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Memory for Max, Claire, Ida and Company

Wednesday, January 18, 2006 – 7:30pm
Canada 2005. Director: Allan King.
Post-screening discussion with director Allan King
Co-sponsored by the Alzheimer Society of British Columbia  and the Vancouver Jewish Film Festival

Recently selected as the only documentary in Canada’s Top 10 films of 2005, Memory for Max, Claire, Ida and Company is Vancouver-born Allan King’s
latest “actuality drama”. With his signature documentary style of no
narration, no direction of action and no conventional interviews, Allan
King turns his attention to the subject of how ageing affects the mind,
as he follows the lives of eight elderly residents with varying
cognitive skills over four months at the Jewish Home for the Aged at
the Baycrest Centre for Geriatric Care in Toronto.

Vincent and Theo

Wednesday, September 28, 2005 – 7:30 pm
France/United Kingdom/Netherlands 1990. Director: Robert Altman
Post-screening discussion with: Ramon Kubicek
Cosponsored by Gallery Gachet and the Art Studios

An unflinching and powerful portrait of the Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh, acknowledged today as
one of the world’s greatest artists, but in his lifetime completely unrecognized.

Slaves of the Lord (Avdei Hashem)

Thursday, March 17, 2005 – 7:30 pm
Israel 2002. Director: Hadar Friedlich
Post-screening discussion with Rabbi Philip Bregman and Dr. Steve Taylor

In a Jewish Orthodox village in Israel, Tamar – a twelve year old girl – prepares for her Bat-Mitzva (Confirmation), which will take place on Passover. She becomes convinced that she is impure and grows increasingly scared and depressed. She forces herself into an endless ritual of cleaning, while attempting to silence her unyielding whispering inner obsessional thoughts which detail every inch of her relentless guilt, over and over again.

Knife in the Head (Messer Im Kopf)

Thurday, February 17, 2005 – 7:30 pm
West Germany 1978. Director: Reinhard Hauff
Post-screening discussion with Dr. Robert Stowe
Co-sponsored by the UBC Dept of Psychiatry Neuropsychiatry Program and the Lower Mainland Brain Injury Association

A disturbing and suspenseful film, “Knife in the Head” examines the
catastrophic effects on one man of being caught in the wrong place at
the wrong time. Dr. Berthold Hoffman (Bruno Ganz) is a leading
biogeneticist, married to his work and disinterested in politics. One
night he goes to meet his estranged wife at the youth centre where she
works.

The Eight Day (Le Huitieme Jour)

Thursday, October 21, 2004 – 7:30 pm
France/Belgium/UK 1996. Director: Jaco Van Dormael
Post-screening discussion with Dr. Robin Friedlander
Co-sponsored by the BC Association for Mental Health in Developmental Disability, Down Syndrome Research Foundation, & Lower Mainland Down Syndrome Society.

The plot of ‘The Eighth Day’ is sentimental, straight forward and perhaps a little well worn. Georges – an unsophisticated and happy character (played by Pascal Duquenne) teaches Harry, a complex and unhappy character (played by Daniel Auteuil) how to embrace simplicity and freedom. However the film transcends its conventional story line on two levels. Pascal Duquenne is a professional actor in Belgium who just happens to have Down’s Syndrome.

I Shot Andy Warhol

Thursday, September 16, 2004 – 7:30pm
USA, 1996. Director: Mary Harron
Post-screening discussion with Dr. Oliver Robinow

This film is a provocative dramatic interpretation of events in the life of Valerie Solanas – the feminist who really did shoot Andy Warhol in 1968. Although Warhol survived another two decades, it is reported he never fully emotionally recovered from his near-death experience. The film is remarkable for its devastating and convincing portrait of the subculture that surrounded Warhol as well as its accurate gritty characterization of Solanas as she descends into insanity.

Shock Corridor

Thursday July 15, 2004 – 7:30pm
USA, 1963. Director: Samuel Fuller
Post-screening discussion with Ramon Kubicek writer

Independent film auteur Samuel Fuller’s overwrought and sensational Shock Corridor has been described as perhaps the best B-movie ever made. Peter Breck stars as Johnny Barrett, a newspaper reporter who decides to impersonate a sexually perverted insane man in order to have himself committed to a San Francisco asylum, the site of an unsolved recent murder.

The Venus of Willendorf (La Venere di Willendorf)

Thursday June 17, 2004 – 7:30pm
Italy, 1997. Director: Elisabetta Lodoli
Post-screening discussion with Cynthia Johnston

The earliest known representation of a human, a woman, is the so-called “Venus” of Willendorf, a small statue found near the town of Willendorf in Austria with a bulging, pear-like body, large pendulous breasts, ample abdomen, and prominent vulva. Not surprisingly, this Venus of Willendorf, Elisabetta Lodoli’s feature debut, tackles a subject infrequently depicted in film: bulimia.

Our House

Thursday April 15, 2004 – 7:30pm
USA 2003. Director: Sevan Matossian
Post-screening discussion with: Dr. Robin Friedlander & Dr. Caron Byrne

This cinema verite-style documentary captures with unflinching honesty a year in the lives of three unique residents with developmental disorders who live at Sueno House in Santa Barbara. Laura survived sexual and physical abuse, a gender transformation, and 10 years in a state hospital. Tim is a 47-year-old alcoholic with cerebral palsy and severe behavioural
problems.

Hofmann’s Potion

Thursday February 19, 2004 – 7:30 pm
Canada 2002. Director: Connie Littlefield
Post-screening discussion with Connie Littlefield
Co-sponsored by the National Film Board of Canada

Long before Timothy Leary urged a generation to “tune in, turn on and drop out,” D-lysergic acid diethylamide (or LSD) was being used by researchers to understand the human mind.