Female Eye Film Festival `12: Highlight Reviews: Long Branch, Birdbath, and Beirut Hotel.
As a first timer at this year’s 10th annual Female Eye Film Festival, it has been a charming experience to see the works of talented female directors from across the globe. It’s a delight to see such films being showcased in Toronto on a platform that is solely focused on highlighting the achievements and works done by women filmmakers, who even in this day in age are known to be underrepresented within the entertainment industry. This year’s festival has featured numerous types of films including shorts, documentaries, and full features across various genres and presented in sets of different categories from North America to International, as well as including an Aboriginal Series. Apart from film screenings held at the Carleton Cinema in Toronto, the Novotel Hotel was the venue hosting other industry events including panels, script development programs, a director’s roundtable with industry guests and a “Best in the Biz” series with this year’s honorary directors.
Here is a look into the first set of gems discovered during this year’s festival: Long Branch, a Canadian short (14 minutes) directed by Linsey Stewart and Dane Clark, is featured under the North American and International Shorts category. It is a quirky, sweet comedy shot on a cold winter night in Toronto. The story follows Lynn’s late night journey with a random guy back to his house for a quickie one night stand to get over her ex-boyfriend. However, what she doesn’t know is that the distance to his place is a 2 hour ride via public transit. The short is very romantic and makes you keep believing that often times strangers can surprise you when you least expect it.
Bird Bath (20 minutes), directed by Rebecca Gruihn, another Canadian production is also featured under the North American and International Shorts category. The short is about three kids belonging to a broken family who are dropped off to their families’ abode for the weekend. The oldest of the three children is a twelve year old boy who comes across as a little bit angry and aggressive, clearly acting up due to the familial situation that they are currently dealing with. Coming from a broken home myself it felt like a very honest presentation of how this child has to understand, grow and self-mature pretty quickly in order to maintain sanity and hold the family together the best way they can. Amidst most relationship break-ups of couples with kids, it’s mostly, if not always, the children who bare the brunt of the challenging changes that they suddenly have to face. The focus remains on the kids throughout as it should and it’s amazing to see how the childen carry the film on their shoulders clearly narrating a story through their reactionary emotions.
Beirut Hotel, directed by Danielle Arbid, is a Lebanon/France co-production and a Foreign Feature screening presentation last night and hands down one of my favourites at the festival this year. The film is an internationally controversial film that has been known to be banned in its home country of Lebanon due to it’s mentioning of ex-Prime Minister Rafik Hariri’s assassination. This is the story about Zoha, a gorgeous Lebanese lounge singer who has a chance encounter with Mathieu one evening in a Beirut Hotel bar. Mathieu is a French lawyer in town for some “business” who is coming out of a 10-year old marriage and Zoha, who is separated from her controlling husband is seeking a divorce. The two find an instant attraction towards each other and there begins the journey of a very hot, steamy and passionate love affair over the course of the 10 days that Mathieu is in Lebanon. It is quite befitting actually as the two leads actors of the film really are very attractive and have this amazing chemistry of sexual tension up until they get together. Alas, love does not come easy when Zoha is bound to believe that Mathieu may be a French spy because of his suspicious activities, meetings with former informer Assad, constant hotel changes, and sudden disappearances. As phrased by the festival director, this screening was a “highly sanitized” version of the romantic thriller and truly had it all; from sex, violence, drama, romance, dirty politics to constant anxiety about what would happen next. Will love conquer all though? Will Zoha and Mathieu be able to battle the forces and agencies that will eventually try to keep them apart? No words of praise are enough for this feature and it’s truly commendable on director Danielle’s part to make this film and fight the challenges of getting it distributed. I have to mention though that the most entertaining, exotic, engulfing and endearing films, whether they are fictional shorts, features or documentaries, have predominantly been stories set in Middle-Eastern countries. Stay tuned to more coverage of gems that have been displayed at this year’s festival!
Also be sure to check out tonight’s closing feature “Union Square” by director Nancy Savoca 5:30PM at the Carleton Cinema. Nancy will be present for a Q&A after the screening. For more information, visithttp://www.femaleeyefilmfestival.com/
-Myra Rehman
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