Friday, October 20, 2023

"Hollywood strikes aren’t putting a damper on fall film festivals"/ "Local businesses preparing for 'more mellow' TIFF as Hollywood strikes continue"

Aug. 30, 2023 "Hollywood strikes aren’t putting a damper on fall film festivals": Today I found this article by Sandra Mergulhao, Stephanie Hughes and Divya Balji, on BNN Bloomberg:


A walkout by superstars Matt Damon and Emily Blunt from the glittering London premiere of Oppenheimer marked the opening shot of Hollywood’s actors strike — crystallizing the image of red carpets drained of glamour.

Yet less than two months after that mid-July show of defiance, and with no resolution to the strike on the horizon, Hollywood luminaries could still light up the premieres at the Toronto International Film Festival next week.

It’s not a revolt against the Screen Actors Guild — which bars actors from doing publicity for their films, even if unreleased, while the strike is underway. Some stars may show up in their capacity as a director or producer, rather than as an actor. 

Ethan Hawke, Sean Penn, Dakota Johnson and Viggo Mortensen are expected to attend in Toronto, following the rules of the so-called interim agreements, which allow guild members making independent films to continue to work on them under certain conditions.

The twin strikes by Hollywood writers and actors are making it harder for studios to promote their pictures, but major film festivals are soldiering on. The Venice International Film Festival kicks off Wednesday without its planned opener, Challengers, an Amazon.com Inc. tennis drama starring Zendaya. But 23 other pictures will be competing for the festival’s grand prize. The Telluride Film Festival, normally a more low-key affair, starts Thursday in the Colorado mountain town of the same name.

Cameron Bailey, chief executive officer of the Toronto festival, expects a good turnout for his event, which begins Sept. 7. It will feature foreign films, including an opening night gala for Japanese director Hayao Miyazaki’s latest animated picture The Boy and the Heron.

It will also host the world premiere of Dumb Money, about the 2021 battle between hedge funds and small investors in GameStop Corp. shares.

“The direct impact on the festival is certainly smaller than people might have been fearing,” Bailey said in an interview.

Film festivals are a crucial promotional tool for Hollywood studios. The screenings build buzz in advance of theatrical debuts and awards ceremonies. 

Films screened in Toronto that went on to win best picture at the Academy Awards include The King’s Speech and Green Book.

The festivals seemed like they might have ended up on the cutting room floor after the Screen Actors Guild walked out last month. The actors joined the Writers Guild of America, which has been on strike since May over issues including pay and compensation from streaming services. 

A number of big studios, including Walt Disney Co. and Warner Bros. Discovery Inc., have delayed films because of the strikes. 

TV’s Emmy Awards, originally scheduled for September, was postponed until January in hope that stars will be able to attend. 

Other big film festivals, including Sundance, Berlin and Cannes, are scheduled for next year and may see the strikes settled by then.

The Toronto festival’s management “never for a moment” considered canceling or postponing but instead chose to tweak their plans to minimize impact from the strikes, Bailey said.

Only 15 per cent of the 261 films in the Toronto lineup are covered by contracts with the two striking U.S. unions, according to Bailey. 

The majority are international films — roughly 70 per cent coming from outside of North America.

The actors guild has been allowing members who worked on independent films to promote their pictures if the producers agree to accept the terms the union is seeking in its contract talks with the big studios. 

These interim agreements, which now involve more than 300 films, are controversial. Some stars, like actress Sarah Silverman, said they make it seem like all members of the union aren’t participating in the strike. The guild has said the agreements prove to the big studios that working under their proposed contract terms is possible.

One result of the pandemic has been that several actors had time to pursue passion projects — creating or directing independent films — which they are now bringing to the festival and will be allowed to promote.

Bailey has been on the phone with some of the performers who are also directing this year and they have committed to show up. They will, he said, work within the guidelines of the guild while attending festivals.  

“I think audiences can certainly expect these directors to be there,” Bailey said.

Movie lovers hoping to see a surfeit of celebrities signing autographs on the red carpet may be disappointed, however.

