Puppets Politics Plasma

By Adam Thomas

Thursday November 3, 2005

A Fistful Of Festivals

“Asian Film Festival”:http://www.vaff.org

November 4th-7th at Tinseltown

Sky Blue (Canadian Premiere)

The year is 2142, and the world has been made uninhabitable due to toxic, global industrialization. Permanent clouds of acid rain block out all sunlight and the earth is scorched and barren. The only survivors are those selected to live in the bio-environment known as the Ecoban and the slaves who work for them. Despite the cyber security of the Ecoban, a member of the Resistance has sneakily penetrated the central command and hacked into their system. The Resistance, led by Cade, is struggling to blow open the Ecoban. Releasing its energy in order to blow a hole through the clouds and open the sky; they hope to restore the earth to a more natural state. Now the race is on for “the elite” to stop “the resistance” before they destroy the safety of the Ecoban. Directed by Moon Sang Kim, this animated South Korean/US co-production lands somewhere between Total Recall and Star Wars, complete with whizzing ships, blasting guns and a great anti-gravity death sequence. A Sci-fi mixture of 2D and 3D animation, Sky Blue is an action packed anime feature playing at this year’s Asian film Festival.

“Work Less Party Movie Release”:http://www.worklessparty.org

8 pm November 10th at Van East Cinema

Alarm Clocks Kill Dreams

This political drama, slash infomercial, is definitely the best thing any municipal political party has done to help represent themselves before an election. With central candidate and director Ben West, this movie is a homespun documentary that follows the antics, spirit and ideas behind one of Vancouver’s wildest and most innovative political forces as they geared up for the last provincial election. Incorporating footage of CTV television segments, interviews, all-candidate meetings and old-school consumer positive cartoons and films the movie successfully provides a chance to hear some of the fundamentally important and politically interesting ideas that lie at the heart of the party’s platform. Sure, it has all the weirdos and freaks you’d expect, but at the heart of the film is a sincere attempt to explore and express the serious issues that should help move the Work Less Party out of the “gimmick” category. Hell, you might even end up voting for them.

“Resfest”:http://www.resfest.com

November 11-12 at the Vancouver International Film Centre.

Now in its 9th year internationally, Resfest comes to Vancouver for the first time as a part of a three city tour of Canada. Recognized as one of the leading festivals for digital filmmaking, this year’s Resfest is host to a great selection of digital films, many you will be unlikely to see again. Ex-Fat Girl by Nagi Noda is a bizarre short workout video featuring some of man’s best friends showing you how it’s done. Little Pony is a 3D animated WW2 parody about flying ace James Fairchild as he aerobatically protects Christmas from evil rogue holiday party poopers. There is the Dutch short 11:59, a real time 8-minute countdown thriller of sorts that follows a guy as he nervously leaves his house to go do something ominous. The French film, Le Grand Sommeil, is an immediate classic featuring childhood toy figurines: a cowboy, an Indian and a horse. They all share a house on a hill and when not playing ping-pong, are constantly falling asleep, sometimes for years. If you ever loved the Muppets there is a beautiful, short homage to the late Jim Henson in the film Over Time. There will also be live music and music videos, as well as the internationally controversial short film Flesh.