Edmonton International Film Festival

Ok, so the EIFF was actually over a month ago now, but in the meantime I crashed and burned and then got sick (just recovering now), so here's a few words about the films I saw there.

La Tourneuse de Pages -The Page Turner (2006, France) - quite intriguing to me, having experienced a lot of piano festivals, adjudications, and performances (piano and other). Though I can't say that any negative comments from an adjudicator ever left me so permanently scarred that I had to carry on an obsessive campaign to (psychologically) destroy their life...

El Violin (2005, Mexico) - I picked this because I thought the contrast between the music focus and the guerilla rebellion would be interesting, and it was. Quite graphic and disturbing in parts though.

Ten Canoes (2006, Australia) - This was recommended to me by an Australian friend, I had to skip half of my French class to see it, but I'm glad I did - my favourite of the festival. Mainly in an aboriginal language, with an English narrator/voice-over, it was an interesting look at some of the aboriginal ways and myths, and much different than anything else I've seen. The contrast between the "current" storyline (which was actually far in the past) and the "mythical" storyline, where one was in colour and one in black-and-white, was well-done. And I enjoyed the scenery/landscape shots as well. (though it wasn't quite "terrorists in canoes", which is how Chris advised me to try to sell it to my husband - I went with a friend instead).

Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles (2005, China) - This was my friend's pick, and I enjoyed it. I had the advantage of remembering a little Japanese, enough to know just how bad (and amusing) Lingo's Japanese translations and accent really were. The story was touching, but not a happy Hollywood ending - though in a sense, the ending was happy in that many characters learned more about themselves.