Antoine M A R C H 2 1 S T Artistic Director: Robert Rooney 2 0 1 0 Directed by Laura Bari (2008) | 82 mins | Canada | Language: French with English subtitles Dirty Oil LOCATION: Molos (upstairs), Antoine is five years old. He was born one hundred days prematurely, and because he was deprived of oxygen in the FEBRUARY 7TH 745 Riverside Drive in Wakefield, incubator, he is blind. Yet he treats his blindness as a minor interference, and has integrated into the regular school system Directed by Leslie Iwerks (2009) | 75 mins | USA | (corner of River Road and Valley Drive) in Montreal with unprecedented success. Language: English In his spare time, Antoine is Detective Dec, a boy detective who runs, drives, makes decisions, hosts radio shows and adores DATES: Sunday evenings from Narrated by Canadian actress and environmentalist Neve February 7th to March 28th, 2010 simultaneous telephone conversations. When he receives a phone call from a Madame Rouski, who while taking a shower Campbell, this much-anticipated feature documentary has mysteriously dissolved into the water, Antoine recruits two friends and using a microphone they set out to find her. from Academy Award nominated director Leslie Iwerks TIME: 5:30 p.m. This daring, poetic, and playful docudrama intimately explores the magic of childhood. Director Laura Bari, with Antoine’s goes deep behind-the-scenes into the strip-mined world help, skillfully presents children’s uninhibited and creative thought processes while creating an extensive sensory experi- of Northern Alberta. TICKETS: $7.50 each, or all 8 films for $45 ence for the viewer. Over the course of two years, he used a mini-boom microphone to discover and capture the sounds The United States now imports more oil from Canada than For more information, contact surrounding him. In this manner, he co-created the film’s soundtrack. This multi-award winning production pays homage from the Middle East. Dirty Oil dramatically explores the Brenda Rooney at 819-456-4020 to human resilience, optimism, and creativity. battle between industry, government, local communi- http://www.antoine-film.com ties and environmentalists over the development of the Alberta oil sands. Extracting oil from tar sands is highly inefficient and takes the energy equivalent of two barrels of oil to produce three. The demand and toll this process is taking on the land, air, water and wildlife around the Athabasca River Encirclement: Neo- and the downstream communities from Fort McMurray is not only toxic, but most likely irreversible. The film follows the pipelines from Canada to the mid-western U.S. refineries, bearing visually stunning witness to how Liberalism Ensnares refineries dump toxic waste into the great rivers of Northern Alberta and the Great Lakes. It’s the storyof industry and Democracy government putting money before the health and security of people and the environment. M A R C H 2 8 T H Dirty Oil had its world premiere at the Hamptons International Film Festival in October. Directed by Richard Brouillette (2008) | 160 mins | Canada | Languages: French and English with English subtitles. http://www.babelgum.com/dirtyoil Neo-liberalism’s one-size-fits-all dogmas are well-known: deregulation, reducing the role of the State, privatization, limiting inflation rather than unemployment… In other words, depoliticizing the economy and putting it into the hands of the financial class. These dogmas are gradually settling into our consciousness because they’re being broadcast across Last Train Home a vast and pervasive propaganda network. FEBRUARY 14TH Beginning with the founding in 1947 of the Mont Pèlerin Society, neo-liberal think tanks financed by big money and Directed by Lixin Fan (2009) | 87 min | Canada | multinational companies have propagated neo-liberal ideas in universities, in the media, and in governments. Language: Mandarin Chinese with English subtitles Convinced of its historical and scientific validity (as proven in particular by the fall of the Soviet Union), this ideology This is the latest award-winning feature from Montreal’s EyeSteelFilm. Each year in China more than 130 million migrant has intoxicated governments, left and right alike. In fact, since the end of the Cold War, the worldwide rate of neo-liberal workers travel home for the New Year’s holiday—the only time they reunite with family all year. This mass exodus from reforms has increased dramatically. Often imposed with force, either through the structural adjustment plans of the China’s industrial cities to its rural villages is the world’s largest human migration. Last Train Home draws us into the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, by the pressure of financial markets and multinationals, or even fractured lives of a single migrant family caught up in the chaos of this desperate annual migration, and reveals a country by outright war, the neo-liberal doctrine has reached nearly every corner of the planet. torn between its industrial future and rural past. But behind the ideological smokescreen, behind the neat concepts of natural order and the harmony of interests in a free An emotionally engaging and visually beautiful debut film by Chinese-Canadian director Lixin Fan, Last Train Home won market, beyond the panacea of the “invisible hand,” what is really going on? A variety of international observers attempt best feature at the Amsterdam International Documentary Festival; Best Documentary at the Whistler Film Festival and Best to explain. Canadian Film at Montreal’s Rencontres International de Documentaire. At the time of writing, it is Canada’s sole entry in official competition at Sundance 2010. With Noam Chomsky, Ignacio Ramonet, Normand Baillargeon, Susan George, Omar Aktouf, Oncle Bernard, Michel Chossudovsky, François Denord, François Brune, Martin Masse, Jean-Luc Migué, Filip Palda and Donald J. Boudreaux. http://www.eyesteelfilm.com/lasttrainhome

