From Nemea in the Peloponnese a “oak aged” Agiorgitiko. Having been in Thessaloniki in November for the Thessaloniki 65th Annual Film Festival I found perhaps the best wine shop right by the main port buildings. The red wine leader on the shelves was Agiorgitiko and the same held true for supermarket and the smaller cornerContinue reading “RKS 2025 Wine: Agiorgitiko a Greek Munga Red From Zacharias”
Author Archives: Robert K Stephen (CSW)
Toronto 2025 Hot Docs: “Unwelcomed” (Si Vas para Chile)
“Unwelcomed” is yet another migrant crisis examined. During the COVID pandemic some 8 million Venezuelans migrants poured out of their economically and politically failing country. Some 300,000 Venezuelan undocumented migrants are presently in Chile. The journey is perilous fraught with gang robbery, murder and rape but the promised land lures the migrants. But what awaitsContinue reading “Toronto 2025 Hot Docs: “Unwelcomed” (Si Vas para Chile)”
Toronto 2025 Hot Docs: “Life Invisible”: Combatting Superbugs and a Lithium Obsession
Chilean microbiologist Professor Cristina Dorador rings the alarm bell many others have been ringing for decades. The wholesale and indiscriminate use of antibiotics has given those bad microbes it once easily defeated an opportunity to mutate and resist antibiotics killing an estimated five million people a year. We follow Dorador on an expedition to theContinue reading “Toronto 2025 Hot Docs: “Life Invisible”: Combatting Superbugs and a Lithium Obsession”
Toronto 2025 Hot Docs: Citizen Minutes: “La Femme Equi-Libre”: Horsing Around with Mental Health
The short documentary “La Femme Equi-Libre” focuses on the Elm Grove Centre in the Canadian province of Prince Edward Island run by Josée Gallant Gordon a graduate social worker. Gordon offers equine therapy to mental health patients and in lieu of tranquilizing patients with enough tranquilizers to kill a horse the horse and therapist playContinue reading “Toronto 2025 Hot Docs: Citizen Minutes: “La Femme Equi-Libre”: Horsing Around with Mental Health”
Toronto 2025 Hot Docs: Citizen Minutes: “Becoming Ruby”: In the Footsteps of the Pansy Craze?
Alex Nguyen, a Vietnamese Winnipegger, struggled with his queerness at an early age. His progression into drag queen Ruby Chopstix was fraught with self doubt. Alex became the first resident drag artist of Winnipeg’s The Rainbow Resource Centre’s “Drag Artist in Residence” supporting drag artists to uplift “a beautiful form of queerness and culture” throughContinue reading “Toronto 2025 Hot Docs: Citizen Minutes: “Becoming Ruby”: In the Footsteps of the Pansy Craze?”
Toronto 2025 Hot Docs: Citizen Minutes: “Crossing the Great Divide” in the United States: Braver Angels
Watching American news in the past few years and speaking with Americans, most recently in California, one senses a polarized nation where a 6Jan21 riot was illustrative of a greater shade of polarization namely extremism. Rioters seen by some as “patriots” and by others as criminal insurrectionists. As to politics and related points of viewContinue reading “Toronto 2025 Hot Docs: Citizen Minutes: “Crossing the Great Divide” in the United States: Braver Angels”
Toronto 2025 Hot Docs: Citizen Minutes: “Red Girl Rising”
Joyce Jonathan Crone a Haudenosaunee, Mohawk, Turtle Clan from the Huntsville area in Ontario is, amongst many things, an activist, columnist, radio show host, writer and member of the Indigenous Advisory Council of the Ontario Provincial Police. She is founder of the Hope Arises Project which is committed to promoting a connection to Indigenous cultureContinue reading “Toronto 2025 Hot Docs: Citizen Minutes: “Red Girl Rising””
Toronto 2025 Hot Docs: “MAMA”: An Artistic and Creative Approach Chronicling the Nastiness of a Breast Cancer Experience
Ecuadorian Ana Cristina Benitez has crafted a creative if not poetic and hypnotic documentary about her battle with breast cancer. A late diagnosis of stage three breast cancer sets in motion an exhausting and debilitating round of chemotherapy and radiotherapy followed by a mastectomy. We are a fly on the wall spectators watching her receiveContinue reading “Toronto 2025 Hot Docs: “MAMA”: An Artistic and Creative Approach Chronicling the Nastiness of a Breast Cancer Experience”
Toronto 2025 Hot Docs: “The Track”: The Impossible Possibility
Sarajevo, the Bosnian-Herzegovina host city of the 1984 Winter Olympics, was under attack during the 1992-95 war. Street fighting, shelling and snipers made the city a dangerous place. While “peace” was attained Catholic, Bosnian and Serbian killings continue at a far lesser scale and the haunting memories of the war left no true peace. TheContinue reading “Toronto 2025 Hot Docs: “The Track”: The Impossible Possibility”
RKS 2025 Wine: Portuguese Wine at a Give Away Price: Guarda Rios
There aren’t many notable wines at $11.95 CDN these days in Canada although in Portugal at Pingo Doce or Jumbo hypermarchés there are many at that price. We try a Portuguese red Guarda Rios from the Alentejano region that is slowly crowding off Douro wines from the shelves in Ontario, based on price to valueContinue reading “RKS 2025 Wine: Portuguese Wine at a Give Away Price: Guarda Rios”
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