A volunteer pass can also ease the way into the hard-to-get-into movies, such as the documentary The Union: The Business Behind Getting High, a detailed outline of B.C.’s marijuana industry, from growers and clippers to pharmaceutical companies.
The Havana restaurant on Commercial Drive was an appropriate choice of venue for My Name is Rachel Corrie, an intimate one-woman show adapted by Alan Rickman from the correspondence and journals of activist Rachel Corrie and presented by Teesri Duniya Theatre in association with neworldtheatre.
James Long’s essentially one-man show is thoughtfully and emotionally engaging, and immensely inventive. He uses three catalysts—a found suitcase full of photo albums, the same story retold by different people, and research for a play about a Japanese cannibal named Issei Sagawa—to explore questions of memory: how does memory work, what is the relationship between what was lived and what is remembered, and what is the value of mementos such as photos, for whom are they valuable?
This year, January in Vancouver was one long, dark rainy day. Thankfully the PuSh International Performing Arts Festival offered a variety of performances that piqued my curiosity enough to seduce me out of the house, away from the comforts of Kraft Dinner and CSI reruns. “I’m going to see The Black Rider again,” my friend John told me. “You have to come.”
Seachd: The Inaccessible Pinnacle (Simon Miller), is the first Gaelic-language movie at the Vancouver International Film Festival. Seachd ( “seven”) is the age Aonghas is when he and his siblings are orphaned and sent to their grandparents; seachd is also the number of folk tales his grandfather tells him throughout the film.
