Spring 2023 Season – Sunday nights, 7 p.m. (arrive by 6:50) Admission by donation.

Support Gabriola by coming to the Community Hall, Gabriola, BC, Canada.  Admission is by donation (give what you can), the proceeds go to the the Community Hall and the Commons, and your support is greatly appreciated. There are no longer any Covid protocols, but you’re welcome to wear a mask. Here’s the lineup. To find…

After the Wedding

After the Wedding – Denmark – 2007 – Drama – 115 min. Director, Susanne Bier. Jacob (Mads Mikkelsen) saves street children in India. Just when the orphanage he leads may run out of funds, he receives an interesting offer. A businessman (Rolf Lassgard) will give him $4 million — with the condition that Jacob must…

Honeydripper

Honeydripper 2007, USA. 124 min. Musical Drama. Directed by John Sayles, “a maverick filmmaker who has done more to showcase America, its pros and cons, and diversity than any other filmmaker alive.” Stax IGN Movies The story of a Black community in Jim Crow Alabama, 1950. Faced with mounting debts and stiff competition from a…

Ten Canoes

Ten Canoes – 2006 – Australia – Drama/Comedy – 91 min. Director Rolf de Heer. Ten Canoes combines adventure, comedy, and anthropology to explore an Aborigine folk tale both fallibly human and legendary. It is the first ever movie entirely filmed in Australian Aboriginal languages. The film is partly in colour and partly in black…

A Good Woman

A Good Woman – English/Italian – 2004 – Comedy/Romance – 92 min. Director Mike Barker. The screenplay by Howard Himelstein is loosely based on the 1892 play Lady Windermere’s Fan by Oscar Wilde. Critics have not been kind to this film, and I understand why. Those who are a fan or scholar of Oscar Wilde’s…

Woman at War

Woman at War – Iceland – 2019 – Drama/Comedy – 101 min. Director, Benedikt Erlingsson. Halla is a 50-year-old environmental activist who crusades against the local aluminum industry in Iceland. There are wonderful twists and surprises along the way, none of which I will spoil here. Suffice it to say, Woman at War had me…

Acasă, My Home

Acasă, My Home – Romania – 2020 – Documentary – 86 min. Director, Radu Ciorniciuc. For centuries the Roma (formerly called Gypsies) of Romania have lived their own lives, refusing to adapt to ‘progress’. Although often stigmatized, even persecuted, the current Romanian government has adopted a more ‘enlightened’ approach to resettling Roma who live in…

Enlightenment Guaranteed

Enlightenment Guaranteed – Germany/Japan – 2001 – Comedy – 108 min. Director, Dorris Dörrie. Two brothers want to get their screwed-up lives together by going to Japan for a retreat in a Zen monastery. En route, their midlife crisis turns into a midnight crisis when they get lost in Tokyo’s neon jungle and can’t find…

Almost Famous

Almost Famous – USA – 2000 – Drama/Music – 122 min. Director, Cameron Crowe. Almost Famous is the mostly-true story of a fictional rock band. Cameron Crowe wrote and directed this memoir of his you-wouldn’t-believe-it-if-it-wasn’t-true first career as a mid-teenage aspiring writer who lucks into an assignment with Rolling Stone magazine. He agrees to cover…

Water

Water – India – English subtitles – 2006 – Drama – 115 min. Director, Deepa Mehta. The year is 1938, and Mahatma Gandhi’s groundbreaking philosophies are sweeping across India, but 8-year-old Chuyia (Sarala), newly widowed, must go to live with other outcast widows on an ashram. Her presence transforms the ashram as she befriends two…

Fire

Fire, India – English subtitles – Drama – 1996 – 108 min. Director, Deepa Mehta. Banned in India, Fire is the first film to confront lesbianism in a culture adamantly denying such a love could ever exist. “Sita (Nandita Das) and Radha (Shabana Azmi) are two Indian women stuck in loveless marriages. While Sita is…