E.I.F.F.

Terry and I decided to spend some time and some money (!) at this year’s Edmonton International Film Festival.

I just love this experience!

We get to see films from all over the world and depending on what category one chooses you can see different types and lengths of films too.

I enjoy the whole experience but I especially love the “Lunchbox Shorts”. The E.I.F.F. provides (along with their partners) these incredibly fresh choices of sandwiches and a dairy free cookie for you to eat while you watch the lunch hour short films. Sometimes they are animations. At others they are like tiny movies with live actors. Some of them are comedies and some pull at the heart strings and can bring tears to your eyes.

Usually after the reels one of the directors of one of the films will be invited to have an interview with a host and we’ve been there when there is a Q and A as well.

For our first session of Lunchbox Shorts we got to meet the director of the first film played called “Take a Seat”.

It wasn’t our favourite film but we learned a lot about why and how the director made the choices he did. It was an odd story of a man (whose thoughts were in voice overs) who created all of these tiny , elaborate chairs, and moved them around at a pretend auction with his own hands in white gloves. You had to be there.

After another Lunch Box Shorts day we ended the week by seeing a full length movie at Imax location. It was called “Disco’s Revenge”. This was a movie which interviewed famous folks who back in the day used to be into all kinds of music from Blues, Jazz, Boogie Woogie and Gospel who were converted to Disco and how it changed their lives for the better for a long time. That is until the radio stations decided that most records were being sold because of live music clubs and not the stations so they worked up groups who rioted and chanted “Disco is dead!” until it was!

Sad really because the clubs were ‘colour blind’ and a person’s sexual preference did not figure into their shared love of dancing to a great beat ….”four on the floor”.

You might remember that gays were not to be seen together and blacks could not mix with whites a lot of the time. So it was such joy to be able to have the freedom to dance to Donna Summer or Sister Sledge (as examples)and feel…..happy!

I learned so much about Disco and how it affected the music that came after it ….like Hip Hop!

And that is one of the joys of participating in the Film Festival in the cities where you live. Buy a ticket when you can, sit back, and enjoy!

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“So Many Doors”

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The New Murals