Art by Zee

One of the great things about SIFF is that they don’t simply screen movies; they actively promote the development and appreciation of great film in a number of ways. Their educational outreach includes hooking up students and filmmakers for the sort of classroom learning you just can’t get from a textbook both during the annual festival and throughout the year.

Two recent participants in this program were Skateland writer/director Anthony Burns and the film’s director of photography Peter Simonite who were in Seattle to talk about their film.

Skateland is a coming-of-age drama about 19 year old Ritchie Wheeler (Shiloh Fernandez), an aimless young man content with his small town Texas life as the manager of a local skating rink in the early 1980s. He spends his days at work or hanging out with his friends, including girlfriend Michelle (Ashley Greene). Life seems settled for Ritchie until the closing of the rink and a series of personal tragedies force him to have to think about his life in a serious way for the first time. Unlike a number of nostalgia-driven films, Skateland doesn’t just throw a few 80s pop hits on the soundtrack and dress its characters in “quirky” 80s fashions; Burns and his crew do an amazing job of genuinely recreating the look and feel of the times for a story that could have been set anywhere and anytime but manages to be respectful and honest of the time and place within it.

Burns and Simonite spoke to a class of film students from Pierce College eager to learn about the movie making process. Their practical advice included telling students who want to make money to avoid going into film, but they also shared stories from their careers and details about what it’s really like to make a movie.

Burns spoke of how he got involved with Skateland: “I was brought in by some friends of mine that I grew up with. I live in LA and they had a project they hired me to write and we wrote in Austin, Texas, because that’s where we’re from and it caught fire. By the way, 90 percent of this whole film thing is luck. It’s cool to be good, but it’s really about luck and timing, finding that perfect storm and that’s what happened with Skateland. We wrote it and then sent it out to casting agents in LA…and then we got Ashley Greene and all this great talent, which brought in more money.

“It was a summer time film on page but we were going to shoot in late summer and the fall in Shreveport. It gets really cold and so we adjusted the script about a month out in pre-production to make it where it ends around Christmastime, after Thanksgiving. This happens all the time. We were going to push and go shoot in the spring of the next year but we were going to lose crew, we were going to lose the rates we got on our cameras which was crazy because there was a pending SAG strike and the economy went to shit so no one was working, movies were falling apart, so we got this great crew at [a good rate] so it was a perfect storm. We roughed it out and then had about a year of editing. That’s how long editing usually takes, about six months to a year.”

An obviously key element of making a movie is the actual process of filming. Simonite on working with the director as the DP and what he wants from the director for the optimal working environment:

“The main thing is that the director cares about the way it looks. They have some idea of what they might want it to look like and whether that’s still photography or fine art or something that’s original or whatever it is…mainly that they care. And some directors don’t.

I just backed out of a project because after three weeks of prep in talking to the director I realized that she didn’t – the look of it was something that she didn’t care about. It was a comedy so she didn’t really care about contrast and color and at the end of the day I felt like it would just be undermining what I wanted to do.”

Getting a film from concept to completion can be tricky, no matter what one’s level of involvement can be. After a student asked Burns what else he’s written for the screen, he shared a “horror story”:

“I sold a script called ‘The Birthday Party’, it has Kelly Garner in it. She was in Lars and the Real Girl. I sold it and I really needed the money, I was living on my ex-girlfriend’s floor at the time and they’re like, ‘We’ll give you this X amount of dollars if you’ll sign away your rights.’ It was my favorite script at the time, this crazy thriller horror film about a guy who tells a story and you think he’s the good guy but he’s the bad guy. I sold it, they changed the name to Red Velvet and then rewrote the script.

“It’s horrible. With my name on still on it.

“So they sent me the Blu-Ray DVD when it was made because I never went to the opening screening and I threw it on the grill and lit it on fire.”

On satisfactorily completing a film: “The key is that we worked with a really great executive producer that believed in the film and the material. We told him what we needed and we didn’t get everything we wanted but he believed in us.” This, he says, isn’t common, at least not working with the major studios, because movie-making involves so many different people fighting for control of each project.

What makes independent film great is that it allows more freedom but, per Burns, “It’s very risky.”

In fact, he adds: “In this economy, film is risky across the board. If you’re trying to get jobs as director or writer, you’re going up against big time directors. It used to be that there were so many projects that you could get decent jobs and now on studio films it’s almost impossible. Independent film – you can get your film done the right way, but at the same time it’s a good chance that it will never be seen.”

