Tales from the Gimli Film Festival

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 27/07/2017 (3363 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

In past years, the Gimli Film Festival has had a tendency to load up its program with films that had already played in Winnipeg’s première art house cinema prior to getting a festival berth.

Gimli Film Festival? You might have just as easily called it Cinematheque North.

But in its 17th year, the GFF offers what may be its best and boldest program ever, with 134 films playing until July 30. (The breakdown is: 72 short films, 36 narrative features and 26 documentaries.) Many of the feature films have yet to open in Winnipeg.

Even the films that have played in Winnipeg, old and new, warrant a place at the table for no other reason than the observance of Canada’s sesquicentennial has spawned a CanFilm mini-festival.

Here then is a roundup of films to watch for in Gimli:

Local, local, local

Menorca (Thursday, July 27 at 8 p.m. at the Aspire Theatre), director John Barnard’s weird-sexy comedy-drama is about a troubled mom whose pathological misbehaviour compels her young son to “break up” with her.

https://youtu.be/t57ooNEIIZA

 

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Downtime (Friday, July 28 at 8 p.m. at the Lady of The Lake Theatre) is an ‘80s chestnut, the first ever feature film out of the Winnipeg Film Group. Director Greg Hanec examines the funny/despairing lives of a group of Winnipeg 20-somethings.

 

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Lovesick (Sunday, July 30 at 3 p.m., Gimli Theatre), director Tyson Caron fashions a love story between a guy who can’t let go of his about-to-be married ex-girlfriend. But in the subtext, the movie is also a love letter to Winnipeg, and the city has never looked more romantic.

https://youtu.be/D2XRiLVD5bU

 

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O Canada

C.R.A.Z.Y. (Thursday, July 27 at 5:30 p.m., Lady of The Lake Theatre), director Jean-Marc Valee offers a portrayal of a sexually confused young David Bowie fan coming to terms with his true self in spite of his strict Catholic upbringing.

 

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My American Cousin (Friday, July 28 at 5:30 p.m., Gimli Lutheran Church Theatre). Director Sandy Wilson will be in attendance at the screening of her 1985 coming-of-age silm set in 1950s-era British Columbia, where a 12-year-old girl is beguiled by her James dean-like cousin from the U.S.

 

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Offbeat and international

The Little Hours (Thursday, July 27 at 10 a.m. and Friday, July 28, at 10 p.m. at the Gimli Theatre). Three very contemporary American actresses — Alison Brie, Aubrey Plaza and Kate Micucci — play medieval nuns given to 21st-century idioms and behaviour in this comedy adaptation of Boccaccio’s The Decameron, also starring John C. Reilly, Dave Franco and Nick Offerman.

 

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Becoming Bond, (Thursday, July 27 at 3 p.m. at Lady of The Lake Theatre; Friday, July 28 at 12:30 p.m. at the Aspire Theatre) is a Hulu-produced documentary profile of Australian actor George Lazenby, a one-shot James Bond (On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, 1969) who lost the gig partly as a result of his own admitted hubris.

 

randall.king@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @FreepKing