Act of God The Age of Stupid FEBRUARY 21ST M A R C H 7 T H Directed by Jennifer Baichwal (2009) | 75 mins | Canada | Directed by Franny Armstrong (2008) | 89 mins | UK | Language: English Languages: English, Spanish, Yoruba and French with English subtitles A documentary-drama-animation hybrid from Director Franny Armstrong (McLibel; What does it mean to be singled out by fate? Is being hit by lightning a Drowned Out) and Oscar-winning Producer John Battsek). random natural occurrence or a predestined event? Oscar-nominated Pete Postlethwaite (In The Name of the Father, The Usual Suspects) Act of God is a feature documentary about the metaphysical eff ects of being struck by lightning. Such an event represents stars as an old man living in the devastated world of 2055. Runaway climate change has the paradox of being singled out by randomness, provoking questions about chance, fate, and meaning in life. The fi lm ravaged the planet, and Pete plays the founder of The Global Archive, a storage facility located in the (now melted) Arctic, explores seven stories from around the world that raise and respond to these questions, while keeping the sky and what preserving all of humanity’s achievements in the hope that the planet might one day be habitable again. Or that intel- comes out of it as a visual metaphor and connecting thread. Paul Auster, a writer of metaphysical detective stories who ligent life may arrive and make use of all that we’ve achieved. was struck by lightning as a teenager, anchors the film philosophically, while world-renowned guitar improviser and The lead character watches “archive” footage from 2008 and asks: Why didn’t we stop climate change when we had the composer Fred Frith personally demonstrates the ubiquity of electricity within our bodies and across the universe. chance? He then pulls together clips of archive news and documentary from 1950-2008 to build a message showing all Dazzling to the eye and seductive to the ear, Act of God captures the harsh beauty of the skies and the lives of those who that went wrong. have been forever touched by their fury. A captivating new work by Jennifer Baichwal, director of Manufactured Landscapes The Age of Stupid inspired the crowd-funding fi nancing model, the Indie Screenings distribution system and the just- winner of the 2007 Genie for Best Documentary. launched 10:10 climate campaign. http://www.mercuryfi lms.ca http://www.ageofstupid.net

The Yes Men Fix the World The Betrayal FEBRUARY 28TH M A R C H 1 4 T H Directed by Andy Bichlbaum, Mike Bonanno, Co-director Directed by Ellen Kuras, Co-director Thavisouk Phrasavath (2008) | 96 mins | US | Kurt Engfehr (2009) | 86 mins | USA | Language: English Languages: English and Lao with English subtitles. Andy and Mike are the Yes Men—the same Yes Men who so recently Filmed over the course of 23 years, The Betrayal (Nerakhoon) is the epic story of a embarrassed Canada at the Copenhagen climate summit. These two family forced to emigrate from Laos after the chaos of the secret air war waged by the gonzo political activists in thrift-store suits parody their corporate U.S. during the Vietnam War. targets to satirize the folly of letting greed run our world. The Betrayal chronicles Thavisouk’s emotionally gripping fi rst-hand account of his own When Andy appears on BBC World News as a Dow Chemical spokesperson, he tells 300 million viewers that Dow will take boyhood survival of the war, his later escape from arrest and persecution in Laos, his responsibility for the largest industrial accident in history—Bhopal, 1984. In just 23 minutes, Dow’s stock loses two billion miraculous reunion with his family and their journey to America, and the second war they had to fi ght on the streets of dollars as shareholders reject the idea of compensating the tens of thousands of victims of 42 tonnes of toxic gas leaked New York City. Thavisouk’s mother also gives powerful testimony of her unfl agging eff orts to single-handedly raise and from the chemical plant.The reality hits Andy and Mike like a ton of bricks: The People want Dow to do the right thing, but shepherd a family of ten amidst almost constant danger. Renowned cinematographer Ellen Kuras’ directorial debut is a The Market has decided it can’t.We have created a market system that makes doing the right thing impossible, and the remarkable collaboration with co-director Phrasavath—a poetic, deeply personal fi lm that was an Oscar Nominee for apparent leaders must actually follow its pathological dictates. But leaving The Market in the driver’s seat, could happily Best Documentary in 2009. drive our whole planet off a cliff . At conference after conference, the Yes Men pull off the most outrageous pranks as they try to wake up corporate audiences to this frightening prospect. Hilariously shocking—who knew changing the world http://www.thebetrayalmovie.com could be such fun? Winner of the Berlin Film Festival’s prestigious Audience Award. THANK YOU TO OUR SUPPORTERS AND SPONSORS http://theyesmenfi xtheworld.com/index.htm