“Wake Up on Mars”: Virtual Human Rights Watch Film Festival Canada

“Wake up on Mars” is one weird documentary.

A Muslim family flees persecution in Kosovo and seeks refugee status in Sweden but they are deported back to Kosovo yet again they flee to Sweden where finally they obtain their residency permits.

However both teenage daughters are in a vegetative state apparently with “resignation syndrome” which is a new condition that can affect asylum-seeking children often following a threat of deportation. Now if these teenage girls have this horrid resignation syndrome what an awful condition and both of them? The thought may occur to you that this affliction is a scam to stay in the land of milk and honey. I really am unable to come to a decision on this. I am not cruel but desperate people can often do desperate things particularly if a return to their homeland means more traumatic harassment. We are not told if the teenage girls recover when they are legally admitted to Sweden.

As for the name of this film young Furkhan, brother of the afflicted sisters, has built a spaceship from pieces of cars in a junk yard he dreams of taking to Mars. In other words escape the sad state of his sisters.

The film is 75 minutes long and is in Albanian and Swedish with English subtitles.

You can watch this for free but you’ll have to reserve tickets through the Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema website. The Festival runs from February 18-22. You can learn more by going to the festival’s website https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/01/14/18th-annual-toronto-human-rights-watch-film-festival#

I guarantee you will be intrigued by it. Watch the trailer here https://www.dropbox.com/s/5zvv58nnz7e8aju/WakeUpOnMars_TRLR_Texted_ProRes_25_2ch.mov?dl=0

“Cloudy Sunday”: Epic Greek Tragedy

OK so you see the phrase “Epic Greek Tragedy” and you might surmise it is some ancient Greek play I am referring to. Quite the opposite. This is a 2015 Greek film delving into a most unpleasant topic which is the humiliating step by step process where in 1943 some 50,000 Jews in Thessaloniki were transported to German concentration camps being told by the Germans they were going to proper housing and would be treated well after of course handing over all their money which they would be reimbursed for in Polish Zlotys when they arrived in Poland.

In 1492 some 20,000 Sephardic Jews were exiled from Spain and the Ottomans, then controlling Thessaloniki, permitted them to settle in Thessaloniki. At one point the Jewish population in Thessaloniki reached close to 70,000. However the great fire of 1917 left some 50,000 of Jews in Thessaloniki homeless and many, including President Sarkozy’s family, emigrated to Paris. Today there is one synagogue left in Thessaloniki serving an estimated population of 1,000.

Thessaloniki is a lovely city full of Byzantine churches and Roman ruins and is home to The Jewish Museum of Thessaloniki where I learnt the fate of the 50,000 so the Film “Cloudy Sunday” which depicts the barbaric road to extermination for so many was no surprise but it was painful to watch.

Besides being an historical drama, it is also a love story between Yorgos (Haris Fragoulis), a young carpenter who is Christian, and Estrea (Christina Heila-Fameli) a Jewess. And there is prejudice shown by both families to this relationship.

I appreciate that honesty and I also commend the film for documenting the Greek informant’s and stoolies who turned Greek resistance members in and worked side by side with the Germans.

The Greek resistance bravely fought against all odds as they did in most of Greece paying a severe price for their families and community.

The German tactics were a gradual stripping away of dignity and civil rights with hangings, assassinations and torture and finally expulsion.

The portrayal of a Jewish rabbi was not very complimentary in saying let’s co-operate and they’ll leave us alone. Many agreed and some disagreed but the rabbi was obviously very wrong.

I do not want to reveal the plot line here but my thought is that this is an epic film presenting many sides of an unpleasant equation. Neither Jew, Christian or Greek is sanitized.

After all the trauma you witness it looks like the love story will finally bear fruit but it takes a shocking twist that just might take your breath away.

Fragoulis and Heila-Fameli are impeccable and the casting solid all around. The direction by Manoussos Manousakis is solid and the soundtrack magnificent.

