Film festival showcases Canadian diversity

Jock Paul, Contributor, Jakarta

After a successful run in Surabaya, the Jakarta screenings of the first Canadian Film Festival kicked off on Tuesday. Featuring six films, the festival seeks to entertain Indonesians while at the same time, promote the growing Canadian film industry.

While the film industry has grown rapidly over the last two decades, much of this expansion has been generated by the production of American or Hollywood movies in Canada. Even within Canada, American and other big budget foreign movies dominate the box office, so it is not surprising that many Indonesians may be unfamiliar with Canadian cinema.

Despite this lack of notoriety, the festival, organized by the Canadian embassy, was well received in Surabaya, where it screened films on July 2nd and 3rd. "In fact the last two films sold out, so the reception was a lot better than expected," said Canadian Embassy spokesperson Jennifer Hart.

The idea to put together a festival grew out of the success of La Francophonie film festival that the embassy organized in March this year, said Hart. The embassy decided to host a festival that features solely Canadian films to show Indonesians the vibrant, innovative films that are earning Canadians a reputation as some of the best filmmakers in the world, she said.

The festival also seeks to address, in a different and entertaining way, one of Canada's foreign policy objectives; to promote diversity, plurality, multiculturalism and tolerance for difference, said Hart.

"These films, although they are all very different, all share this characteristic," said Hart.

Tuesday's opening film here, Khaled, portrays the difficulty, and racism a young boy faces in inner city Toronto.

The film's protagonist, 10-year-old Khaled -- the son of a Moroccan father and white mother -- spends his evenings helping his sick mother at home and his days getting bullied at school. When his mother suddenly dies, the resourceful boy has no one to turn to. Scared of being taken by the state child services agency, he keeps her death a secret and carries on with school and his daily life, alone.

Khaled and the other featured films, like most Canadian cinema, focus on relatively ordinary people trying to cope with the trials and tribulations of every day life.

Showing Wednesday night was Attache Ta Tuque! (Put on your knit cap!), a road movie shot in northern Quebec about a young Native man and a young Russian woman, on a 2,500 kilometer journey. Thursday night featured the documentary, Obaachan's Garden, a personal reflection of Japanese-Canadian history.

Tonight's film, L'Ange de Goudron (Goudron's Spirit), is about an Algerian family settling in Montreal. A few weeks before they are to receive their citizenship, Ahmed Kasmi finds out his eldest son Hafid is involved with a group of political activists. In his attempt to save his son's -- and his family's -- chance of getting citizenship, Ahmed immerses himself in Quebec culture. He soon meets Huguette, who is madly in love with his son, and together they chase Hafid on a journey to northern Quebec.

The next two films of the festival, featuring Indian Canadians, both sold out in Surabaya.

In Seducing Maarya, which will be screened Saturday, a recently widowed Indo-Montreal man finds the "perfect" girl for his son. After the hastily arranged marriage the father tries to help his son fall for the woman, but finds himself falling in love with her instead. When her brother visits from India, a dark secret is revealed about this perfect woman.

The last film on the list, which is scheduled for Sunday night, is the one that drew the most attention in Canada and will soon be released in Indonesia, Hollywood/Bollywood.

The film is about Rahul Seth, a young Toronto dot.com millionaire who believes he is "Western" enough to rebel against his mother and grandmother, especially when it comes to marriage. When his famous white girlfriend dies in an accident, his family pressures him to get married to a good Indian girl before his younger sister's upcoming wedding.

As the title of the film suggests the film plays with, and also borrows from, the genre of films made famous in India. The film is dotted with exaggerations and innuendoes that Bollywood fans will enjoy.

However, no knowledge of Bollywood is required to enjoy the relationship that develops between Seth and Sue, an expensive, intelligent and very confident escort who poses as his "Indian" fiancee. Sue, it turns out, fits in a lot better than Seth expected.

The organizers hope than Bollywood/Hollywood and the other feature films will be as big a hit in Jakarta as they were in Surabaya. If the Jakarta screening is as much of a success as the one in Surabaya, then the festival will become a regular event, says Hart.

The Canadian Film Festival is open to the public and tickets are free. Due to the limited number of tickets, they ask those interested to contact the Canadian Embassy at (021) 2550-7800. If people simply show up and there is room they will be seated.

The festival is being held at Pusat Perfilman Haji Usmar Ismail (PPHUI) Jl. H.R. Rasuna Said Kav.C-22, Kuningan, South Jakarta. All screenings are at 7:30 p.m.