Issue 56 - Winter 2004
Directed by Velcrow Ripper, Scared Sacred explores sites of tragedies worldwide with hopes of finding closure and leads a larger study of apartheid and national trauma in film.
“These children have the serenity of a leafless tree, as if they already had within themselves one life; as if all the pain and longing that goes into adult life, all the relinquishing, has already been endured.” – Pirjo Honkasalo
Read MoreDURING APRIL 2004 AND BEYOND WE WERE CONSTANTLY REMINDED THAT THIS WAS THE TENTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE FIRST DEMOCRATIC ALL–RACE ELECTIONS IN SOUTH AFRICA. I was shocked by the realization that last year also marked the thirtieth anniversary of my first visit to that country, of my first experience with apartheid. After that first trip in 1974 as part of an African
Read More“WE NEED TO UNDERSTAND THE DARKNESS. ESPECIALLY WHEN WE FACE THE LIGHT. IF WE TURNAROUND, THERE IS ONLY DARKNESS.”— Anonymous female voice Delivered sombrely, the opening quote of Velcrow Ripper’s new feature documentary ScaredSacred, sets up beautifully the overriding theme of the film: to move ‘towards’ the darkness rather than running away. Just
Read MoreDuring the top half of the 1990s, Steve Reinke became not only a high-profile video artist but also a bona-fide Art Star. His vehicle was the serial-conceptual project The One Hundred Videos. This grandiose volume consisted entirely of short works,
Read MoreThere is an indelible moment in Peter Raymont’s documentary Shake Hands With the Devil in which retired Canadian General Romeo Dallaire, ten years removed from his ordeal as the head of the embattled U.N. peacekeeping force in Rwanda, steps out of an
Read MoreBRITISH COLUMBIA — Katherine Dodds Adam’s Eyes Adam is 12-year-old boy. His mother is a filmmaker. Adam also has a form of autism known as Asperger’s Syndrome. Director/Producer and mother Marianne Kaplan decided to make a film during Adam’s last year in
Read MoreMake us a movie, a story you’ll tell in dancing light, take us to the show, weave strips of focused vision peeled from the swelling surface of what you live, see, believe. Edit ruthlessly, lovingly, and don’t leave out all
Read More“Imagine you’re a Roman Centurion.” Bare legged, draughty uniform, stationed in the damp northern colony of Britain surround by hostile natives—but enough about my school days. Although, that really was my first History homework essay and whilst it could have
Read More’s fitting that the feature documentary’s rise in profile has coincided with an era of unprecedented information control. What’s unfortunate is how often the films misinterpret control as concealment. For most of the stories that need to be told these
Read MoreWhen Ali Kazimi’s latest film Continuous Journey premiered at the 2004 Hot Docs festival, the atmosphere in Toronto’s Royal Cinema was electric. Canada’s documentary filmmaking community was out in force as were a number of prominent South-Asian Canadians. They were there
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