In collaboration with the Film Circuit of the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), the Rotary Club of Ottawa-Stittsville will be showing four films this fall. These films will be screened at Landmark Cinemas, Kanata. Details of individual films in the series are shown below. The dates for showings are September 25, October 30, November 27, and December 11 with the films being shown at 4:00pm and again at 7:00pm on each date.
Please note that the films deal with mature subjects and are not suitable for children.
To Kill a Tiger – September 25, 2023 (Hindi with English subtitles)
Nisha Pahuja is a Canadian writer/director who has created a powerful documentary about a 13-year-old girl,who wants to be known as J, living in a village in Jharkhand in eastern India. J attends a cousin’s wedding, where she is raped by three young men as she makes her way back home. A rape is reported every 20 minutes in India, and only 30% of those reports result in convictions of the rapists. In this documentary we meet Ranjit, proud father of J, who is prepared to defy village customs and seek convictions of the rapists and justice for his daughter. The villagers resist his initiatives, proposing instead that J marry one of her rapists. The unfolding of the conflict between Ranjit and his family, and the villagers (”keep this within the village”), as well as Ranjit’s struggles with the justice system, results in a powerful story that will leave viewers both dismayed, and hopeful.
Carmen – October 30, 2023 (English)
In this musical drama loosely based on Bizet’s 1875 opera Carmen, Benjamin Millepied casts Paul Mescal and Melissa Berrera as two strangers, on the run in the dangerous world of Mexican refugees at the American border. Carmen (Melissa Berrera) is newly orphaned when her mother Zilah is shot in the Chihuahuan desert as she performs a proud flamenco dance. In her attempt to find safety, Carmen flees with friends to the Mexican-American border. Aiden (Paul Mescal) is a haunted Afghanistan war vet who joins the Border Patrol, but following the killing of Carmen’s friends, becomes Carmen’s protector in her flight to safety. Aiden and Carmen finally meet up in Los Angeles with Masilda, Carmen’s flamboyant godmother, and the drama moves to its stunning conclusion. Dance is at the heart of this film. The dancers are graceful, expressive, and dance is the medium for expressing myths, poetry, and dreams.
Past Lives – November 27, 2023 (Korean and English)
The Guardian reviewer writes that Past Lives is “an achingly effective love story” that might be 2023’s best film! The film opens with scenes of 12 year old Na Young and Hae Sung, close friends living in Seoul. When Na Young and her family move to Canada, she and Hae Sung lose contact, and then reconnect through email, Facebook and and Skype. Twenty-four years later Na Young (Nora) is a playwright living in New York, and married to Arthur, also a writer. When Hae Sung makes a visit to the city, the film focuses on the bonds that unite and divide the three main characters, Nora, Arthur and Hae Sung. Writer/director
Celine Sung does a superb job of depicting New York, and of telling the stories of friendships, connections, and unfulfilled dreams. She also captures the immigrant experience in Nora’s musings about her relationship with her Korean heritage. This is a real gem of a movie.
Driving Madeleine – December 11, 2023 (French with English subtitles)
Driving Madeleine is the perfect movie for a frosty December day, when we can dream of touring the neighbourhoods of Paris in sunnier times. This French film starring Line Renaud, (Madeleine) at 93 still shining as the star of the show, and Dany Boon (Charles), stepping out of his comic persona to portray a sensitive middle-aged taxi driver, delivers beauty, pathos, tragedy, and hope. Their lives have taken some strange twists and turns, and their journey across Paris, as Madeleine prepares to resettle in a nursing home, forges a special bond between the two. In the end, Madeleine becomes Charles’ guide, “so that we wonder finally who’s driving whom.” (Guardian review)
Ordering your series pass is easy. Please contact Charles Mossman (charcz@yahoo.com) for 4:00pm passes, or Sandra Burt (sburt@uwaterloo.ca) for 7:00pm passes. The price of a pass for the four films is $60. If you cannot attend all the films, you may send a substitute attendee.
The profits from the International Film Series support a variety of Rotary Club projects and donations within our community and around the world. Some of the organizations that have received recent financial support from our club recently are the Stittsville Food Bank, the Richmond Food Bank, Dictionaries 4 Life, Water First (a program to train indigenous water quality assurance workers) and ShelterBox (a Rotary International affiliate that provides temporary housing for refugees, including those from Ukraine, Syria and Turkey).
For information about the Rotary Club please visit stittsvillerotary.com or the Rotary Club of Ottawa-Stittsville Facebook page. Rotarians serve their community and beyond!