“Those fans who only come to see the stars will not be seeing the same number,” he said. 

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/hollywood-strikes-aren-t-putting-a-damper-on-fall-film-festivals-1.1965095


Sept. 5, 2023 "Local businesses preparing for 'more mellow' TIFF as Hollywood strikes continue": Today I found this article by Tara Deschamps on BNN Bloomberg:


When the Toronto International Film Festival rolls around each year, few people are as busy as Charles Khabouth.

The nightlife impresario owns the Bisha Hotel and more than a dozen restaurants and clubs where the likes of Margot Robbie, George Clooney, Matt Damon and Javier Bardem have reportedly sipped wine, rubbed elbows or partied in recent years.

Khabouth is still expecting a buzz around his venues this year but knows this TIFF will be "more mellow" than those in the past.

"It might not be a 10, it will be an eight, but it'll still be great," the entertainment kingpin said a week before the 11-day festival's Sept. 7 kickoff.

The tempered expectations have come from twin Hollywood strikes that have halted film and television productions and scuttled press junkets, red carpets and star powered-premieres as the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists and the Writers Guild of America hit the picket lines over the spring and summer.

With TIFF mum on how many celebrities could grace its red carpets — the festival has yet to release a guest list — and refusing to share projected attendance and media accreditation numbers until after the festival, a sense of uncertainty is looming large.

Local restaurants, hotels, limo and security companies are unsure whether their businesses will see their usual high demand come the event.

Many expect a good turnout from foreign and Canadian stars falling outside the strike rules but are bracing for smaller crowds as Hollywood hitmakers stay home.

"We still have to be ready (even though) we're still unsure to this date the amount of A-listers coming," said Khabouth.

The federal government said last year that the festival typically brings more than 700,000 visitors to Toronto and accounts for more than $114 million in economic activity in the region.

Local businesses, including Milagro, routinely consider it their craziest period all year.

"We book our restaurant and staff and do all of our preparations...as if it were a Saturday night for two whole weeks," said Arturo Anhalt, founder of the Mexican joint located just off the King Street West strip TIFF plans to close down for community organization groups and performances from Canadian rockers Nickelback, among others. 

"We even post memos inside the restaurant saying please don't take time off. These are the two busiest weeks of the year."

Anhalt is already seeing signs that attendance will be down because reservations and party bookings haven't flooded in at their usual pace.

"We do have some events happening, but the emails were not as intense as in past years," he said.

"A lot of people will not be pulled to these types of events just because (the actors) are not there."


Katherine Johannson, the director of events, sales and partnerships at Forthspace Hospitality Group, is similarly predicting “it is going to be a little bit of a different TIFF this year." 

The company's two restaurants, Coffee Oysters Champagne across from Roy Thomson Hall and Marked by the Scotiabank Theatre, already have reservations for parties celebrating German and Canadian films, intimate directors' dinners and a return visit from a large Australian group. 

"But obviously amid the strike, we lost a lot of the American big groups coming in," she said.

The hospitality business’s largest booking this TIFF is for 230 guests, down from the 500-person parties it hosted last year.

"There's still a lot in the books, which I'm happy to see, but maybe not on the biggest scale,” Johannson said.

Around the corner from Marked, Petros82 was preparing to be booked solid for the first six days of TIFF and then host a heavy rotation of parties linked to foreign films over the remainder of the event. 

Erin Breckbill, vice-president of sales and marketing for Peter & Paul’s Hospitality Group, attributed the Greek restaurant's forthcoming busyness to her company being one of TIFF's official hospitality partners and the host of RBC House, a top party spot the festival's lead sponsor hosts annually. 

The bank's plan for the space includes a DJ set from basketball star Shaquille O'Neal, an L.A. Times photo and video studio and a conversation with "Rustin" film director George C. Wolfe.

While Breckbill acknowledged not every restaurant will be as busy as they were in a non-strike year, she said TIFF had recently shared with hospitality partners some names of A-listers headed to town that had her business feeling "very good."