Students also wondered about the educational pathways into movie making. What do you need to study to become a writer or director or camera operator, for example? Per both Burns and Simonite, a career in film really is all about luck and timing. Burns started writing in high school but because he wasn’t initially interested in film, he didn’t seriously start working on screenplays until after college. Simonite started working on films right after completing college but in retrospect wishes he’d taken up the Duplass Brothers’ offer for a job on a film they were working on as PAs in Austin. Going to school does have its advantages: “Your background doesn’t matter at all,” however, says Banks. “It’s what you believe in, your passion and your love for filmmaking.”

Modern technology has done a great deal to democratize movie making. It used to be that to learn about movie making you would go to one of a few select schools or work your way up from the bottom at the studios, but “you can shoot movies for nothing. You can be educated and watch films on your computer. You can take classes everywhere.” Adds Simonite: “You can get yourself a [Canon] 5D [camera] and Final Cut and distribute it online.”

Once a script’s been written and a film’s in the can, so to speak, there’s still more to be done with it. The two spoke of the post-production process and the various roles the director and crew play in completing a movie. The cinematographer’s most important job is to capture all of the scenes and angles that the director and editor will need to put the film together. The editor can be the true hero of any film, poring over footage to construct the story that the director wants to tell. Another key element of film production is the colorization. Skateland was sent to DeLuxe for color work. There the negative was scanned for color processing very dependent on the quality of the original film, another reason for the director to clearly communicate his vision of the film’s visual feel to the camera crew. In tribute to the time the movie is set, Skateland appears on screen in bright, vivid hues.

Simonite talked about the difference between shooting on 35 mm film and shooting digital and why this movie was shot on film: “It’s kind of counter-intuitive, but when you’re shooting on film it’s actually a little bit easier because you have more range. “ Digital formats have improved since their initial introduction, he says, and continue to advance, but film still allows for greater contrast and more detail even when the film will later be edited digitally.

Adds Burns: “It was an early 80s film so we felt like it was wrong to shoot it digitally.”

Post is perhaps the most complex part of movie making, but pre-production has its own challenges. For example, says Burns, “Location scouting, by the way, is the worst thing ever.”

Filming isn’t exactly simple either. There are a number of negotiations that have to be made every day, including working with a crew who have very specific ideas about their roles and responsibilities. Crew members are very often specialists whose primary interest is their own particular role. The same can be said of the cast. The director has to manage any disagreements or difficulties that arise on set between these various groups, including at least one fight between crew members which required Burns to break it up by physically by literally inserting himself between two combatants.

Talking about getting to the point where one will be making these sort of decisions, Burns reiterates that a vital component of being able to make a film is being in the right place at the right time. Getting to know people who are in the business already and can help you find your way in is important as is the simple, but crucial, fact of being in a place where films are being made. Burns tells the story of how Simonite just happened to be in LA on one particular day when someone he knew from shooting another movie called him up and asked him to come do some work on a new film, giving him a credit on a major film simply because he happened to be available on that one particular day.

This luck played a role in Skateland‘s creation, but it was more than luck that turned it into a great film. Burns and his entire cast and crew have managed to put together an engrossing, entertaining story that looks and plays well.

Skateland screens next at SIFF on June 6 at 8:00 pm at Kirkl

In the midst of SIFF 10, it can be easy to forget that there is still more great film out there even beyond the borders of the festival.

One such film is The Living Wake which makes its Seattle premiere at the Grand Illusion on Friday, June 4.

Mike O’Connell stars as K. Roth Binew, genius artist (at least in his own mind, the only place that matters for Mr. Binew), whose philosophy of life is simple. “I drink to bring myself down to the level of the common man. But remember: the common man drinks, so I must drink twice as much!” Jesse Eisenberg is Mills, his very own Boswell, the level-headed foil to his manically overblown friend. O’Connell plays Binew with perfect abandon while Eisenberg’s quiet control helps cement his reputation as a budding cinematic star. The chemistry between leads is believable and keeps the story held together no matter how crazy things get. And things do get crazy.

Egotistical blowhard Binew discovers that he will be dying at the end of the day. What to do? The obvious answer to the question is to get his affairs in order, a mission he accomplishes by swilling Scotch in the back of the bicycle rickshaw on which Mills chauffeurs him around so that he may invite his friends and family to his wake while he’s still on this side of the great divide. Along the way they encounter a number of people nearly as eccentric as he, including a prostitute, a neighbor with whom Binew has been feuding, the childhood nanny Bine

The Living Wake is a great film for a certain type of film fan, the one who appreciates an adventurous approach to movie making. This isn’t “Hollywood quirky” – Binew is barking mad and his adventures on the final day of his life push past ridiculous into total absurdity. Dark humor rules – very dark humor – and there’s nothing like a feel-good ending anywhere in sight. Ridiculousness taken to the edge of extreme is the order of the day in Binew’s world. It’s a thrilling world to visit. Living there might be just a bit too much for most of us to take, but the dying Binew thrives there, very entertainingly so.

