Turn Me on, Dammit! (Jannicke Systad Jacobsen, Norway, 2011) is a film about Alma (Helene Bergsholm), a 16-year-old blonde Elle Fanning look-a-like, living in a small rural town in Norway. Alma is consumed by erotic/romantic fantasies of a boy in her school named Artur (Matias Myren). Alma lives with her single mother (played by Henriette Steenstrup), and racks up charges on an adult telephone sex line when her Mom is out at work. Alma’s social world comes crashing down when she is at a party at the local youth center because Artur pokes her in the leg randomly with his erect penis. Alma goes on to tell her friends, Artur denies it happens, everyone teases and ostracizes Alma. Alma goes on to struggle with being an outsider and expressing her sexuality. The story is slightly surreal because of all the fantasy flashbacks.

Stylistically Turn Me on, Dammit! is indigo tinted and the whole film looks like it has been put through Instagram shot-by-shot in the Walden filter. The Scandinavian scenery is picturesque, the weather and colours in the film correspond with the mood of what is happening in the plot. Adding to emotional relationship between the audience and Alma, throughout the film. The atmospheric landscapes in this film and the cyan tint most recently is reminiscent of Lars von Trier‘s landscapes in Melancholia. When these characters are going through gloom and doom in their lives, it effects all the colour in the film, yet it is saddle enough to be aesthetically very appealing. Female director Jannicke Systad Jacobsen of  Turn Me on, Dammit! was primarily a documentary film maker before this film, however she mentioned in an interview that  event her documentary films were treated like fictional films. Jacobsen worked with non-actors in this film, to keep some authenticity in documenting teenagers, but the was a story written by her, but based on the novel by Olaug Nilssen. The Alberta Premiere of Turn Me on, Dammit! is playing Friday April 20, 2012 7:30pm at the Globe Cinema tickets can be purchased for $11 online by clicking HERE. Turn Me on, Dammit! has received raving reviews from numerous sources including and not limited to Nylon, Huffington Post and Salon. If you are going to see one film during CUFF, KO‘s PICK is Turn Me on, Dammit!

For all other films playing at CUFF please click HERE for the full schedule.

The Phantom Storm of Eden

March 8-10, 2012 will mark the 20^th Anniversary of Calgary Society for Independent Film makers $100 Film Festival. For anyone who has not gone before, the $100 Film Festival is unlike any other film festival you will see in this city. The $100 Film Festival features exclusively celluloid small format film (8mm and 16mm). The films in the festival are underground independent films that are usually very expressive in their storytelling in comparison to mainstream cinema. The $100 Film Festival received its name from the first festival in 1992 where the cost of 8mm film and processing totaled $100. Fast-forward a few years, the prices of celluloid film and processing (especially 16mm film) have increased exponentially, but subsequently the name has stuck.

One of the films in this year’s festival that grabbed my attention and kept me thinking was Japanese director Shinya Isobe’s film Eden. Eden opens with a framed shot of a cassette recorder playing a female voice chanting softly in Japanese, a close-up shot of a cup of tea and a burning cigarette in an ashtray. The following establishing shot of the interior space is a vacant room, lit from the exterior of the space, which is overcast and foggy. The vacant room contains two chairs, seated at the table where the cassette player, the tea and cigarette burning in the ashtray are placed on. The main themes in this film are life and death, or existing and disappearing. The vacancy of the interior and exterior space of the concrete building and the skeletal frame that stands among the ruins within. Human life ceases to exist in this space, however there are symbols of life in the diagetic sounds of birds chirping, lush green leafy plants coming through the cracks and windows into the buildings, and the human  objects placed on the table inside the vacant room. Eden exudes a nostalgic metaphor for traditional life cycle through existing within a space with the imposition of the cultural values of Japan. The passage of time is shown through change of seasons, and time lapsed photography, from lush greenery to the blizzarding stormy landscape. There were elements of the film that challenged tradition and the importance of the Japanese culture, in terms of economy. As the film progresses, the Japanese chanting becomes subtitled, and mentions the “phantom” buildings. The English subtitles express transition being expressed in consideration to the West, and how technology has moved in and added a different element to worldly existence. The ringing telephone interrupts the film world, perhaps the same way Western ideas have interrupted Japanese values of the past. Toward the end of the film there is a loud electric guitar riff and the film flashes red, changing the look of everything on the screen. The red flashes seemed representational of the imposition of the Japanese culture on the present. Eden is 15 minutes in length and is a 16mm film. Japanese director  Shinya Isobe is 30 years old and studied film from the Tokyo Zokei University Graduate School (2007), and is also a graduate of the Image Forum Image Research Institute (2010). For a short film, Eden has a lot to say and expresses beauty of nature and the distruction of natural resources and the effect they have on the geography and socio-economic conditions of a landscape. The skeletal buildings in this film were once home to a population of 10,000 people in Iwate Hachimantai. Once, the place was called “the paradise on clouds”, and now a ghost town. It was formerly known as the home of Japan’s largest sulfur mine, the Matsuo Gouzan mine.