"Last week, it was very touch and go and we were concerned but the organization's really rallied behind the local restaurants and vendors and the hospitality partners and they really are doing an excellent job," she said.

"The last few days, we've seen tremendous pickup, so we're very hopeful that TIFF will be as exciting as last year."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 4, 2023.

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/local-businesses-preparing-for-more-mellow-tiff-as-hollywood-strikes-continue-1.1967207


"Hollywood strikes bring uncertainty to local businesses as Toronto film festival nears"/ "Canadian cinemas brace for film release slowdown as Hollywood strikes continue"

Jul. 14, 2023 "Hollywood strikes bring uncertainty to local businesses as Toronto film festival nears": Today I found this article on the Financial Post:


Toronto’s local business community is worried a pair of strikes impacting U.S. entertainment workers could put a damper on the city’s forthcoming film festival.

They fear a strike by the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists workers who walked off the job at midnight July 13 could stretch into the Toronto International Film Festival in September.

When the SAG workers joined the Writers Guild of America on the picket line, it halted scores of international productions and immediately stopped the promotional work actors carry out for already completed films.

Julie Kwiecinski of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business says the strike’s continuation would leave many Toronto businesses without the annual lift the festival provides.

She says even if TIFF goes on, without stars walking red carpets, the impacts on their revenue would be tremendous.

While front of house manager Julius Chapple says Rodney’s Oyster House doesn’t get much business from TIFF, he says its neighbours stand to be impacted by the strike because they benefit from their celebrity visitors all year.

https://financialpost.com/news/economy/hollywood-strikes-bring-uncertainty-tiff-nears


Jul. 18, 2023 "Canadian cinemas brace for film release slowdown as Hollywood strikes continue": Today I found this article by Tara Deschamps on BNN Bloomberg:

Canadian movie theatre owners say they're nervously watching for developments in dual Hollywood strikes and plan to show more classics, cult favourites and live events if the labour disruptions stretch on.

The owners are expecting striking stars represented by the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, and talent backed by the Writers Guild of America, to be on the picket lines for months as they seek better wages and protections from artificial intelligence.

The strikes, which immediately stopped the production and promotion of films and television shows, stand to slow down the flow of content as studios and distributors run out of movies completed before the strike to release.

"I am absolutely petrified about it," said Jeff Knoll, chief executive of Film.ca Cinemas, an Oakville, Ont. theatre.

"We barely survived the pandemic...and we are quite nervous about what the future is going to hold with all that's going on in Hollywood right now."


This week alone, Knoll's theatre has scheduled screenings of "Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One" and "Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny," along with the hotly-anticipated "Barbie" and "Oppenheimer."

Knoll, however, fears that flow of Hollywood fare moviegoers have waited months, if not years, to see could ease up soon.

"There's no question that if the strike drags out, (studios) are going to have to either start spreading out their content or simply postponing it until a point in the future when they anticipate the strike will be over," he said.

Even if they don't switch up their release schedules, Knoll thinks theatres will be hit hard by a lack of promotion around films. 

The strikes are preventing stars from walking red carpets, participating in press junkets and interviews and taping new marketing materials.

The cast of "Oppenheimer," for example, walked out of their premiere in solidarity with striking workers last week, while Disney sent Mickey and Minnie Mouse, Maleficent and Cruella de Vil down the "Haunted Mansion" red carpet in lieu of stars Tiffany Haddish, Danny DeVito and Rosario Dawson over the weekend.

Knoll also suspects "Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One" had a rough ride at the box office because of the strikes.

"It didn't perform the way it was supposed to perform over the weekend and it could very well be because there wasn't as much publicity with the stars, particularly Tom Cruise, leading up to opening day."

If films do slow down, Knoll said he will toy with bringing in more Canadian fare and movies from parts of the globe not as impacted by the strike. Bollywood films and screenings of hits like "Harry Potter" could also factor into Film.ca's schedule.

Corinne Lea, the chief executive of the Rio Theatre in Vancouver, also plans to get crafty with programming, but said it's nothing new for indie theatres.

