Going to the movies is both wonderful entertainment and a window into another culture. It is an opportunity to join filmmakers following their passion and making a change in the world. Powell River Film Festival will show a variety of films that fit this bill.
Warm, spirited and occasionally slathered in goo, Birth Story: Ina May Gaskin and The Farm Midwives is a celebratory tribute to the endangered art of midwifery and Gaskin, its most influential practitioner.
Forty years ago, Gaskin led the charge away from isolated hospital birthing rooms, where husbands were not allowed and forceps deliveries were the norm. With Gaskin as their leader, women taught themselves midwifery from the ground up, and, with their families, founded an entirely communal, agricultural society called The Farm. As word of their social experiment spread, a model of care for women and babies changed a generation’s approach to childbirth.
Today, as nearly one third of all babies born in the United States are delivered via Caesarean section, Gaskin is still fighting to preserve her community’s hard-won knowledge.
With incredible access to the midwives’ archival video collection, directors Sara Lamm and Mary Wigmore not only capture the unique sisterhood at The Farm clinic, from its heyday into the present, but also show childbirth the way most people have never seen it—unadorned, unabashed, and awe-inspiring. Birth Story shows at 10 am on Wednesday, February 20.
Is love ideological? Can it have a practical, global agenda? Velcrow Ripper says yes, and builds a strong case in his stirring documentary, Occupy Love. Focusing on the Occupy movement, Ripper documents political love as a phenomenon of communal action.
This is a film of many voices. Prominent figures such as Judy Rebick, Jeremy Rifkin, bell hooks (Gloria Watkins) and Naomi Klein speak to Ripper, but they’re never differentiated from the mass of unified protesters whose voices are heard both individually and collectively, in the sounds of chants and the sights of collectively carried banners. This radically communal activism has a wonderful paradox: it allows for greater individual power. Thousands deep in parks, at city halls and on the streets, the Occupiers gain strength not only from their numbers but from the mixture of cohesion and diversity. Their agenda is broad but not incoherent, expansive but not contradictory. What the film shows, triumphantly, is that love can unite as much as greed can divide. Occupy Love shows at 7 pm on Friday, February 22.
Director Nisha Pahuja’s timely, provocative and insightful portrait of a country in transition brilliantly captures the choices and conflicts facing young women in India today in The World Before Her.
Pahuja gained access to women and their families living in very different worlds. Young, beautiful and ambitious, Ankita and Rhui are competing in the Miss India pageant for the chance at a career in the beauty industry, one of the few avenues offering freedom from the constraints of a patriarchal society. On the polar opposite end of the spectrum is Durga Vahini, a member of the women’s wing of the Hindu fundamentalist movement, in which young girls undergo physical combat training while learning how to behave as obedient Hindu women. The camp is run by Prachi, a fiery and compelling woman who expresses a unique viewpoint within the debate over contemporary women’s issues.
Intertwining these two radically different narratives, Pahuja highlights the tension between traditional and modern perspectives toward women in present day India. The opportunities afforded these young women are extreme as sources of both oppression and empowerment, resulting in a devastating, moving, and ultimately uplifting film showing at 1 pm on Thursday, February 21.
All films will show at Patricia Theatre. Seating is limited, so organizers suggest purchasing tickets early. People using wheelchairs should call the Patricia 604.483.9345 to reserve space. Dwight Hall, with the Arts Mosaic, live music, community tables and cash bar, will be open from 4:30 pm throughout the week. On Saturday, Dwight Hall will be open all day with a selection of light lunch items for sale. Festival tickets are available online, at Armitage Mens Wear, Breakwater Books and Coffee and the Patricia.