Well worth seeing, The Living Wake screens from June 4 through June 10. Director Sol Tyron will be in attendance for screenings from the 4th through the 6th.

(The Sol Tyron produced 2012: Time for Change is also playing locally on June 4th at the Varsity as part of the Seattle Green Festival.)

Lesbian yodeling twins from New Zealand – it sounds like a novelty act but sisters Jools and Lynda Topp are anything but a joke. The two sisters are beloved entertainers back in their homeland where they are known for their music and their live act in which they often perform as characters they’ve created and their TV show that ran for three seasons. Inducted into the New Zealand Music Hall of Fame in 2008 and given a lifetime achievement award for songwriting in recognition of the massive impact they’ve had on New Zealand throughout their 25-year-plus career. The Topps are also known for their political activism – they’ve been on the forefront of movements supporting gay rights and Maori land rights and campaigned to keep New Zealand nuclear weapons-free.

Hugely popular in their homeland, the Topp Twins have toured throughout the world and now are being introduced to an even larger audience through the documentary biography of their lives and career, which screened Sunday and Monday at SIFF 10, introducing their film and performing live to enthusiastic full houses.

Lynda and Jools took some time to talk about their film. Both Topp Twins are lively, intelligent, outgoing women whose long experience working together as performers and whose lifetime of sisterhood is immediately obvious. Jools did much of the speaking but both women were eager to talk about their history and their film/

What was the origin of the film?

JT: We’d actually written a comedy movie that’s in another box somewhere and [our manager] said, “I think we’ve got enough material to make a documentary and tell the story of who we are and think about this other movie another time. It’s a concert-driven movie with all our performances and music and songs but it goes away from that. When we sing a song we’ll go away to something that affected us as we were growing up or some political event in New Zealand. It was directed by a Canadian, Lee Ann Pauley, and what happened as we told our life story we realized there was this great parallel in political activity in New Zealand in the time of the Topp Twins. So it’s sort of the political history of New Zealand and our life story. It’s an interesting little documentary because it has two things running in the same time.

What came first for you – the music or the politics?

JT: The music was always there but politics, even from an early age…we grew up on a dairy farm and there was no criteria of “you’re a girl, you have to do this, you’re a boy, you have to do this”. When you’re on the farm if a job had to be done you had to do it.
Everybody bring the hay and milk the cows.

It was like girls can do anything. Growing up, it was girls can do anything. We probably didn’t really understand it at the time but for us it was a great start to our political careers. I think as a little kid it made me feel empowered; you could do whatever your dad thought you could do.

We were always aware of injustice. Even if it was a kid being bullied at school or something, we were always aware of that and we’d either step in or we’d make them our friends. We were twins so there were two of us to deal with.

LT: And our mum, I remember when we were little kids she said this thing to us that probably has kept us in good stead our whole lives. She said you must never hate anybody, you can dislike people, but you can’t hate. Hate is what will destroy you.

JT:They’re in the movie, our mum and dad, and they’re real stars. They’re as honest as the day is long and I think that’s what they taught and instilled into us. That’s why we’re out and proud in New Zealand and they’ve had to deal with a lot, more than most parents because our brother’s gay, too, so the three of us are gay. They’re immensely proud of us and they’re old school, real old school dairy farming country people and they tell their side of the story. They’re really honest, they were a bit freaked out about it to begin with but I think the most important thing is that there is some light at the end of the tunnel for all of the New Zealanders who were a part of that movie, all the fights that we fought, all the political fights – the homosexual law reform bill, the nuclear free issues, Maori land marches, the apartheid in South Africa…

New Zealand was hugely involved in that [protests against apartheid] because we play rugby with the South Africans and we refused to play rugby with them and when they did come there were huge protests. I don’t think any of us could foresee that Nelson Mandela would be released from prison and become president of his country, that was a real bonus.
We won all those battles. It’s not many people who can stand up and say, “Every battle we fought, every protest, every political movement that we were part of – we won.” We’re still nuclear-free and I hope like hell we always will be because we talk about weapons of mass destruction and all those sorts of things in an almost flippant way these days and one of these days, is someone going to press the button?
It’s about being political but it’s also about having fun and that’s what the movie is about. The characters that we play and all the music the play. It’s a juxtaposition of a lot of things going on.

