the Bayou Film Festival

Jan. 25-29, 2012
The dramatic film "Delivrance" will make its U.S. Premiere on the opening night of the Festival at AcA with New Brunswick filmmakers Donovan Richard and Danny Thebeau in attendance.

 

Délivrance 2011
"When all is lost, only deliverance is left to gain."

Link to review from Cineman on the Bayou Film Festival webpage...
http://bulldogpublicity.wordpress.com/2011/08/24/anna-silk-for-a-weekcbc-premieres-delivrance/

This dramatic narrative feature film tells the story of the escape in 1756 from Fort Beausejour by Pierre-Henri Surette and his followers, and Surette's return to battle for the rest of the men who were left behind before their deportation by the British. The film was shot primarily at Fort Beausejour (in the fort's ruins), in the areas of Memramcook and along the Petitcodiac River.
The film premiered across Canada this past fall with great fanfare. The amazing cast and crew created "a great snapshot of the hell Acadians were subject to during the great expulsion," says film and music writer Jim Lavoie. "Well written, directed, shot and acted, this is one film that 'Delivered' as promised."

The film is in both French and English, with English subtitles.
Click for filmmaker's web site

My notes from the evening...

As I was a volunteer I was doing that & not getting to watch the whole film--but did get to step inside at the end when there was a Q&A, my fav...because you hear people speak with passion normally about what they're trying to do & I like to listen to them give you a sneak peek into their creativity...

With these 2 (writer/film maker) I learned they had a lot of family/friends help them with this, but that they also all got paid--even in Canada...

And they took a car ride together somewheres in Canada & came up with the whole story along the way--would of loved being in the backseat for that...

They didn't want to do a documentary, they wanted to fictionalize the history with a story (I'm sure many people can tell family stories about what happened to their relatives at that time) & so there could be more films--will see if they follow that story of the Acadiens expulsion (their word) to say other locations where they fled to...They both knew that Southern Louisiana would be interested in the film as many fled here...

Also there were characters on both sides that were not all good or bad - as the groups were as well, not all bad or all good (as is real life if you think of it, so it was good they tried to portray that in their film too...)

Again I didn't see but 1 scene before a reunion of 2 groups of Acadiens that had been separated, 1 was being marched to a ship, the other had escaped & were helping others escape, so there was firing on the soldiers--then at a house/barn they were meeting up with the women & the children running to meet them, with the ship on the river in the background (I thought the film makers did well with the costumes of the times too, but what would I know not being of any Acadien descent that I know of...)

Don't think I didn't look twice at the title of this movie--I've grown up with movies & TV & the first Deliverance I'd heard of was a movie, that had canoes, banjos & squealing like a pig involved...but I just knew that this one would have nothing to do with that one, tho there was a river & trees & people running around the woods with guns in that (from what little I saw,) but that was about it that I can tell...then too the titles are spelled differently, as the French way is Délivrance...

On a lighter local note, they were asked about the food they enjoyed since coming to Lafayette or if they enjoyed the Cajun Food while they've been here, which they liked & want to come visit again, not just for the food--but it seems one of them is not fond of  Boudin, there was something with the soft texture that he thought would take some getting use to, like you'd need to acquire a taste for it...I like Boudin now, but could agree--if you're looking for a sausage it's not that...(they need to come during the Boudin Festival & try a whole bunch of choices is what I'm thinking?!)

note: both my pic's - can ya' tell I went to the Boudin Festival 2011?!

A Weaverly Path - Vimeo

A Weaverly Path Trailer from Kenny Dalsheimer on Vimeo.

Cinema on the Bayou

Cinema on the Bayou

http://www.cinemaonthebayou.com/
Sunday 1/29/12

A Weaverly Path - The Tapestry Life of Silvia Heyden
A documentary film by Kenny Dalsheimer
Marybeth Dugan - Assistant Director
2011 The Grove Productions

Link to webpage for the film...
http://aweaverlypath.com/the-film/

Eno River, Durham, North Carolina inspired

These things I know from watching this documentary film...

~ She hears colors (don't know if she's a synesthete or not, this was not mentioned in the film)
       Link to what that is if you don't know... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synesthesia (thanks Wiki?!)

~ She's said she has an 'eye in every finger' - I love that she said that & by now with her fingers on the yarn in the loom she probably does, you know--kinda sorta fashion & not a horror movie image...

~ She's done at least 2 commissions (those shown in the movie, but from Flickr pics looks like there were more) where she's listened to musical compositions & made a tapestry according--in motion/in colors (I can't find the 2 composers, yet, think 1 was Bach...then I read she plays the violin, yet I didn't see that in the film--but as a volunteer I didn't get to see it all...)

~ She's studied in the Bauhaus tradition at  - I read - the School of Arts in Zurich (where I've stopped off for a day/night before, getting off a train, was going on to Interlaken at the time...)

~ She's Swiss from the 20's & is like 82 in the film & I woulda never guessed...

Link to Silvia Heyden's Tapestries...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/64309623@N04/sets/72157627023889283/
(note: see Polyphonie & Bartok's Sonata for the musical movements in tapestry...)

More pics of her tapestries...
http://www.annatextiles.ch/artists/artindex/silvia/silvia.htm
(note: one titled orchestra & multi rhythms that again involve music...)