Before the strikes, the Rio had to wait between three and six months to screen some films Cineplex, the country's biggest cinema chain, had for months.


As a result, the Rio often screened new films months after they were released and relied on a rotation of previously released fare, burlesque and drag shows and Canadian hits.

Its July calendar shows "Star Wars" screenings, a "Grease" singalong and Jean-Luc Godard’s 1965 New Wave drama “Pierrot le Fou.” Hundreds of people show up to its classic screenings of hits like "the Rocky Horror Picture Show," Lea added.

"We're used to not being able to get current content," she said.

"This strike is going to hurt Cineplex actually more than it'll hurt us because all the theatres that actually rely on current content are the ones that are going to have a problem. 

But because we've been denied access to it for so long, we've become these like creative shape shifters.""

In May, when the 11,5000 film and television writers represented by the Writers Guild of America walked off the job, Cineplex chief executive Ellis Jacob didn't expect the strike to have a material impact on its business.

Network TV and streamers, whose content is completed shortly before it is released, tend to feel the brunt of such strikes, not theatres, he reasoned.

"I always say to people yes, it will impact us, but it'll take a long time to impact us," Jacob later told The Canadian Press in an interview.

"We're talking three years from now because a lot of the movies are already in process of being produced."

In an email, a Cineplex spokesperson said, "Like everyone in the industry, we hope that SAG-AFTRA and the WGA can come to a quick resolution with the AMPTP."

As for Knoll and Lea, they are anxiously awaiting any new developments in the strike.

"It's definitely one that we're all keeping an eye on," Lea said. 

"I think everyone is nervous."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 18, 2023.

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/canadian-cinemas-brace-for-film-release-slowdown-as-hollywood-strikes-continue-1.1947211

Friday, October 13, 2023

"Edmonton filmmakers screen harrowing organ transplant documentary" ("Memento Mori")/ "The stories they tell" ("The Stairs")

Nov.  9, 2016 "Edmonton filmmakers screen harrowing organ transplant documentary": Today I found this article by Fish Griwosky in the Edmonton Journal:

  
Edmonton filmmaker-anthropologist Niobe Thompson has sprinted faraway deserts, hung off a cliff to scoop seabird eggs and learned to hold his breath underwater like an elephant seal.

But after spending the last year inside the University of Alberta’s Transplant Institute directing footage for not one but two separate documentaries, the Cambridge-educated scientist is awestruck.

“I think of transplant science as one of the great scientific miracles of modern times,” he says, sitting beside producer Rosvita Dransfeld at her 104 Street office. “It’s like putting a human on the moon or growing a baby in a test tube. It’s given us the power to bend the rules of life.”

Feature-length documentary Memento Mori — a reminder in Latin that we all must die — premières Thursday Nov. 10 at 7 p.m. at Garneau Theatre. 

Dransfeld underlines her curiosity: “I’m fascinated by the ability to extend lives, and to give death new meaning.”

Organ transplant science “creates a whole new moral problem for us,” says Thompson. 

“As much as this is a documentary about people who need organs, and about the fascinating techniques, really it’s about what we’re prepared to do as members of a community where we trade organs back and forth.”

Appropriately enough, the year’s worth of footage was dual-purposed to create The Nature of Things — Vital Bonds. The TV hour is an entirely different edit from Memento Mori. Narrated by David Suzuki, it’s focused on current science and the future trajectory of organ transplanting. It runs Thursday, Nov. 17 at 8 p.m. on CBC.

Both are overwhelmingly Edmonton stories, including several of the families, surgeons and settings.

CBC and the National Film Board work together less often than you might imagine; these films make the case it should happen more. This also marks the first collaboration between Thompson and Dransfeld, longtime friends as well as two of the most notable Edmonton filmmakers.

In the footage, several characters emerge in the real-life drama of life, death and second chances.


In one scene, two surgeons perform a liver transplant as Dr. James Shapiro reveals he helped with a successful liver transplant on his adjacent assistant — when the younger doctor was a 12-year-old. Meanwhile, a two-week-old baby girl awaits a new heart, flown in a cooler from thousands of kilometres away.

