Click or tap on the picture above to access the trailer for Tracey Deer’s new film, Beans
Flat out VanRamblings’ favourite film at VIFF 2020 — along with Jennifer Abbott’s new documentary, The Magnitude of All Things — writer-director Tracey Deer’s new film, Beans, is a poignant, wrenching, heartrending, gut-punch of a film, the first narrative feature to focus on 1991’s Oka Crisis on Québec’s Kahnawake reserve, the story told through the eyes of a 12-year-old girl (the ‘Beans’ of the title) whose family, friends and neighbours lived through the violent 78-day conflict on Mohawk land, with young Kiawentiio embodying, with beyond-her-years wisdom, and forceful determination, director Deer’s own experience as a young girl. An absolute knock-out of a film that had me in tears throughout, and as I say above, a must-see.
VanRamblings’ review of The Magnitude of All Things may be found here.
Another film that has emerged as one of VanRamblings’ favourites is the Serbia/Croatia/Slovenia/Bosnia and Herzegovina co-production, Father, about which Taste of Cinema’s David House writes …
“unsettling, a bleak and heartbreaking tale of the struggle of a father, Nikola, to regain custody of his children from a corrupt Serbian bureaucracy determined to separate the children from their family. With a powerful, quiet, understated, award-worthy performance from Goran Bogdan as Nikola, whose love and devotion to his family emerges as a drama of tender devastation, that tells its story with an unblinking neorealist simplicity redolent of the plainspoken purity of Vittorio De Sica.
In addition, Father offers a damning critique of an uncaring Eastern European government, as well as a rallying cry for those who fall through the cracks. A film filled with gentle humanity, and an unquenchable decency, courage and perseverance, Father is a spare, unadorned film, with as touching a story as you’ll see at VIFF 2020. Recommended.
More Taste of Cinema VIFF 2020 reviews may be found by clicking here.
Finally for today, a few VIFF 2020 reviews written by Kinetoscope film critics, the acclaimed Jason Chen and Robert Snow.
At the beginning of the second week of the current 32-day British Columbia provincial election, according to a province-wide poll conducted by IPSOS Public Affairs’ Kyle Braid for Global BC, John Horgan’s B.C. NDP hold a commanding lead over both the B.C. Liberal party — in power from 2001 to 2016 — and the B.C. Greens that will not only return the New Democrats to power, but could very well end in an election rout, and an overwhelming majority for the only elected social democratic government in Canada.
“It’s not close,” says Braid. “The NDP started the campaign with an 18-point lead over the BC Liberals. Currently, 51% of decided voters say they would be most likely to support or lean towards the New Democrats. The BC Liberals are next at 33% support, followed by the Greens at 12%.
The NDP have a 25-point lead among women (53% NDP vs. 28% Libs) and a narrower, but still substantial, 11-point lead among men (49% Libs vs. 38% NDP).
The NDP has a large 26-point lead on Vancouver Island (51% NDP vs. 25% Libs) and a 23-point lead in Metro Vancouver (55% NDP vs. 32% Libs). Things are much closer in the Southern Interior/North, where the NDP has only a 5-point lead (44% NDP vs. 39% Libs). The Green Party does best on Vancouver Island at 20% support (vs. 11% in Metro Vancouver, 9% in Southern Interior/North).
B.C. NDP leader John Horgan, at 44%, has a huge lead over both B.C. Liberal leader Andrew Wilkinson (14%) and recent winner of the contest for leadership of the B.C. Greens, Sonia Furstenau (6%) as the leader who British Columbians think would make the best Premier of B.C.
According to poll aggregator 338 Canada John Horgan’s NDP are on track to win as many as 69 seats in the British Columbia legislature (there are 87 ridings across the province), with Andrew Wilkinson’s B.C. Liberal party set to win as few as 18 seats, leaving the B.C. Greens without a seat in the house in Victoria. Be mindful, tho, these are early days in the B.C. election.
The election chances for all three B.C. political parties will likely come into clearer focus following the upcoming televised leaders’ debate, a date for which event has not been set as VanRamblings’ column goes to print.
For those who are interested, as of midnight, here are the number of seats filled by each party: NDP: 83/87 | Liberals: 82/87 | Greens: 44/87 | Libertarians: 11/87 | Conservatives: 8/87. In a press conference she held yesterday in Vancouver, the B.C. Greens’ Sonia Furstenau told reporters that it was unlikely the Greens would field candidates in many more ridings than have been filled to date, while both the B.C. NDP and the B.C. Liberals will have all their parties’ candidates in place no later than this weekend.