This years $100 Film Festival will take place at Alberta College for Art and Designs Stanford Perrott Lecture Theater (1407 14 Avenue NW), which will be a nice change from previous years when the Festival was held at the Plaza Theatre. March 10, 2012 (After party @ Cafe Koi – #100, 1011 – 1st Street SW  Calgary, AB.; 10pm-on)

Ticket sales:

CSIF Offices (NOTE: NEW ADDRESS – 223 12 Avenue SW)

Cafe Koi – #100, 1011 – 1st Street SW

Bogies Casablanca Video (Mission – Unit 12 — 2100 4St SW)

Prices: 
$12 General Admission; $10 CSIF Members, Students & Seniors;

$7 ACAD Students

My girls are 2 ½ and 3 ½ years old, a bit younger than the recommended 5 years old and up, even so, they really enjoyed the Festival. The Puppets station where they created origami birds, and the Claymation station where the kids could make plasticine modeling clay figures to create a stop-go digital animation film were very popular with my little ones.

The Shorts Series film for the young kids (5+) were very well programmed, and actually kept my kids in their seats for the entire duration (a miracle). One film in particular Mashed enthralled my kids, about a little boy doomed to sit at the dinner table until his plate is clean. He imagines a mashed potato villain he needs to defeat. This film may have even encouraged my children to finish their dinner. If that film wasn’t influential to their nutrition enough, the film Broccoli Monster surely will haunt them, a film about an obnoxious 8 year old that refuses to eat his broccoli until visited during the night by an actual Broccoli Monster. I don’t think we will have any issues with picky eating in my house for a while, particularly when it comes to broccoli. All the films were very cute, and captivating, for both my kids and myself, plus the films were accompanied by very tasty popcorn. I highly recommend checking out some of the other programmed films in the Reel Fun Film Festival.

Photo Courtesy of R.I.T. The Rochester Institute of Technology

The Reel Fun Family Festival runs until February 26, 2012, there are lots of great films for all ages screening. Please visit their web-site for more details: www.reelfunfest.com

Special Thanks to CalgaryMovies.com

Me and BINZENTO @ #SCHMANCY

Terry Allen, Jian Ghomeshi and Me @ #SCHMANCY

My view from the Gansevoort New York

Self Portrait

Morning in the Meat Packing District NYC

Chelsea NYC

Morning Outfit (Another Self-Portrait)

Me and James from Milk Studios

Me with the Models for the Ohne Titel Show

Photo courtesy: FASHIONOLOGIE

This was the first look and my favourite look of the show. The model Cora wears a crested cap, checked weave scarf in black and white, checked weave jacket in black and white, knit pleated skirt in black and white, block colour Ohne Titel heel.

First Look out on the runway, note the Satorialist in the Merlot coloured Moncler vest to the bottom right.