Then there’s 28-year-old athlete Matthew, who suffered cardiac arrest in the midst of a tattoo session — lack of oxygen for too long damaging his brain. Remarkably, his kin allowed cameras to roll the entire time as they hoped and prayed he would recover — a family at its most vulnerable. And we’re in the room as they’re given devastating news. 

What’s shown is harrowing, heartbreaking. The filmmakers are intentionally supplying packets of tissue at the screening, which will be attended by many of the documentary subjects, including Matthew’s family. Afterwards, there will be a Q&A with the filmmakers.

The two agree they made the work to inspire empathy. “We needed a film,” says Thompson, “that really showed us what it was like to be dying for want of an organ, but also to have someone you love die in front of you, and to make that decision to donate.”

Dransfeld earlier made a film about dialysis at U of A hospital, where she encountered the “dire situation” surrounding organ donation.

She considered herself corrupted in a certain sense, having opinions and potentially knowing too much to have that fresh spark of curiosity — and so hired Thompson to direct. It was a challenging step away from his usual scripted TV films, and both laugh about having Alpha personalities.


“But because of his talent and sensitivity,” explains Dransfeld, “I thought he would be the right person to do this.”

Dransfeld’s films are internationally recognized, her veritĂ© style the force behind 

Edmonton sex-trade worker documentary Who Cares, 

The Dogwalker 

and Broke, about a pawnshop in a sputtering Alberta economy.


Thompson, meanwhile, is renowned for his first-person journeys through evolutionary history, including The Perfect Runner and the jaw-dropping The Great Human Odyssey.

The new films take the best of both of their talents, Thompson stepping back and letting the captured footage do the talking, yet guiding the story with his academic understanding. 

He was looking for certain stories, and laughs “at my own arrogance” when things didn’t turn out as planned — one subject defying odds and surviving, for example.

Overall, explains Dransfeld, the crew tried to be invisible. “We did something I call low-impact filming. You’re just a fly on the wall. They never ask somebody to do something again, no extra lighting. They used sign language. It’s important for the teams to never be intrusive. You get this to a point people don’t even notice anymore the crew’s around.”

The camera and sound people were terrified of accidentally doing something that might endanger the procedures. But they handled queasiness because, Thompson notes, “they had a job to do.” Sometimes for more than 10 hours in surgery.

It should be noted, and Thompson does, “for a film about organ transplants there’s very little actual gore.”

“We had to be careful about what we showed,” he said.

We do see a damaged liver, a baby’s beating heart, a pair of lungs surprisingly lightweight. But the final edit avoided floors covered in blood.”

Thompson even test-screened the work on his wife and nine- and 10-year-old daughters.

“I think it’s almost harder for the grown-ups than children,” he admits. “It confronts your fears of mortality. Whereas of children, they’re really interested (that) these things are possible. My daughter said it was sad, but they were full of questions.”

This being said, the filmmakers wanted it to be a harrowing view.

“It’s meant to be almost too much to take — but without empathy, without understanding, how can we make informed decisions about organ donation? 

Otherwise, we have no access to that world … unless it happens to us in the end.”

PREVIEW

Memento Mori première

Where: Metro Cinema at Garneau Theatre, 8712 109 St.
When: Thursday Nov. 10 at 7 p.m., Sunday Nov. 13 at 1 p.m.
Tickets: $12 adults

https://edmontonjournal.com/entertainment/movies/edmonton-filmmakers-screen-harrowing-organ-transplant-documentary

My opinion: You can watch the full- length films here:

Edmonton sex-trade worker documentary Who Cares, 


The Dogwalker:



Broke:



The Perfect Runner:


The Great Human Odyssey:

https://handfuloffilms.ca/our-films/great-human-odyssey/

   

Apr. 21, 2017 "The stories they tell": Today I found this article by John Semley in the Globe and Mail.  This is about the documentary The Stairs


Just a few minutes into our conversation at Ontario Restaurant –the kind of old-school, Formica counter top diner that, in a different neighbourhood, would have been bought out and revamped to sling haute cuisine – and Marty Thompson, 55, bolts out of his chair to help a hunched, elderly woman with a walker get through the front door.