In the early days of Decision BC 2020, John Horgan and the B.C. NDP have gotten off to a near faultless start, with little interfering respecting the leader’s messaging — although Mr. Horgan was forced to respond to a tempest in a teapot issue that arose yesterday, when former B.C. NDP vice-president and 2017 Vancouver-False Creek NDP candidate Morgane Oger posted a selfie on Instagram on Monday as she stood in front of a framed photograph of graffiti reading “f*** the” with the rest of the text cropped out. CTV News obtained a photo of Ms. Oger posing with the entire photograph, showing a stone wall where the phrase f*** the police is fully legible, with a caption reading, “Art is a window into society’s soul.”
“That photo really frames the sentiment of people who are on the receiving end of policing, not because police officers themselves are discriminatory, but because society actually still tolerates discrimination through its enforcement,” Oger said in an interview yesterday morning.
John Horgan responded to the “controversy”, stating, “I know Morgane, I know her to be a passionate woman who’s focused on increasing the well-being of people in vulnerable situations. The sentiment expressed in the photo on Morgane’s Instagram feed does not reflect my sentiment.”
B.C. Liberal leader Andrew “The Grouch” Wilkinson campaign off to an unsalutary start
Poor Andrew Wilkinson. Not only is he an almost anonymous political figure in our province, with a leadership standing of a sorry 14%, the woebegone B.C. Liberal leader has had to contend with one very real candidate controversy after another. If this keeps up, his political fortunes are toast.
Abbotsford South B.C. Liberal candidate, Bruce Banman — the former Abbotsford Mayor best known for ordering city staff to lay chicken manure down on a homeless encampment, while calling homeless Abbotsford residents, “drug using criminals” — was forced by Andrew Wilkinson to apologize for his intemperate remarks and actions.
Meanwhile, in the riding of Langley East, B.C. Liberal candidate Margaret Kunst came under fire for opposing a rainbow crosswalk for the township.
And lest we forget, Chilliwack-Kent MLA Laurie Throness continues to face criticism for running advertisements in the Christian lifestyle publication The Light Magazine, which has included anti-LGBT articles including content against SOGI resources in schools and in support of conversion therapy. Not to mention which, just this morning, several Chilliwack and Tri-Cities organizations have written a joint letter to Liberal Leader Andrew Wilkinson calling for the removal of Chilliwack-Kent candidate Laurie Throness over his expressed views on conversion therapy, a controversial practice that aims to convert LGBTQ+ members that the federal government is moving to ban.
And just last evening, B.C. NDP Delta North candidate Ravi Kahon alleged Surrey-Fleetwood B.C. Liberal candidate Garry Thind had violated the B.C. Elections Act. Lawyer Rachel Roy reported to Elections B.C. that dozens of members of a WhatsApp group called “Garry Thind-Fleetwood” were asked to collect information including names, dates of birth, addresses, phone numbers, email addresses and a piece of government-issued identification (e.g. Social Insurance number, driver’s license number) from voters, in order that Mr. Thind’s campaign staff could order mail-in ballots to his election headquarters, with an eye to campaign staff filling out and posting the mail-in ballots without the express knowledge of the voters they were purporting to represent — a fraudulent activity, and a clear violation of the B.C. Elections Act.
B.C. Liberal leader Wilkinson also found himself in hot water with former senior Liberal party adviser, Martyn Brown, for “arguably the most cynical, most dishonest, and most outright dumb all-time acts of desperate vote-buying” when Mr. Wilkinson vowed to scrap B.C.’s 7% provincial sales for a year and then cut it to 3% the next year.
“When they go low, we go lower, might as well be his motto,” writes Mr. Brown in a column in The Straight. “It shows that Wilkinson’s B.C. Liberals have learned absolutely nothing from their well-deserved banishment from office following former premier Christy Clark’s pathetic attempt to throw her party’s “principles” out the door, in her vain effort to cling to power.
Before the COVID pandemic brought our economy to a standstill, crippling government revenues in the process, the sales tax was projected to yield $7.5 billion to provincial coffers. It is the B.C. government’s second-largest source of funding, accounting for some 22% of total taxation revenues. Deliberately losing whatever remains of the government’s drastically reduced revenue stream wouldn’t just be grossly irresponsible; it would be insane.
This is what the lust for absolute power does to otherwise smart people like the Brainiac Wilkinson: it turns them and anyone who votes for them into partisan lunatics, devoid of all sense and principle. Fiscal discipline was supposed to be the B.C. Liberals’ central tenet. No longer.”
Gosh, if this is how a longtime friend of, and senior party official within, the B.C. Liberal party is expounding on the political acumen respecting his beloved provincial political party, one is left to wonder how the average British Columbian feels about Mr. Wilkinson’s crass attempt to buy votes?