Fun in the New York Magazine Photo Booth with Tracy Foster of ONA bags

Me with Ohne Titel Deigners Flora Gill and Alexa Adams

Alexa Adams and Flora Gill Photo Courtesy of Zimbio.com

(Photo above of Kim Flanagan, Annia B., Model and Blogger; Yvonne Jeffery, HERS Magazine Editor; Cara Fullerton, Global News Anchor; Dana Kerford, Girl Power; Cat Oshenak, Photographer & Founder of I’ve Been Bullied Campaign.)

This morning was the second screening of the film MissRepresentation I have attended in Calgary. Todays screening was put on my Church My Style, an organization of empowering events founded by Calgary Stylist, Blogger and Mom, Kim Flanagan. Kim explains that Church My Style is about finding your “it”? Church. She had the idea of Church when she was sick. Kim was tired and not feeling “it” or really anything. She was wiped out, and in the closets of other wiped out women and thought to herself, “this is bullshit!” she wanted a mentor or some release or some something that was missing. Kim also wanted to get or give the feeling of “it” back to more than one woman at a time and also back to herself.

As it was my second time watching this film, it confirmed many things to me I noticed the first time, but nothing came across to me stronger than… I really have my work cut out for myself being the mother (and step mother) to three girls. The media has done a real number on the psyche of North American society, but I watched a documentary last week called The Glass House (2009, Hamid Rahmanian) about girls struggling to find themselves in Uptown Tehran, Iran and suddenly felt so grateful to have grown up in North America where I can freely express my thoughts and opinions . Even though the media makes the plight for women’s success an uphill battle, we have millions of opportunities in this continent that are not possible elsewhere. The problem I have personally with the film MissRepresentation, other than the fact that Gloria Steinem wasn’t in it enough, is that it seems to focus and harp on the negative forces at play, which beats down and takes away from the fact that we have a chance as individuals in this country for equality, but we must become educated and strive to achieve what we desire to become because it is Capitalist system. The same way I have many friends in Calgary who complain about this city, that it’s not metropolitan enough, not culturally enriched enough…etc., but the truth is, if you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem! You need to go out every day and do something that contributes to it being a better place for yourself and others. Join an organization that is working toward a cause you care about, or has a like minded group of people. I have found that doing these things makes me feel more optimistic about the place I live, and is a great way to meet people with similar passions in life. The world is not going to change by someone accepting it the way it is, we need to question ourselves about the decisions we make on a daily basis. Social awareness is very important and takes huge effort on the part of an individual.

I am grateful for the people who work hard on a daily basis to make this a better place to live as a woman,an artist and a civilian. I have big shoes to fill in this world, starting in my own home.

The Thrilling Discomfort of The Skin I Live In (Le Piel Que Habito) Pedro Almodovar (2011)

Most brilliant people have quirks, Pedro Almodovar’s direction in The Skin I Live In is no exception. A film about a plastic surgeon, obsessed with the memory of his wife who commited suicide. Written and directed by Almodovar, it makes you wonder where these twisted ideas of brilliance are born.  Almodovar adapted the story and wrote The Skin I Live In based on the novel Tarantula by Thierry Jonquet.

In many of Almodovar’s films, the director attempts to relate in some ways with the female perspective, but none deal with this perspective quite the same way as The Skin I Live In.  This film was nominated for the Palme d’Or at Cannes Film Festival this year (2011), screened at TIFF and also here in Calgary at CIFF.  The film stars Antonio Banderas who is a veteran actor in Almodovar films, having worked together 21 years prior in the film Tie Me Up Tie Me Down (1990). In The Skin I Live In Banderas plays Doctor Robert Ledgard, the limitless plastic surgeon lamenting over the death of his deceased wife and tries to replicate her on the surface of another person’s body for revenge of the rape of his daughter. Genius and experimental in his work, his approach at creation, or rather recreation of human flesh, exposes his power driven god-like approach to modern medicine.

