Salt Spring Film Festival Presents The Grizzlie Truth
February 8, 2023 @ 7:30 pm at ArtSpring
You don’t have to be a basketball fan to enjoy this wildly entertaining investigation into why the Vancouver Grizzlies left Canada over 20 years ago. To die-hard fans, the team’s abrupt move to Memphis in 2001 is much more than a sore spot – it’s an unsolved mystery and a possible criminal conspiracy.
What begins as a superfan’s dogged determination to uncover the reasons behind her ill-fated hometown team’s puzzling disappearance becomes a love letter to the worst professional sports franchise in history and an exploration of the deep roots of fandom. The Grizzlies were more than just an NBA team – they taught an entire community to dream big and to persevere against the odds.
A huge hit at the Vancouver International Film Festival, this compelling true crime story seamlessly blends comedy with the filmmaker’s quixotic quest for truth and redemption, exploring the powerful connection fans have with their hometown teams, win or lose.
With filmmaker Kat Jayme in attendance.
Salt Spring Film Festival Presents The Blue Caftan
February 1, 2023 @ 7:30 pm at ArtSpring
A middle-aged master tailor and his devoted wife find their relationship turned upside down by the arrival of a handsome new apprentice in this richly erotic and deeply moving Moroccan film, which has won multiple awards around the world, including Audience Awards at the Vancouver & Athens International Film Festivals, and which has been shortlisted for the Oscar for Best International Feature Film.
Halim & Mina run a traditional caftan store in one of Morocco’s oldest medinas. In order to keep up with the demands of their customers, they hire Youssef, a talented young man who shows an utmost dedication in learning the art of embroidery and tailoring from his perfectionist employer.
Slowly Mina realizes how much her husband is affected by the presence of the young man, and she begins to suspect that their relationship may involve more than the sharing of traditional craftsmanship. What lies ahead in this triangle of adoration will break all three of them open in unexpected ways.
Salt Spring Film Festival Presents Call Jane
January 25, 2023 @ 7:30 pm at ArtSpring
In the best role of her career, Elizabeth Banks portrays Joy, a conservative housewife in 1968 Chicago, whose second pregnancy leads to a devastating diagnosis.
Following an all-male hospital board’s inexplicable decision to deny her a necessary procedure, Joy’s desperate search for a solution leads her to a clandestine group of women know as The Janes, who run an underground network helping women terminate unwanted pregnancies at a time in America when abortion is in most cases illegal.
Inspired by the compassion and commitment of this diverse group of women, Joy risks everything to provide other women with the reproductive options she herself had been denied.
This surprisingly entertaining drama about a very serious subject was nominated for Best Film at the Berlin International Film Festival. For her role as Virginia, the leader of The Janes, Sigourney Weaver won Best Supporting Actress at the Beijing International Film Festival where the film was nominated for Best Film.
Salt Spring Film Festival Presents Buffy Sainte-Marie: Carry It On
December 7, 2022 @ 7:30 pm
Named “Best New Artist” the year the Beatles came to America, Buffy Sainte-Marie defied the odds by flourishing despite a childhood of dislocation & abuse. This inspiring look at her groundbreaking career was met with wide acclaim when it premiered at the recent Toronto International Film Festival.
Directed by Madison Thomas and co-written by Andrea Warner, author of the 2018 authorized biography, this intimate retrospective of Buffy’s personal journey includes rare archival material and interviews with Joni Mitchell, Alanis Obomsawin, Jackson Browne & Robbie Robertson.
Blacklisted by both the Johnson & Nixon Administrations, Buffy spoke truth to power while changing perceptions of Indigenous people in music, film & television. Her natural musical ability protected her spirit and propelled her from her birthplace on a Saskatchewan reserve to international concert halls and the Oscars.
“Sometimes,” says Buffy, “you have to carry the medicine a while before people are ready for it.”
Salt Spring Film Festival Presents Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, A Journey, A Song
November 23, 2022 @ 7:30 pm – 9:30 pm
Seen through the prism of Leonard Cohen’s internationally renowned hymn, this must-see documentary weaves together three strands: the songwriter and his times; the song’s dramatic journey from record label reject to chart-topping hit; and moving testimonies from major recording artists for whom Hallelujah has become a personal touchstone.
Inspired by Alan Light’s 2012 book, award-winning documentarians Dan Geller & Dayna Goldfine access a wealth of never-before-seen archival materials from the Cohen Trust, including personal notebooks, journals & photographs, performance footage and rare audio recordings.
Featuring interviews with Bob Dylan, Judy Collins, Clive Davis, Brandi Carlile, Eric Church, Regina Spektor & Rufus Wainwright, Hallelujah gives voice to the deepest questions about faith, belief, skepticism and the psychological and religious constructs that serve to both support & obstruct us throughout our lives — or as Leonard Cohen would call it, “the broken Hallelujah.”