For all that, Andrew Wilkinson has to thank his lucky stars that John Horgan called the election when he did, months before Justice Austin Cullen’s Commission on money laundering within the province of British Columbia provides a summary report to government on the extent, growth, evolution and methods of money laundering in gaming and horse racing, real estate, unregulated entities and persons who provide banking-like services, the use of shell companies, trusts, securities and financial instruments for the purposes of money laundering, luxury goods, and … well, you get the picture. Money laundering in B.C.: a legacy of the Christy Clark government that, due to B.C. Liberal government inaction, distorted British Columbia’s economy, fuelled the opioid crisis and overheated the real estate market.
As VanRamblings was saying to a friend yesterday, and as we reported in an earlier column, the government of John Horgan is the first British Columbia government in more than a half century not to be dogged by controversy and the taint of corruption. So much for British Columbia’s vaunted reputation as the disreputable wild, wild west of Canadian politics.
There’s a new online arts & culture magazine in Vancouver that’s creating quite the stir. Staffed mostly by former (and recent) arts staff at The Georgia Straight — said the weekly’s new owners, MediaCentral (a condition of employment: management must show their horns at all times) “Nah, we’re not cutting arts coverage. We’re just rationalizing it, by dumping a whole lotta staff, and refocusing editorial categories by eliminating any focus whatsoever on venues and the arts”) — the glorious new Stir is the illustrious new home for arts & culture coverage in our city.
Where to find beloved Straight arts & entertainment editor, the kindly but tough Janet Smith, or bon vivant, Adrian Mack, and acclaimed journalist, Gail Johnson? Vancouver’s nascent Stir magazine is the place where you’ll find Janet, Adrian and Gail, as well as a number of other former Straight staffers, and first-rate British Columbia-based arts & culture journalists, who in Stir have created the place to be for arts coverage in our city.
And isn’t that what makes a city, culture? Otherwise, what are we but an amalgam of greenhouse gas spewing towers, and windy roads laden with too many carbon emitting vehicles. Vancouver’s many and varied arts & culture institutions breathe life and meaning into our paradise by the ocean.
In 2020, at the virtual Vancouver International Film Festival, Stir has emerged as the place for coverage of VIFF 2020.
For instance, in her enthusiastic review of Jimmy Carter: Roll and Roll President (which VanRamblings just loved when we screened it at 3 a.m. yesterday morning), Ms. Smith writes …
Jimmy Carter was cooler than you ever knew — even more so when he’s put up against the presidential candidates for the 2020 U.S. election. Turns out the man once derided as the Peanut Farmer was besties with the likes of Bob Dylan and Willie Nelson, both of whom sing his praises here. He also hosted regular concerts, first at the guv’nah’s mansion in Georgia, and later at the White House, after the Allmann Brothers helped propel him to election. In her fun, well-researched, and zippily edited documentary, director Mary Wharton connects Carter’s open-minded approach to music to his political achievements.
The review above is just one of many VIFF 2020 reviews you’ll find on the Stir Vancouver online website, from Janet Smith, Adrian Mack and Gail Johnson, in 2020, your go-to website for Vancouver’s finest VIFF coverage.
Here’s hoping Stir thrives long, long into the future, that Ottawa’s modernized Canadian Periodical Fund provides sustaining monies to aid Stir in its necessary endeavours, and that readers (and advertisers) flock by the thousands to Stir Vancouver, such that Stir becomes a west coast institution, a Canadian version of New York Magazine’sVulture website.
A David Eby Vancouver-Point Grey supporters townhall. Highlighted, Vancouver-False Creek NDP candidate, Brenda Bailey. Top left, Gala Milne, David Eby’s campaign manager.
On Sunday afternoon, September 27th at 4pm, Vancouver-Point Grey MLA — and, until the current provincial election was called by BC NDP leader, John Horgan, Minister of Justice and Attorney General for the province of British Columbia — David Eby, held a well-organized and well-attended Zoom campaign townhall of longtime supporters, campaign workers and campaign staff, hosted by the very bright, accomplished and talented New Democratic Party tyro candidate for Vancouver-Hastings, Niki Sharma.
Also present and accounted for: Meghan Sali (top row), host of The Dash with David Eby podcast (also available as an Apple podcast, and through the Google Play store); Vancouver-Langara NDP candidate, Tesicca Truong — acclaimed housing, community, and climate change policy strategist — to the left of Ms. Bailey; Stefan Avlijas, master of all he surveys, and BCGEU digital campaign specialist (this is not his first rodeo with the avuncular, personable and accomplished, Mr. Eby), middle fourth row down; as well as the love of David Eby’s life and mother to his two wonderful children (migosh, they’re growing so quickly — note should be made that David is an incredibly great dad), Dr. Calley Lynch; dogged co-campaign fundraiser and former director of communications with the BCNU, the highly-regarded Shirley Ross (her hubby, the very fine gentleman and oenophile, Bill Tieleman, is to be found on another screen); and bottom row, in the middle, some ne’er-do-well, we’d all be better off ignoring, old fart that he is; and so, so many more who will move the sun, the Earth, the stars to ensure David Eby’s re-election, come Thursday, November 12th, cuz the hand-counting of mail-in ballots — of which there will likely be one million — will not start until 13 days after election day, Saturday, October 24th.