This film deals with contemporary issues of gender identification, which have never been addressed in Almodovar’s previous works.  Gender identity is a current topic in popular culture and has become increasing popular because of the plight for equality of LGBT people in Western society. Aside from gender identity as a social issue, the character of Vincente played by Jan Cornet, was a boy who worked in his mother’s consignment store and loved to work with textiles. He rode a motorcycle and experimented with pills. He wasn’t eluded as being the most masculine of characters. Vincente’s transformation into Vera Cruz, this ultra feminine and delicate character seemed so well embraced by the character after the sexual reassignment surgery he under went.  The transformation of genders by the character emphasizes the power shift from male to female, and the subsequent domination of the masculine gender by Dr. Ledgard, Banderas’ character who confines, penetrates and admires Vera Cruz as a woman in a possessive sexual nature.

The complex narrative of this film, which Almodovar is infamous for, is sorted out through the many beautiful flashbacks, which help the audience empathsize with the Psychopath character Banderas play as Dr. Ledgard. But however beautiful, the discomfort is inevitable as you watch many uncomfortable situations dealing with rape from a boy to a girl, a man to a boy and over again.

Although this film would be classified in the genres of Horror or Psychological Thrillers, it deals with Gender, Power, Tragedy and Love, which make’s it so much more than you expect from a Festival Film.

This film is loaded with innuendoes and social commentary on our current sentiments on not dealing with our past in Western culture. This Must Be the Place is a clever combination of the film feel brought about by Ghost World, Garden State and Somewhere. It compasses this searching, an inner search for meaning in a lonely world. Penn’s character, the melancholic Cheyenne, goes about his journey through the United States, stopping in Michigan, New Mexico and Utah, all the way with a voice over of his father reading through a journal he keeping during his time in the concentrating camp in Auschwitz, sounding very similar to Victor Frankl’s book Man’s Search for Meaning.

When Cheyenne goes to see his father on his death bed there is an extreme close up of his father’s numbered tattoo on his forearm from Auschwitz, further into the film in a small town in Michigan,  Cheyenne sits next two a man who is littered in tattoos mainly of Jesus. Cheyenne has a dialog with the man about whether he likes tattoos or not. His response is that he is undecided. The response seemed profoundly diplomatic considering the earlier footage of his fathers tattoo, when he is faced with someone who embodies characteristics of a neo-nazi.

There was a scene in this film where a large native American man in a suit gets into Cheyenne’s truck at a gas station and silently hitches a ride into the middle of the dessert. This may have been some social commentary on white washing society, or perhaps it was a random occurrence, either way, it stuck out in film randomly, as did the massive pistachio, Cheyenne’s truck engine spontaneously combusting, the story about the revolution of wheels on luggage and the buffalo chewing its cud as viewed through a window.  Cheyenne was constantly drinking from a tall soda bottle straw, a thirst for something, but never seemed to be quenched?

There was a quote from Cheyenne in this film which was really moving and stuck pretty hard: “We go from an age of where my life will be that, to that’s life”. Basically we go out on our journey in life with things to accomplish, but at the end of the day it is written for us and we accept our fate or destiny. This may have been a way of Cheyenne’s character rationalizing the atrocity of the holocaust and the role it played in his fathers life then subsequently his upbringing and present state of depression.

The imagery of this film is so strong on the surface which really contradicts with the rather ambiguous dialogue, and folky emo music. The film is contrasty and saturated, really full of colours and shadows. The stylistic slow motion walking sequences feel very familiar and foreign simultaneously.  Cheyenne’s wife in the film is Frances McDormand (best known for her role of Marge Gunderson in Fargo (1996, Coen Bros.)). Her character, although the wife seemed the masculine energy in her marriage, where Cheyenne wore make-up and painted his nails, was emotional, and was a stereotypically a more feminine embodiment in character. Both Penn and McDormand are such incredibly talented actors with amazing repertoires that their performances in This Must Be The Place were no exception to what audiences have come to expect with their work.

The conclusion of this film was very light hearted, leaving the audience with a good taste in their mouth after some of the more more complex issues dealt with prior.

