05 Jun Halifax film screening picks — June 5-11

It’s been a week since the 2017 Cannes Film Festival wrapped and declared its surprise Palme d’Or winner—so that must mean it’s time for the 2016 winner to arrive in Halifax? Hey, better late than never. I, Daniel Blake, the latest blast of social realism from Ken Loach, is at Cineplex Park Lane (at least through Thursday). It’s Loach at his most Loach and, yeah, bring your Kleenex, folks.

This Tuesday another Featured Director series of free weekly screenings kicks off at the Central Library, this time focusing on Dazed and Confused, a film that has always seemed to me to be loved by many who understand it the least.

This week the 11th edition of the Halifax Independent Filmmakers Festival takes place, with screenings happening again at the Neptune Theatre Scotiabank Stage. As usual, there are strong showcases of short films, a number of which get the Sure Thing checkmark from The Coast. But there are also some notable feature-length film screenings:

• Wednesday you can see Never Eat Alone, the film that won director Sofia Bohdanowicz the Emerging Canadian Director award at the 2016 Vancouver Film Festival, and showed that Chantal Akerman’s films still have the power to inspire new filmmakers. The feature will be preceded by her three short films, as with a recent TIFF screening.
• By the Time It Gets Dark, by Thai director Anocha Suwichakornpong, screens Thursday. “A demanding but ultimately rewarding piece” that uses a film-within-the-film structure, it casts back to the 1977 government-sanctioned massacre of student demonstrators in Bangkok.
• Those Who Make Revolution Halfway Only Dig Their Own Graves, screening Saturday (the second Halifax screening in the past month) “unfurls with a bravado as outsized as its title.” A “stunning fusion of fiction and documentary about a radical Quebec leftist cell seeking to sow mayhem in Montreal,” it won the Best Canadian Feature prize at TIFF in September.

This Sunday, Fundy Cinema in Wolfville has Neruda, the “stunningly inventive” by Pablo Larraín (No, The Club, Jackie) that has been called “not a biopic but a bio-fic.”

• In theatres, seen and recommended:
  • I, Daniel Blake, Ken Loach, UK/France/Belgium, 2016, 100 minutes — Halifax showtimes
• In theatres, notable:
  • Your Name (Japanese version w English subtitles), Makoto Shinkai, Japan, 2016, 107 minutes [79] — Halifax showtimes
  • Maudie, Aisling Walsh, Ireland/Canada, 2016, 115 minutes [60] — Halifax showtimes
• Halifax screenings this week:
  • Tuesday (Jun 6) — Dazed and Confused, Central Library, 6:30pm, free, introduced by Mark Palermo. Richard Linklater, USA, 1993, 102 minutes.
  • Wednesday (Jun 7) — The Godfather, Cineplex Park Lane & Dartmouth Crossing, 7pm, $6.99. Francis Ford Coppola, USA, 1972, 175 minutes.
    — Never Eat Alone, Neptune Theatre Scotiabank Stage, 9pm, $10/$8, Q&A with director. Sofia Bohdanowicz, Canada, 2016, 68 minutes, preceded by 3 short films (30 minutes).
  • Thursday (Jun 8) — By the Time It Gets Dark (Dao Khanong), Neptune Theatre Scotiabank Stage, 7pm, $10/$8, Q&A with director. Anocha Suwichakornpong, Thailand/Netherlands/France/Qatar, 2016, 105 minutes.
  • Saturday (Jun 10) — Those Who Make Revolution Halfway Only Dig Their Own Graves, Neptune Theatre Scotiabank Stage, 3pm, $10/$8, Q&A with co-director Simon Lavoie. Mathieu Denis & Simon Lavoie, Canada, 2016, 183 minutes.
• Annapolis Valley screenings this week:
  • Sunday (Jun 11) — Neruda, Acadia Cinema’s Al Whittle Theatre (450 Main Street, Wolfville), 7pm, $9. Pablo Larraín, Chile/Argentina/France/Spain, 2016, 107 minutes.