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Music Mondays

"For the fans left bereft by his 2012 death, it’s impossible to imagine a more exquisite, honest, and beautifully detailed documentary about the life of Levon Helm than Jacob Hatley’s Ain’t in It for My Health. This film seems as much man as it does movie, capturing the many sides of The Band’s former drummer: his modesty, his humor, his anger about how his group fell apart. And, without getting all gooey, the doc shows how Helm handled the cancer that hovered over his final decade. Finally, this unassuming little flick makes a sham out of drugs-a-go-go melodramatic crap like Walk the Line—maybe because Hatley never forgets he’s making a movie about a goddamn musician. This is one of the most fully rounded, unsentimental portraits of an artist you’ll ever see on film." Peter Gesternzang, Village Voice

Vancity Theatre Screening

The latest from master director Abbas Kiarostami (Certified Copy; Close Up; A Taste of Cherry) is a strange, seductive and beguiling love story set in modern Tokyo. Akiko is a beautiful student who moonlights as a prostitute, unbeknownst to her boyfriend. A liaison with an elderly academic brings all manner of complication to all their lives…

"Every shot — everything you see, and everything you don’t — imparts a disturbing and thrilling sense of discovery." AO Scott, New York Times

"A sly, teasing riff on the heart’s irrational stirrings… You emerge elated and slightly dazed…. But the movie’s sense of immutable desire resonates well after the lights have come up." Scott Foundas, Village Voice

Vancity Theatre Screening

Part Hitchcockian mystery thriller, part quirky new-wave comedy, this free-wheeling Quebecois audience-pleaser riffs on our brave new digitally interconnected world with nimble wit and an underlying seriousness. A coat-check girl follows a misplaced key into a turpid conspiracy and finds romance - and political engagmnent - en route.

"A genre mashup that keeps audiences amused from beginning to end." Boyd van Hoeij, Variety

Vancity Theatre Screening

Left to fend for themselves after their SS officer father and mother, staunch Nazi believers, are interred by the victorious Allies at the end of World War II, five German children undertake a harrowing journey that exposes them to the reality and consequences of their parents’ actions. Led by the eldest sibling, 14-year old Lore (striking newcomer Saskia Rosendahl), they set out on a journey across a devastated country to reach their grandmother in the north.

"A lyrical, deeply affecting study into a rarely seen legacy of the Holocaust." - Megan Lehmann, The Hollywood Reporter

"Intense and emotional. Saskia Rosendahl is mesmerizing." - Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times

"Shortland’s brilliant new film is an unsettling coming-of-age story that renders its judgement on Germany’s crimes and strange aftermath of the war." - George Robinson, The Jewish Week