“I’ve known that lady 40 years or so, man,” he says, plopping back into his seat, “back when she still had full function of herself. Paul, the owner here? I know him. He used to go to school with my best friend’s older brother. I know ’em all, man.”

In this unassuming restaurant near Dundas and Sherbourne streets – just a few blocks from the tourist-friendly hustle-bustle of the Eaton Centre and Yonge Dundas Square – near Toronto’s rapidly changing Regent Park, everyone seems to know Thompson. He carries himself with the unarrogant confidence of a true local, radiating an Al Waxmanian charisma.

 He’s the king of Regent Park. Fellow Ontario Restaurant patrons exchange nods and waves of familiarity. Our server calls him by name. The owner shuffles over to personally hand deliver his soup du jour (tomato), joking, “One soup for Mr. Millionaire.”

“What’s that about?” I wonder. “Why did he call you Mr. Millionaire?”

“There was a shop on Queen and Parliament,” Thompson says. “Called Marty Millionaire. They sold all this old furniture and movie props. That’d been there since day one, a hundred million years.”

Marty’s no millionaire. But in Regent Park, where he’s lived since he was six years old, his local star is on the rise. He’s one of the three mains subjects profiled in The Stairs, a documentary by Toronto producer/director Hugh Gibson that premiered last year at the Toronto International Film Festival. 

The doc deals with drug abuse, the sex trade and the road to recovery in Regent Park, a neighbourhood known for its looming public-housing projects, and long stigmatized by its reputation for poverty and violence.

It’s tempting to call The Stairs “a hard look at the epidemic of drug abuse and violence.” But that feels a bit cheap. While Gibson doesn’t shy away from the realities of the local drug and sex trade, his camera lingering as users huff crack in sunken stairwells, The Stairs rarely feels exploitative, gawking or self-consciously gritty. “To me, it was more about showing an honest depiction of what their lives were like,” Gibson says. “It was important to have the community embrace it. And to have the community involved in the filmmaking process, to take ownership of their own storytelling.”

Shot over five years, The Stairs feels lived-in and intimate. Gibson explores the issues facing Regent Park locals – in addition to Thompson, the film follows a former sex worker named Roxanne Smith, and Greg Bell, a crack-cocaine user involved in a protracted legal battle against a cop accused of excessive force – through their own stories, never once deferring to dusty statistics or the “wisdom” of academics and policy makers. 

In doing so, it makes a persuasive case for the power and efficacy of harm reduction: a public-health strategy that focuses on practically minimizing the risks associated with drug use and sex work.

Beyond being the literal poster boy for The Stairs (a profile of his face appears on the film’s poster), Thompson is also a harm reduction success story. A decade ago, he was a full-blown addict, homeless, sleeping in stairwells in Regent Park’s public-housing towers. “I woke up on the stairs, Christmas morning, 2007,” he recalls. “That was the worst day of my life.”

Soon after, he heard of a program called CUP, the “Crack Users Project,” developed by the Regent Park Community Health Centre. The pitch was simple: Listen to speakers talk about addiction and recovery, make $20. For Marty, it was a no-brainer. “Twenty bucks?” he exclaims, excited by the prospect even years later. “That’s a hit of crack! That’s why I went.

After the second or third time going, I started listening to these people. … They used to do drugs. I knew they did drugs. I did ’em with them! But now they’ve gone to college, to university and stuff. I started thinking, Wow. Wow, wow, wow.”

Thompson started working with Regent Park Street Health as a peer outreach liaison: handing out clean needles, condoms, pipes, and offering assistance and training in the neighbourhood. 

Soon he had his own apartment, a cute cat and money in his pocket. 

“I wanted to prove to the peers, and mainly to myself, that I can do this,” he says. 