To view the official trailer please click on link below:

This Must Be The Place Official Trailer

Images courtesy of Weinstein Company USA

Here is the Special Feature Thanks to my dear friend Binzento Vincente:

2012 NEW YEAR Special Feature
Meet Katrina Olson-Mottahed (Calgary, Canada)
Mixed media artist, Film review writer, Binzento Vincente Correspondent
Photography by: Kristin Whiteley

Sincerely,

Miss Representation (2011, USA) is a documentary film about how the American Media misrepresents women. The screening tonight was hosted by the Calgary Sexual Health Centre, and had a spectacular audience turn out. The screening SOLD OUT and had a wait list, in the Globe Cinema downtown Calgary, on a -30*C Wednesday night. (Shocking)

The screening of Miss Representation was 85 minutes followed by a panel discussion and Q&A with the Calgary Sexual Health Centre’s board members, prominent editors and Professor in Gender & Popular Culture from UofC.

The film Miss Representation as a documentary was from the perspective of the Director, Jennifer Siebel Newsom, who is a former actor, new mother of a daughter, questioning the negative portrayal of woman in the media world around her. The opening of this film was a quote (“The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any” –Alice Walker).  The film introduces the narrator with her own voice explaining why she is working on the documentary, she is pregnant with a baby girl, she has begun to reflect on her own struggles in growing up as a woman and how they have impacted the person she has become. There is footage and photos of her as a child, some Tree of Life (2011, Terrence Malick) type imagery with sun gleaming through trees, but for the most part the edits are to dreadful statistics about how woman are affected by eating disorders, rape, depression…etc. Very sad stuff. The film then transitions to a mix of statistical information being addressed by the likes of awesome women, Gloria Steinem, Condoleezza Rice, Rachel Maddow, Katie Couric, Margaret Chow, and Jane Fonda to name a few. Their interviews are edited with more dismal statistics and graphic images in the media of women being subjectified by the male gaze. This documentary focus’ mainly on television media, and because of that seemed a little Michael Moore-ish when the message was being delivered. The musical arrangements (done by a man, Eric Holland) seemed about as sincere and hopeful as a late night infomercial for the Bowflex Treadclimber… the really inspiring, gonna change your life melody.

Miss Representation premiered at Sundance Film Festival, and then was picked by  OWN, the Oprah Winfrey Network. The message in the film is one that is very relivent and important, we need to teach our children about equality, and to be analytical about what we see/hear in the media, we especially need to teach our daughters their worth in society before the media gets to them.

This documentary was very American in how, just like in News Broadcasts like Nancy Grace or Anderson Cooper, it sensationalizes the issue, so the message ends up softer or perhaps not as clearly stated as it needs to be, that being said, it is still an important message that is brought to the forefront to be addressed.

www.missrepresentation.org

Image: Dawn Johnston PhD, Sarah Ivany and Shelley Youngblut

The panel discussion following the film was very straight forward and delivered the message the film more graphically divulged, but by locally successful woman connected to local media and society. The panel consisted of Sarah Ivany, (Managing Editor of Freehand Books, an award-winning literary publishing company based here in Calgary, former board member of the Book Publishers Association of Alberta, teacher of creative writing to teenagers through the Writers Guild of Alberta), Dawn Johnston, (a faculty member in the Department of Communication and Culture at the University of Calgary, holding a PhD in Communication Studies with a specialization in media constructions and representations of queer Studies and Contemporary Queer Cinema), and Shelley Youngblut, (the Globe and Mail’s Western Editor, former editor-in-chief of Swerve magazine, founder of SwerveCalgary.com, winner of the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2009 Western Magazine awards, and mother of twin 11-year-old daughters).

In the panel discussion the message that was clear is that, we as parents, or as woman need to teach children to be media savy, to engage them in a way that isn’t intimidating to them, to ask them questions, model our behavior, dialogue and vocabulary in a way that teaches children to identify what is media and what is the correct way for woman to be represented. We need to teach individuals their value in our society and how we all contribute as a whole. Special thanks to the Calgary Sexual Health Centre for hosting this screening and for the work you do in our city.

Miss Representation will be screening again in Calgary on Sunday February 5, 2012 at 10:30am in the Plaza Theater in Calgary hosted by Church, My Style (for tickets click on the link HERE) I highly recommended buying tickets immediately based on how fast this film SELLS OUT!