Tue, Jan 23, 11:30am	Park City Library Center	$8.00

Native Program I - Rocks at Whiskey Trench

From veteran documentary filmmaker Alanis Obomsawin comes Rocks at Whiskey Trench, a powerful and truthful story told from within the heart of an aboriginal community in northeastern Canada. Kahnawake, a Mohawk community with a three-hundred-year history of struggle, faces the threat of a proposed golf course on sacred land. When police and military officials move into the area, Mohawk men and women rise to the occasion and confront encroachment with a barricade of history and will. When the community is forced to evacuate children and elders because they fear for their safety, they are stoned barbarically by white townspeople on the other side of Montreal's Mercier Bridge. The film evokes sadness and outrage as it demonstrates the realities that continue to be faced by Native communities and the racism that still exists in our world today. Rocks at Whiskey Trench is Obomsawin's fourth film documenting the Mohawk struggles at Oka in the early 1990s. In 1993, Kanehsatake: 270 Years of Resistance rocked the world's human rights conscience and took the international film community by storm. In 1999, Obomsawin returned to Sundance with Spudwrench: Kahnawake Man telling the story of a Mohawk resister and the legacy of Mohawk steelworkers. Rocks at Whiskey Trench is a genuine example of Obomsawin's continually poignant and uncompromising filmmaking. - Heather Rae

With:

Abandoned Houses on the Reservation
Canada, 2000, 2 min., Color (Sony HD Cam)
Directed By: Darlene Naponse

In this experimental short film that explores issues of domestic violence within Native communities, filmmaker Darlene Naponse combines images and ideas poetically to liberate the pain and burden carried by the abused.

Tue, Jan 23, 2:00pm	Eccles Theatre	$8.00

Green Dragon

It should not be surprising that another superb melodrama has been created by the Bui brothers, in this case, written and directed by Timothy Linh Bui. (His brother Tony, who wrote and directed the Grand Jury Award-winning Three Seasons, produced and cowrote the story for this film.) It really is too much to expect that the spectacular craft, striking storytelling, and intense emotion generated by their first work could be repeated. However, it's a pleasure to confirm it has been, although this does not suggest that the two films are similar or in any way derivative of each other. What they share is a unique aesthetic, one that evokes a nostalgic beauty and reaffirms an incredibly lush and vivid visual sensibility. These qualities carry their storytelling into a magical realm. Green Dragon tells the tale of the first wave of Vietnamese refugees who were housed in camps across the southwestern deserts of the United States in 1975. It is really an amalgamation of different stories: of children watching and waiting for their mother to join them; of a camp cook, who paints in his spare time and befriends one young boy; of an ex-translator for the army, who, because of his bilingual skills, assumes a leadership role while he yearns for a lost love; and of the staff sergeant who rules over the camp, speaking through bullhorns and learning about humanity. With restraint and an artist's touch, Timothy Bui speaks volumes with silence and images. He has created memories that perhaps once were his own but will now remain with everyone who sees this film. - Geoffrey Gilmore

Tue, Jan 23, 7:00pm	Tower Theatre	$7.00

The Apollo XI moon landing was a triumph for more than just NASA. This gentle-hearted, entertaining comedy reveals how one small Australian town and its team of oddball technicians played a little-known but intrinsic part. Destined to become the feel-good hit of the Film Festival, The Dish was conceived, written, and produced by the team behind 1998's infectious comedy The Castle and contains all of its predecessor's homespun charm, invention, and humor. Featuring superb storytelling and comedic timing, The Dish is a warm and toasty treat. Utterly devoid of affectation, it manages to capture the innocent awe and excitement that accompanied that momentous occasion. On July 20, 1969, six hundred million people sat glued to their televisions for man's first steps on the moon. It is an image permanently ingrained in our collective consciousness, but one that almost didn't make it to the airwaves. Based on true-life events, The Dish is a waggish homage to the small-town heroes responsible for a historically almost calamitous blunder. Outside the small, sleepy town of Parkes, a team of laid-back astro-technicians led by project director Cliff Buxton (Sam Neill of The Piano) and NASA agent Al Burnett (Patrick Warburton of Seinfield) ready the Southern Hemisphere's largest satellite dish to transmit the historic broadcast. But amidst a swirling media frenzy and overly effusive civic pride, things start to go awry; the team has lost the signal and must scramble to find the astronauts before NASA discovers their grievous error.. And you thought Sydney 2000 was the first time we showed the world! - Rebecca Yeldham