“And that they can do it, too. But you can’t keep talkin’, talkin’, talkin’. You gotta do it.”

In spring of 2011, filmmaker Gibson was contracted by Regent Park Health Centre to produce two educational videos on harm reduction strategies. The idea was to make something they could show to their funders,” Gibson explains. 

“Their funding was threatened. The climate was very different. This was the Stephen Harper-era, the Rob Ford-era. It was not pro-harm reduction.”

In 2012, Gibson met with Street Health and members of the community to discuss the idea of making a feature-length film about the area. While everyone was on board, some people worried that a film about the realities of life in Regent Park might be too downbeat. 

As Gibson remembers, someone at the meeting asked how they could make sure the movie had a happy ending, to which another local responded, “Well, that depends on us.”

It’s an ethos that defines The Stairs as much as the holistic public-health approach to harm reduction. 

It’s about arming people with the tools and the knowledge to keep themselves and their peers safe. 

It’s about taking an active, evidence-based approach to community safety and betterment. 

And at an even more fundamental level, it’s about the rights and dignity of drug users, sex workers, the mentally ill, the homeless and others cast to society’s, and the city’s, margins. For Gibson, it’s about “humanizing that which has been dehumanized.”

For his part, Marty Thompson hopes The Stairs will drum up neighbourhood excitement for more than just his own star quality. Despite his exuberant charm and outsized personality, he maintains that he normally shies away from attention. “I don’t like being the centre of attention,” he says, and it’s a little hard to believe.

“But in this case, I loved it. It got the word out there about drug users and the homeless and the mentally ill – that they’re people, too, and should be treated with the same respect.”

The Stairs opens at Vancouver’s VIFF Vancity April 21. Hugh Gibson will participate in after-show interviews April 21-25.



My opinion: I like both articles about these documentaries because they're both entertaining and educating people about important subjects like organ donations, homelessness, drug and alcohol addiction.


This week's theme is about filmmaking:


"Credits roll for Edmonton Film Society after 80 years"/ "Nominees revealed for annual Edmonton film, music prizes"


http://badcb.blogspot.com/2020/06/filmmaking-edmonton-film-prize-post.html


"A Canadian invasion at Sundance"/ "Birdland is less a gumshoe story, than it is a psychological portrait"


http://badcb.blogspot.com/2023/10/a-canadian-invasion-at-sundance.html



Fri. Oct. 6, 2023 "Canada's grocers want to squash competition as quickly as possible: expert": Today I found this article by Iva Poshnjari on BNN Bloomberg:

Rising food costs in Canada have prompted the federal government to demand change from the country’s leading grocers – but an expert in the industry says plans announced from Ottawa this week won’t bring quick relief from high grocery bills.

 
Sylvain Charlebois, director of the Agri-Food Analytics Lab at Dalhousie University, told BNN Bloomberg on Friday that Ottawa’s measures to bring down food prices will take time to implement. 
 
“For the short-term if you’re looking for help from Ottawa, you’re likely going to be very disappointed,” he said in a television interview.
 
Charlebois said Industry Minister François-Philippe Champagne has taken some steps by pushing grocers to discount items and reforming Canada’s competition laws to create more change. But he argued that the minister could have done more to implement immediate change, for example, by cutting taxes on food items.
 
“Grocers actually give back to Ottawa anywhere between $300 million to $1 billion in taxes, and that money comes from consumers, so he could have actually helped consumers right away,” Charlebois said. 
 
He also pointed to the sector’s competition challenges that will take time to work through. 
 
“When you actually look at the grocers we have in Canada, these companies are well run, they are well managed,” he said. “They understand competition and they want to squash completion as quickly as possible.”
 
This oligopoly-type landscape makes it extremely challenging for new players to enter the Canadian market and help with pricing, Charlebois added
 
“We need a stronger Competition Bureau to oversee some of these issues,” he said.

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/canada-s-grocers-want-to-squash-competition-as-quickly-as-possible-expert-1.1981394



Sims Lifecycle Services: I got these 2 plastic bags with my flip phone back in 2010.  You can recycle your phone by sending to them.  It says "Recycle your cell phone for your local food bank."

