Empties

Director Jan Sverák and his father (screenwriter/lead actor) Zdenek Sverák have completed an excellent trilogy about life, love and happiness. They began with the Oscar nominated The Elementary School in 1992, a film set in a suburb of Prague just as the second world war ended. It's a coming of age tale about story telling, lost childhood and lost innocence. They followed this with the Oscar winning film Kolya in 1996. It is a work of love, beautifully photographed in rich deep reds and browns. This lovely story with wonderful acting offers a fresh variation on a curmudgeon finding himself 'saddled' with an unwanted young charge. Recently they completed the loose trilogy with the highly popular Czech film Empties, which was a resounding success for us with two full screenings and a total audience of 671. Director Jan and father/screenwriter/lead actor Zdenek served up a lovely bittersweet comedy. Beginning with a quote from a famous Czech author "For a little love I would go to the end of the world bareheaded and barefooted" the film is ultimately about one man's search for love/happiness for himself, his wife, his daughter/grandson and the characters who surround him at work. Containing very believable dialogue and acting, Empties, the highest grossing film in Czech history, seemed to leave our audience smiling as they left the theatre.

It is rumoured that Jan and father Zdenek had quite a few battles regarding the script and the development of the character arc for the lead character. You'll have to watch the film to guess what the arguments may have entailed.

Besides Kolya, the other Oscar winning Czech film was Closely Watched Trains (1966), directed by Jirí Menzel. In 2006, Jirí also directed, I Served the King of England, which was supplanted as the highest grossing Czech film ever by Empties.

Julian D.

Food Inc.

Our final film of the 2009 season was the quite disconcerting but excellent and very important documentary Food Inc. It certainly provided much 'food for thought' on how corporations are negatively effecting our National Food Industry and challenges us to become more aware of the multi-layered impact of what we purchase to eat. We thank Karen Burson for visiting and providing our audience with information, literature and maps on the Eat Local program and providing an excellent Q&A after the first screening and intro to the second. 533 were in attendance at our two screenings and the proceeds were divided as follows: $500 to Hamilton Food Share, $500 to Juvenile Diabetes Foundation and $200 to Environment Hamilton as a thank you for Karen's visit. We intend to keep Environment Hamilton in mind for future donations as well to help in their very important conmmunity service. If you missed Food Inc. it has just been released to video and should now be available in your local video stores. With these donations we have just passed the $60 000 mark in donations in our six years of screening the best in Canadian and international films. Thank you very much for your support of the Ancaster Film Fest.

Information from Karen Burson (Eat Local Project Manager at Environment Hamilton, 1130 Barton Street East, Suite 207 Hamilton, ON L8H 7P9 (905) 549-0900)

Look Karen up on Facebook: ("friend" her if you like -- She's got lots of information to share about local food, local art, community events and more, with an emphasis on Downtown Hamilton and the James Street North area).

Groups to check out and perhaps join:

Hamilton Eat Local
Planning to Eat (news and links to more articles, documentaries and such)
Slow Food Hamilton
The Food We Need Now Margaret Webb
Friends of the Toronto Food Policy Council

LINKS

Hamilton Community Food Security Stakeholder Committee: an intro and Terms of Reference

Environment Hamilton, with link to Hamilton Eat Local Home Page

The No Nonsense Guide to World Food by Dr. Wayne Roberts of the Toronto Food Policy Council

Toronto Food Policy Council Home Page and links to studies and reports

Food activist and writer Margaret Webb, author of Apples to Oysters. Check out her amazing series of articles now appearing in The Toronto Star. I sent to her the link to A Farm for the Future and she liked it enough to post it on her home page ... high praise, indeed!

Slow Food Canada (promoting food that is good, clean and fair) find a page for Slow Food Hamilton, our local convivium.

London Food Strategy, what's being done abroad

VIDEO

An interview with Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore's Dilemma and In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto, both highly recommended reading

Learn about the Transition Town Movement and its approach to food security, while on their home page you'll find a link to the BBC Documentary by farmer/filmmaker Rebecca Hosking called A Farm for The Future


A quick video clip to share - only about 2 minutes long. Add this to your e-mail signature to share this brief but important look at our dependence on fossil fuels for our current food system


Julian D.

The Damned United

Michael Sheen as lead actor and Peter Morgan as screenwriter. A winning combination. Consider these films they collaborated on: The Deal, The Queen, Frost/Nixon and now The Damned United. Some fine pedigree.

The Damned United was originally a fiction based on fact novel written by David Peace. In it, the author captured the life of famed Brit football manager Brian Clough during his successes which led to his confrontation 44 day tenure as manager of top Brit football team Leeds United. He did so by imagining Clough's thoughts during this time period, something which obviously he had to create based on facts that he knew. Read by the fine director Stephen Frears it was passed on to Peter Morgan as a prospective joint project. When Stephen was unable to direct, Tom Hooper (John Adams, Elizabeth 1) took over that role. Morgan loved it believed that he and Pearce used similar approaches in developing stories based on fact – fictionalize the characters and events somewhat but retain the integrity and heart of the individuals and the events. Michael Sheen was also brought into the picture and agreed it was a role he'd love to do. Unlike most sports movies which follow a predictable track, the unlucky club or individual who struggles to find its/his heart and unltimately wins the big one, this tale had the makings of a Shakespearean tragedy. The novel was much harsher and darker and Morgan was able to blend the tragic aspects with lighter moments and dialogue.

The script sparkles and the performances by four of the finest male actors, Sheen, Timothy Spall, Colm Meaney and Jim Broadbent are perfect.

In Hooper's words "Anyone interested in football will be fascinated by Brian Clough. Anyone not interested in football will be fascinated by this great and complex man. I think it's a moving story of friendship, jealousy and betrayal. Films exploring professional rivalry and professional jealousy are rare. But rivalry and jealousy are what everyone has to deal with in almost every job - it's a universal story.

Part 1 of a fine Brian Clough retrospective

Part 2

Julian D.