As of midnight Sunday night, Elections BC reports that 406,000 British Columbians had asked to have mail-in ballots posted to them. Unlike Donald Trump’s America, we in Canada respect our sacred institutions of government, our post office and non-partisan agency, Elections BC, charged with the conduct of elections in our province, so mail-in ballots — which will achieve record numbers in the provincial election of 2020 — is a feature of our current election British Columbians are assured is fair, proper and necessary, and in the midst of an unprecedented 21st century pandemic, an absolute necessity. VanRamblings will be walking over our mail-in ballot (which we received last Friday) to an advance poll nearby us, the morning of Thursday, October 15th, because we want our vote counted on E-Day.
Advance polls, as above, will open two weeks from this Thursday, on October 15th, and run thru til Wednesday, October 21st, and will operate each day from 8 a.m. through until 8 p.m., staffed by your neighbours. Go to the Where to Vote page on the Elections BC website for more information, to have any B.C. election questions you may have answered.
For the years she sat as Chairperson of the Vancouver Park Board and as a Board Commissioner, VanRamblings had the privilege of observing the work of Niki Sharma, who we came to know as a democrat of the first order, engaging and yet no nonsense, focused always on the work of those who elected her to office (as well as those who did not cast a vote for her), extraordinarily bright and articulate, accomplished, loyal to her peers and her party, open and available to talk with anyone, any time, hard working, dedicated & a devoted public servant possessed of unparalleled integrity.
Niki Sharma is one of those once in a lifetime political figures, a change maker who works for each and every one of us, towards the creation of a better, a fairer, a more inclusive and a more just city, province and world.
And now, Niki Sharma is the B.C. New Democratic Party candidate for Vancouver Hastings. Lucky BC NDP, lucky residents of the provincial riding of Vancouver Hastings, and lucky us — every citizen of British Columbia.
Early on, when Ms. Sharma was seeking the Vancouver Hastings NDP nomination, we had naysayers call us to regale us with tales of the old shibboleth, that Vancouver’s Chinese population will not vote for an Indo-Canadian candidate. And not just that, but that the 2017 British Columbia election in the riding of Vancouver Hastings was oh-so-close, and recently retired provincial Minister for Social Development and Poverty Reduction, Shane Simpson, had just barely squeaked into office in the 2017 election.
Um. Really? The correct information as to the outcome of the 2017 B.C. provincial election, in the riding of Vancouver Hastings, is easily attainable:
The above said, the British Columbia New Democratic Party, and Vancouver Hastings NDP candidate Niki Sharma, her riding executive, and her many, many supporters are not taking anything for granted.
As is the case in every election, candidates must fight for every vote, and fight to gain the confidence of the electorate who reside in the riding where she or he is seeking to become the British Columbia Member of the Legislature representing the interests of the good citizens of the riding, where s/he has come forward as a candidate for the party supporting her / his provincial riding candidacy.
All of which is to say, if you have the time and the energy, if you can spare a few dollars, supporting Niki Sharma’s, David Eby’s, Brenda Bailey’s and / or Tesicca Truong’s candidacies, there is no finer activity to which you might dedicate yourself than playing a role in ensuring the election to office of any one of these outstanding BC NDP candidates. As for VanRamblings, we are donating one per cent of our annual gross income to supporting BC NDP candidates in the current British Columbia election — you should, too.
And, finally for today, this: as was the case in New Brunswick in their provincial election earlier this month, and as will be the case in Saskatchewan, in their scheduled election next month, candidates for office in the various political parties will be, and are, pooling their resources, and working closely as teams of (most generally) three candidates for office.
VanRamblings has learned that in 2020, Vancouver-Point Grey NDP candidate David Eby, Vancouver Hastings NDP candidate Niki Sharma, and Vancouver Fairview NDP candidate George Heyman will work closely together, in some cases combining election operations staff and office resources, less for budgetary considerations and more as a practicable initiative responding to the exigencies and demands of our current pandemic — which, by the way, is not going away anytime soon, so that now, this very moment in our pandemic, is the best time to conduct a provincial election, to ensure that the citizens of our province have at the seat of power in Victoria, a government that best represents their interests, will best respond to their and our collective health needs, and are best able to rebuild an economy that serves all of us, and not just the wealthy few.