I recycled 1 in 2018 and now will recycle another this year.

https://www.simslifecycle.com/


Oct. 10, 2023 "Urgent Petition: Expedite Work Permit Issuance for Iranian Families in Canada": I signed this petition and put this on my Facebook page:

Why this petition matters

Started by Morteza Homapour

1: Iranian families residing in Canada are directly impacted by the prolonged processing time for work permit issuance, resulting in heartbreaking separations within their families. In some cases, one spouse is already in Canada, waiting for the work permit, while the other remains in Iran. Similarly, some children are forced to remain in Iran while their parents await the necessary documentation in Canada. These family separations inflict immense emotional strain and disrupt the stability and well-being of the affected individuals.

2: The stakes are incredibly high, not only for the educational rights of the children but also for the unity and cohesiveness of these families. The current situation creates significant emotional distress, as loved ones are torn apart, unsure when they will be reunited. The continued delay in work permit issuance exacerbates the strain on family relationships and prevents the establishment of a supportive and nurturing environment for children. If left unresolved, these separations can have long-lasting negative effects on the mental health and overall well-being of both parents and children.

3: The urgency for immediate action is heightened by the fact that these families are enduring unimaginable hardships due to the prolonged processing time. Every day counts in bringing these families back together and providing the stability they desperately need. By expediting the issuance of work permits, the Government of Canada can alleviate the emotional burden on these families, promoting their reunification and allowing them to rebuild their lives as a cohesive unit. Acting promptly will not only demonstrate compassion and empathy but also uphold the principles of family unity and human rights that Canada stands for.


https://www.change.org/p/title-urgent-petition-expedite-work-permit-issuance-for-iranian-families-in-canada?recruiter=253666986&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=facebook&utm_campaign=psf_combo_share_initial&utm_term=15f677c3ffbf40f0bfe86055de885c0d&recruited_by_id=52d62460-c9ca-11e4-b0c1-cd0aa2c1a32c&share_bandit_exp=initial-36861827-en-CA&utm_content=fht-36861827-en-ca%3Acv_55508



Sun. Oct. 7, 2023 Nancy Drew: I finished watching this series.  I watched the last season in a couple of weeks.  This is a solid show with the supernatural and solving mysteries:

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10313176/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0_tt_8_nm_0_q_nancy%2520drew


Fall: This was on my friend Tam's Facebook page.  Appreciate the fall season.





Mon. Oct. 9, 2023 Warm weather: I was able to sit outside in my lawn chair on the weekend.

Thanksgiving: Last night we had roast beef, some carrots, celery, and onions baked together.  There were baked potatoes and gravy.


West Edmonton Mall: My parents and Grandma went there to buy groceries at T&T.  I went shopping.  We were there 10- 11:30am.


1. I got a free coffee at McDonald's with my coffee card.  It's mainly my dad who buys the coffees and I put the stickers on them.

2. Nike will be opening where Forever 21 was.  There's already Sportchek and Foot Locker at the mall.

3. Urban Outfitters: I tried the perfume.

4. Bath and Body Works: I tried the perfume and fragrance mists.

5. Lazio closed down.

6. Second Cup replaced Lazio.


Oct. 10, 2023 TV poll: This is from Leo opinion.  


Brenda M. from Saskatoon, SK, would like to know:

Do you prefer to binge-watch a TV series one season at a time, an episode a week, or once it is over?

Binge watch a season at a time 43.43% (1875)



One episode per week 27.36% (1181)

Once the TV series is complete/over 21.64% (934)

Not applicable 7.57% (327)


My opinion: Binge watch a season at a time, mainly for a new show.  Or at least 3 episodes of one show.  I watch 1 episode a day.


Oct. 11, 2023 Hot Topic/ BoxLunch:


On October 14, 2015, Hot Topic launched BoxLunch, a gift and novelty retail store.[22] For every $10 spent, a meal is donated to a person in need.[23]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_Topic