VIFF11 REVIEW: Miss Bala [2011]

“Have some faith in me, Dad” If you ever have a daughter that begs you for entrance into a beauty pageant and you can’t bring yourself to comply, pop on Miss Bala and she’ll never ask again. Taking place in Mexico amidst an unwinnable war on drugs, Gerardo Naranjo’s film portrays a never-ending series of impossible situations for its star. All Laura Guerrero (Stephanie Sigman) wanted was to have fun, wear beautiful dresses, and flaunt her body. But like twenty-somethings in any culture, kids who enjoy partying get mixed up…

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VIFF11 REVIEW: Bumrush [2011]

“Make it loud; make it nasty” Not to be outdone by its New York City and Chicago counterparts, the Montreal gang wars of the past decade prove Canada isn’t the idyllic place of kindness and cleanliness some would describe it as. In Michel Jetté’s Bumrush, we’re shown how uncontrollable it can all get when the underworld is left without anyone to keep its tenuous balance intact. Learning about the inter-workings of bikers, Haitians, Italians, Jamaicans, and the bouncers caught in the middle from an inquiry made after the infamous Shark…

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VIFF11 REVIEW: Dernier étage gauche gauche [Top Floor, Left Wing] [2010]

“Hey, it’s pork. That’s provocation!” How do you turn a hostage situation concerning cocaine, eviction notices, and Algerian assassins into a stage for bureaucratic ineptitude and slum reform? Ask Angelo Cianci because his film Dernier étage gauche gauche [Top Floor, Left Wing] does it and more. A darkly comic take on generally serious circumstances, a normal day in the life of bailiff François Etcheveria (Hippolyte Girardot) becomes one he’ll never forget. The first apartment of twelve on his list to evict and catalogue property for compensation, no one could have…

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VIFF11 INTERVIEW: Prashant Bhargava, writer/director of Patang

While at the Vancouver International Film Festival this year, I had the pleasure of speaking to the writer/director of Patang [The Kite], Prashant Bhargava. A Chicago-born filmmaker of Indian descent, his first feature length work has hit screens in Berlin and Tribeca before making its way to Canada, picking up praise at every screening. A very human tale of a family in Ahmedabad rekindling during the city’s famous kite festival, Bhargava’s film will enchant and intrigue through its exotic locale and very familiar emotions. Speaking about his process, the casts’…

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