IT’S ABOUT TO GET WEIRD
Quirky films on tap at DOXA fest
Ken Carter was a man with a dream. Like many of us, he wanted to fly. Unlike many of us, though, his dream of flight involved hurtling over the St. Lawrence River in a rocket-powered Lincoln Continental.
That alone would be enough for a feature-length documentary, but the story gets weirder still. The new film about Carter wasn’t inspired by him as much as it was by a concept album about the Canadian daredevil and his mad dream, written and performed by Vancouver musician Mark Haney.
Confused? You won’t be after seeing John Bolton’s Aim for the Roses, which opens the 15th annual DOXA Documentary Film Festival on May 5.
One of about 100 films included in this year’s festival, Aim for the Roses is part of a program entitled Borders and Boundaries.
Other notable films at this year’s fest include Pistol Shrimps, a lighthearted look at a Los Angeles women’s basketball team from Vancouver director Brent Hodge, who made a splash at the 2014 DOXA with A Brony Tale, about male fans of the animated program My Little Pony.
Another special presentation, League of Exotic Dancers, is a Canadian film about veteran tassel-twirlers and the Burlesque Hall
of Fame. Featured performers include Judith Stein (a.k.a. the Grand Beaver of Canadian Burlesque). The first of two screenings, at the Playhouse May 12, will include a live burlesque performance.
The closing night film is Cameraperson, in which filmmaker Kirsten Johnson looks back on 25 years of documentary-making, including working with Laura Poitras (Citizenfour) and Michael Moore (Fahrenheit 9/11).
Music fans will most likely dig Never Turn Your Back on Sparks, an hour-long documentary about American cult favourite pop band Sparks. The film is paired with pepsi, cola, water, a short about jazz pioneer Sun Ra’s visit to Egypt in 1971.
Mixing music and local content, A Matter of Time follows Victoria singer/songwriter Kathryn Calder and her family after her mother was diagnosed with ALS.
It’s paired with NIMBI, about Vancouver instrumental band Fond of Tigers.
For more local content, look no further than Juan Manuel Sepúlve- da’s The Ballad of Oppenheimer Park, about the park in the heart of the Downtown Eastside.
One of the weirder offerings is Standby For Tape Back-up, in which U.K. spoken word artist Ross Sutherland digs deep for hidden meanings in a VHS tape that belonged to his grandfather — a compilation of clips from British game shows, Ghostbusters and old soccer matches.
Also in the truth-really-is-stranger-than-fiction category, Penny Lane’s Nuts! uses animation and stock footage to tell the story of John R. Brinkley, an American doctor whose unorthodox method of treating impotence (by grafting goat testicles onto existing anatomy) catapulted him to fame in the early part of the 20th century.
Pinball fans might appreciate Wizard Mode, about a pinball champion who is autistic, part of the Rated Y for Youth program.
Other programs at this year’s DOXA include Arab Spring/Arab Fall, Black Life Is, Ain’t and Still Rises, Justice Forum, and, for the second year, French French. The latter features several films by filmmaker Claire Simon, whose Géographie humaine (Human Geography) was a hit at last year’s festival.