Editor’s note: Christine Phang, the author of this article, has also responded to attacks on the film by BBC critic Nick Fraser. Indonesia’s history as an independent state has been a relatively short one. The authoritarian issues the country has faced, however, have played a large role in affecting several
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Art Threat: Mars at Sunrise is a Cinematic Tone Poem
In times of stress we turn to torn fragments of ourselves and worship them as if they were whole nations (From Mars at Sunrise). Mars at Sunrise (2014) is director Jessica Habie’s first feature. Billed as “A story of a war waged on imagination,” the film tells the story of Khaled,
Continue readingArt Threat: Contest: Win swag from Rhymes for Young Ghouls!
Rhymes for Young Ghouls, the debut feature film by Canadian director Jeff Barnaby that garnered well-deserved praise on the film festival circuit this year, including a top ten film nod from TIFF, is opening this month at theatres in Canada’s three largest cities. The movie is currently screening in Toronto
Continue readingArt Threat: Pinko cyclists rejoice: Rob Ford film on the way
It was inevitable: a Rob Ford movie is coming soon to a theatre near you. Just one week after the book release of Crazy Town: The Rob Ford Story, by Toronto Star journalist Robyn Doolittle, Canadian production company Blue Ice Pictures have snapped up the film and television rights to
Continue readingArt Threat: The Act of Killing: Liberal Porn or Daring Activism?
The Act of Killing (Joshua Oppenheimer, Anonymous, Christine Cynn, 2013) is a documentary about Indonesia’s anti-communist purges of 1965 that thankfully abandons the traditional interview format in favour of something daring and controversial. As requested by victims’ families, Oppenheimer — who has been working inside Indonesia making social justice-related media for over a
Continue readingArt Threat: Gender Mender: XXY is a cinematic exploration of intersexuality
From a purely organizational standpoint, there are plenty of reasons for the gender binary. The system delineates male and female characteristics as separate and static, ostensibly facilitating a natural and sustainable social order. It readily assigns roles and packages gender identity. It is convenient – when it works. The problem
Continue readingArt Threat: Remembering documentary film legend Peter Wintonick
You want to bring them back. Would they, if they could, return, after such a heavy crossing? You try, until the wish, almost disattached, gnawing, growling, finally bursts loose to call them. It’s difficult to write about our dear friend Peter Wintonick, who passed away less than one week ago
Continue readingArt Threat: Children 404: help fund a film exposing Russia’s crackdown on LGBTQ youth
In the Fall of 2013 a Russian documentary filmmaker contacted numerous LGBTQ activists and filmmakers in Canada and the United States with whom they had worked with in previous years to screen their films. The message they sent was a request to help fund a film that they believe desperately
Continue readingArt Threat: Video: Max Haiven on The Debt of Creativity
Activist and art professor Max Haiven recently delivered a TED talk at TEDxNovaScotia titled “>The Debt of Creativity, in which he elaborates on the ideas he discussed in his essay Privatizing Creativity. It’s worth 15 minutes of your time to tune in. Image: A Debtors’ Prison — William Hogarth.
Continue readingArt Threat: The Foodies vs. Miracle-Gro: bad advertising only perverted tomato squeezers could love
Advertising can be an annoying, all-intrusive, manipulative way to hock a bunch of crap we don’t need, or it can be an entertaining and necessary cog in the wheel of any business. The most effective ads are the most honest ones (which are also the least greasy). After all, an
Continue readingArt Threat: Game of Thrones and Racist Fantasy
Aamer Rahman has recently caused quite a stir among Game of Thrones fandom with his Tumblr post about the shows very problematic representation of race, most notably that hideous last episode of season three. Rahman’s original Tumblr post and his response to the massive backlash from fans has been reposted
Continue readingArt Threat: Friday Film Pick: Things are Different Now
Ryan Conrad recently pulled his film from the Frameline San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival because the festival, despite a robust budget and years of protest from filmmakers, audiences and activists, continues to accept money from the Israeli consulate. Conrad joins a growing list of artists who are taking a stand in
Continue readingArt Threat: Friday Film Pick: Blockadia Rising: Voices of the Tar Sands Blockade
This week’s FFP is a new one-hour documentary by Garrett Graham (in collaboration with the Tar Sands Blockade) about the direct action efforts of activists in Texas, who try to stop construction of the planned Alberta tar sands pipeline. There is some seriously heavy-handed narration at the beginning, but if
Continue readingArt Threat: Democracy on Trial: The Morgentaler Affair
Abortion-rights activist and pioneer Dr. Henry Morgentaler died Wednesday of a heart attack. Appropriately, our Friday Film Pick is Democracy on Trial, a 1984 NFB documentary by Paul Cowen in which Morgantaler’s historic legal battle over abortion in the 1970s is unraveled and explored using a combination of archival footage,
Continue readingArt Threat: We will stop Monsanto: Docs on an agribully
Today in over 250 countries worldwide, thousands of people marched against agricorpo giant Monsanto. The St Louis based chemical company is known for genetically modifying crops and trapping farmers into cycles of chemical use that profit Monsanto and harm everyone and everything else. They’re also known for many other terrible
Continue readingArt Threat: Tree-sitting among giants
This week’s Friday Film Pick is the Vimeo staff pick and festival favourite short film Among Giants. Image-rich and information-light, it’s a lovely meditation on activists putting the environment before their own personal safety and one imagines sanity (given some tree-sitters stayed three years).
Continue readingArt Threat: Crack smoking Toronto Mayor animation
If this isn’t the strangest and most awesome video you’ll watch today, then you are watching some pretty strange and awesome stuff. Tawainese animators have taken on the story of Toronto mayor’s crack-smoking with the speed of, well you guessed it.
Continue readingArt Threat: Gay South Korean film director causes stir in Seoul with wedding announcement
Openly gay South Korean film director Kim Jho Gwang-soo announced he will symbolically marry his partner in a ceremony designed to both celebrate their love and make a statement on LGBTQ rights in the conservative country. “We wanted to convey the message that all sexual minorities should be given rights
Continue readingArt Threat: Disney abandons efforts to trademark Day of the Dead
Thanks to a wave of online backlash, Disney is withdrawing its application to trademark the term Dia de los Muertos — otherwise known as the traditional Mexican Day of the Dead holiday. The trademark filing was done in advance of an upcoming animated film release by Disney-owned Pixar based on
Continue readingArt Threat: Show us your moxy
The newest agit-POP video from the folks at the Albino Squirrel Vimeo Channel asks Morgan Freeman and CBC Radio host Jian Ghomeshi to stand with Palestinians and consider cancelling an event set to take place in a few days.
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