How did you get into performing?

We always sang from when we were little kids. Our mum bought us a ukulele and we’d play it and sing. We sang at parties and home, it was our apprenticeship. And then when we left home we joined the army, the Territorial Army which is part-time soldiers, and we didn’t really want to have that as a career.

LT: It was a free trip to the South Island!

JT: It was a good way to head out of home.

And you know we can stand up and be protestors now; you can’t knock something unless you’ve done it. We’ve been there.

LT: We didn’t want it to be our career. So then we started singing in little cafes and stuff like that and I think we were seen as kind of a bit kooky at the beginning and then there was a lot of political activism that we were involved in and then we’d write songs about that.

JT: A song will really rile people and get them roused up to be part of the whole thing. It’s not about being aggressive – sometimes people will listen to a song rather than listen to someone standing on a box telling them what needs to be done or how it needs to be done.

I think the fact that we’re entertainers, that’s #1. If you’re a good entertainer, then you can get the people inside, you can bring them in. Get them entertained, get them happy and then you can start to say important things and they will listen. If you’re just ramming things down people’s throats, it can backfire.

I think that’s what’s happened for us. The documentary screened in New Zealand and we’re thinking, you know, who’s going to come and see us? We’ve had an amazing career in New Zealand and people come to our live show all the time, but we’re thinking, who’s going to come see the movie? Just about every New Zealander went and saw it. It’s the biggest box office documentary that’s ever screened in New Zealand. Word of mouth got around and the movie has really taken off in New Zealand. And now, which is pretty exciting for us, it’s starting to make an impact overseas. It’s won an award everywhere it’s gone, so we’re pretty excited about it.

LT: The movie’s about honesty. If you actually wanted to say what it’s about, it’s about honesty. It’s about how people feel.

And we’re being honest about our sexuality and how we feel about things in life. It’s a good feeling. People come out of it with a smile on their face and that’s a good feeling.

Has it helped you in your career that you’re sisters?

JT: I think it has, we’re not just sisters, we’re twins. We shared an egg and even now we don’t question why we are. We’re twins and other people are born singular and we don’t know what that’s like at all. I think it’s always important to have someone – if you step forward and make a stand and you know someone’s going to watch your back, it’s a good feeling and I think that we understand each other a lot, we have the same values

We don’t have to rehearse. We just walk up to a gig.

Tonight we’ll be at the movie and they said “would you like to sing?” We have no idea what we’re going to sing but when we walk out there, it’ll come. It’ll be right and proper because we’ll make sure it is. We’re confident about ourselves.

I think the other thing that has made us one of New Zealand’s household names is that we’re confident we can work a crowd. That comes with time and experience and we’ve got a lot of that now. Performing is not just about singing songs, it’s about communicating.

What would you like your legacy to be as performers?

JT: Well, we’re generous with our time and our love.

LT: We’re honest about ourselves and we never hid anything from our audience. The other thing is if you believe in something, just stay with it. Believe in it and do everything and anything that you can to make something happen that you believe in.

What’s really important these days is to try and think we can change the world. It’s just such a big, daunting task, people just give up, they go, “What am I going to be able to do?” and I think the most important thing to do is celebrate who you are. Celebrate your own life. You fill up that well and you can give other people a drink of water. If you get your life, you get yourself, that’s your job. Your job is to find out who you are and become the person you are and be confident, then you can take on the world, then the world doesn’t seem such a daunting task anymore. I think it’s important that you honor yourself and celebrate who you are which is what we’re doing.

By Mike Caccioppoli

Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work (USA, 2010)

Directed by Ricki Stern & Annie Sundberg

Joan Rivers is quite the woman. I must say that I didn’t have much of an opinion about her before seeing this documentary but now I do. A Piece of Work could refer to her character and it probably does but it also refers to what she is always looking for: work. At 76 years old she’s still going strong but as she shows us at the beginning of the film, her work calendar isn’t always filled up. “This is what fear looks like” she says as she holds up a month with a blank page, it’s so white she has to wear sun glasses to look t it. Rivers has to work. Is it about money? Sometimes, as she has a huge payroll with all of her assistants and writers. She even pays for the children of her staffers to go to private schools. What employer does that these days?

There is no doubt after watching A Piece of Work that Rivers is a workaholic and  a perfectionist. “They only gave me three out of five stars” she tells her assistant as she waves her finger. She was referring to a review of her new play which just opened in London. She knows she can’t take it to New York with lukewarm reviews.  Her manager tells us that she will do anything for work, even playing in a Mormon town in the middle of winter. When she tells a joke about Helen Keller a man heckles her “I have a deaf son.. that’s not funny”, “Shut up you stupid asshole..comedy is about laughing at things so we can deal with them,” Rivers shouts back. Rivers is right but after the show she tells her staff how she feels bad for the man with the deaf son, “Maybe it was cathartic..and now he feels better.”

With A Piece of Work we see aspects of Rivers personality that we haven’t been privy to before. She is brutally honest about her career, her love life (her husband killed himself leaving her and Melissa with nothing) and her fear of being not wanted. Yes even the plastic surgery is talked about. Mostly though the film shows her for the brilliant comedienne she really is. After that heckler throws her off she recovers quickly, “I was lucky to get the audience back” she tells us. I don’t think luck has anything to do with it.

Cairo Time (Canada, 2009)

Directed by Ruba Nadda

Cairo Time could be called the Before Sunrise for the middle aged demographic. The film is about Juliette, played by Patricia Clarkson, a woman who is stuck in Cairo waiting for her diplomat husband to return from Palestine. Shot and acted at such a leisurely pace that it might cause some viewers to fall asleep, I however stayed awake and it was actually worth it. The scenery is beautiful, in fact some of the shots of the pyramids are the best I’ve seen. While in Cairo Juliette is shown around town by Tareq (Alexander Siddig) and they begin to have feelings for each other which could be dicey since Tareq used to work for her husband.

The dialog in Cairo Time is very spare and naturalistic which some might interpret as mundane but in reality it’s the way people usually talk especially when they hardly know each other. “You don’t look like you watch much television,” Patricia says, “I do late at night when I can’t sleep,” responds Tareq. Clarkson is a big reason why the film works as her subtle, underplayed acting style really complements the films pace. She can say so much with a look or a turn of the head. While the film is probably too airy to have the dramatic impact it might want, Clarkson’s performance, along with the chemistry she and Siddig share, are enough to keep us engaged.

The Hedgehog (France, 2009)

Directed by Mona Achache

An 11 year old girl decides that she wants to commit suicide when she turns 12. She films her family on a daily basis with her video camera and at the same time tells us what she’s thinking and why she must end her life. “I don’t want to live life in a fishbowl” she tells us. This is a very smart and intuitive 11 year old and once you can get past her being much smarter than most 11 years olds The Hedgehog becomes an extremely moving and thoughtful film about life and the meaning of death. This is heavy stuff but under the direction of Mona Achache it doesn’t feel that way. The film is funny, joyful and clever and it contains a standout performance by the great Josiane Belasko as the janitor of the building that the girl lives in.

While the girl may be planning her suicide, the film begins to focus on Belasko and her newfound love interest. Portly and not very attractive she feels as though the best of life has passed her by until a Japanese man moves in upstairs. “We can be friends or anything we want” he tells her. She’s both smitten and frightened at the same time. I won’t tell you where the film takes us because the revelation at the end is both surprising and meaningful, bringing everything that has preceded it into sharp focus but I can say that The Hedgehog is both incisive and moving. It’s one of the best films at the festival.

The Dry Land (USA, 2010)

Directed by Ryan Piers Williams

This film is about a man returning home from the Iraq war and the post-traumatic stress disorder that prevents him from “getting on with his life.” We’ve seen this story before in countless films especially from the Vietnam era, but The Dry Land is able to find its own personal touch and the result is a solid debut film from writer/director Ryan Piers Williams. A big reason for the films success are the performances, especially Ryan O’Nan as the vet, and America Ferrera as his wife. I’ve never seen O’Nan before but he brings a brutal honesty to his portrayal of a man who can’t remember the most defining moment in his tour of duty and it’s tearing him apart. Wilmer Valderrama is surprisingly good as a platoon buddy who has his own issues at home.

While the film may go on a bit too long it’s actually preferable to the “easy way out” ending that so many films defer to. The Dry Land knows there is no “happy ending” for a story like this one, and that the war at home may go on as long as the war in Iraq.

Restrepo (USA, 2010)

Directed by Sebastian Junger & Tim Hetherington

Restrepo is one of the most intense documentaries you will ever see. The filmmakers embedded themselves with the soldiers of the Second Platoon in Afghanistan between 2007 and 2008 and the result is a very intimate and harrowing look at the lives of our soldiers during wartime. Restrepo is the outpost named in honor of the fallen Juan Restrepo, one of the platoon’s most loved soldiers. We hear in interviews that were done when the surviving members of the platoon returned home how much he meant to all of them and the pride they took in building the outpost in his name.

The filmmakers got so close to everything that when a battle breaks out we can see and hear the bullets whipping past the soldiers heads. When a Staff Sargent is killed we see his body moments after his death, and watch as a grown man cries like a child over it. “He was the best soldier out there, and if someone like him was killed what lied ahead for the rest of us?” one soldier recollects. While the battle scenes are stunning it’s in the “down time” that we really get a sense of what these guys had to deal with. The local elders in the Korengal Valley where the men are stationed had to be constantly negotiated with in order to keep them on their side. After accidentally killing a cow they have to make amends with the town leaders. The soldiers decide that they can’t give them the money they want so they will just have to settle for the weight of the cow in food. How much did that cow weigh exactly?

Restrepo is not a “political” film, there is no talk about the positives or negatives of why we are there. It simply shows what these soldiers have to do on a daily basis to survive another day.. period. It’s been said that every war film is inherently “anti-war” because they show us the horrors of it. Restrepo is no exception, but in getting so close to the action it also makes it clear that if you are there you don’t have the luxury of such a philosophical debate.

The Dry Land : James comes home to Texas after a tour of duty in Iraq and has an awful time adjusting to civilian life. PTSD has left him angry and prone to violence and life on the home front quickly turns sour. James hooks up with an Army buddy and drives out to Walter Reed to visit an injured comrade, a trip that reveals the truth behind the incident his mind has blocked from his memory, a revelation that may be the catalyst for still more damage. Superb performances from the entire cast, particularly Ryan O’Nan as James, Melissa Leo as his mother Martha, America Ferrera and his wife Sara and a surprising turn from Wilmer Valderrama. May 31 – 1:30 pm – Harvard Exit

Mao’s Last Dancer : Based on his autobiography, this is the true story of Li Cunxin, born in a small Chinese village sent to Madame Mao’s Beijing Dance Academy as an 11 year old. A few years later, he’s become the top dancer at the school and is offered the chance to visit Houston, Texas, and study ballet there for the summer. A growing fondness for America (and a charming young American dancer) makes Li want to stay in America; his refusal to return to China causes an international standoff. A fascinating real-life story made magnificent by some of the most beautiful dancing on film. May 31 3:00 pm – Uptown

Senior Prom : Local filmmaker Nicholas Terry’s debut film is a mockumentary about the drama and passion swirling around Senior Prom. An unscripted cast improv their way through interconnecting storylines that are funny, silly, charming, sweet, ridiculous – just like life. June 1 4:30 pm – SIFF Cinema

Dear Lemon Lima : Vanessa is a sweet, imaginative 13-year-old Yup’ik recently dumped by her pretentious boyfriend Philip who records her life in letters to her imaginary friend, Lemon Lima. After winning a scholarship to the exclusive school where Philip has transformed himself from loser to one of the elite, Vanessa discovers first-hand the power of the clique as she’s cast into the basement of the FUBAR. Gorgeously filmed and filled with a cast of talented, charismatic young performers (and the always wonderful Melissa Leo), Dear Lemon Lima takes the standard “oddball leads the losers to victory” trope and turns it into a sparkling journey of discovery about what’s really important in life. June 1 7:00 pm – Neptune, June 2 4:30 pm – Neptune

Night Train : An archival film from Poland, Night Train is a 1959 thriller in which a murderer, a blond, a rejected lover, a priest, a frustrated lawyer’s wife, a doctor, and an insomniac Holocaust survivor all head for the Baltic shore on the same overnight train, setting into motion a “psychological portrait of hunger and desire.” June 2 9:30 pm – SIFF Cinema

Peepli Live : Natha decides to kill himself to allow his family to hold on to their farm. Word gets out and soon the press have descended, followed by the politicians meaning to use the press to push their own interests. In the midst of the media frenzy, the self-serving motivations of everyone around Natha start to come forward. June 3 6:30 pm – Uptown, June 5 3:30 pm – Uptown

Stolen : It was meant to be a feel good documentary about family reunions in Western Sahara but it turned into an expose about modern slavery. Directors Violeta Ayala and Dan Fallshaw lived their very own real life thriller in securing footage on this shocking story and getting it – and themselves – out of a suddenly very hostile territory.