You can catch this film streaming at the Hellenic Film Society USA through February 7^th. In fact the Society streams a couple of Greek films for a month starting on the first Sunday of the month. It is accessible to viewers throughout the world so check out their website.

Keep reading here and I’ll give you a tip if these Greek films are a good watch.” Cloudy Sunday” is an excellent watch. It is a tiring if not exhausting experience.

The film is 119 minutes long in Greek with English subtitles. You can catch the trailer here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxUnuOHzySk&feature=emb_logo

Canada puts the screws on international travel

Government of Canada introduces further restrictions on international travel

From: Transport Canada

News release

January 29, 2021 Ottawa Government of Canada

The Government of Canada continues to take unprecedented action to protect the health and safety of Canadians by introducing measures to prevent further introduction and transmission of COVID-19 and new variants of the virus into Canada.

Today, the Government of Canada announced new rules on international travel, in addition to the multi-layered approach on COVID-19 already in place. The government and Canada’s airlines have agreed to suspend all flights to and from Mexico and Caribbean countries until April 30, 2021. This will be in effect as of January 31, 2021.

Further, effective midnight (11:59 PM EST) February 3, 2021, in addition to proof of a negative pre-departure test, Transport Canada will expand the existing international flight restrictions which funnel scheduled international commercial passenger flights into four Canadian airports: Montréal-Trudeau International Airport, Toronto Pearson International Airport, Calgary International Airport, and Vancouver International Airport. The new restrictions will include scheduled commercial passenger flights arriving from the United States, Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean and South America, which were exempted from the previous restriction. Private/Business and charter flights from all countries will also be required to land at the four airports. Flights from Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon and cargo-only flights will remain exempt.

As soon as possible in the coming weeks, all air travellers arriving in Canada, with very limited exceptions, must reserve a room in a Government of Canada-approved hotel for three nights at their own cost, and take a COVID-19 molecular test on arrival at their own cost. More details will be available in the coming days.

The Government of Canada will introduce a 72-hour pre-arrival testing requirement (molecular test) for travellers seeking entry in land mode, with limited exceptions such as commercial truckers. In addition, we continue to collaborate with partners in the United States to strengthen our border measures and keep our countries safe.

To ensure travellers’ awareness and compliance with quarantine requirements, the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) is working with security companies to help complete compliance checks for travellers arriving in Canada. Employees of these companies were trained by PHAC and authorized as Screening Officers under the Quarantine Act. These Screening Officers will visit travellers’ quarantine locations to establish contact, confirm identity and confirm that travellers are at the place of quarantine they identified upon entry into Canada. These new officers will conduct visits in 35 cities across the country, starting in Montréal and Toronto.

Poetry Corner: “Montreal memories and ghosts”

Montreal Memories and Ghosts

Mordecai Richler and Leonard Cohen
I looked for you at Schwartz’s on the Main
where even the Boy Wonder was gone
they told me your spirits now eat at Joe Beef as you were evicted from Moishe’s
the mighty sirloin
defeats
the lowly smoked meat ( with fries, a dill and a Cott Cherry Cola)

Poetry Corner: “Hope”

Hope

You held me spellbound
freshness
not of plastic concocted standardized perfection
your smiles in my direction were
of courtesy
civility
and cultured background
I tried to touch you but you needed everyone
those surly ugly butchers of your beauty
oblivious to you

they thundered over you
leaving hoofprints on me
ripping and agonizing torture
I tried to heal
you pushed me roughly aside
but you knew
didn’t you?

Poetry Corner: “Dedication to a bus driver that will never know”

Dedication to a bus driver that will never know

blank paper makes as much sense
as the music of the turnstiles
constant inflow and outflow
eddies of confusion
fail to distract the frustration
and the odious discomfort of mesmerized pacing
brings little solace
as
insanity clasps the narrow ledge
of its opposite sister
masses of flesh ooze their way
to compartmentalized homelessness
a man makes love to his sherry bottle
amidst the red-eyed concert crowd
and greedy chocolate smeared wretches
who annoy with mimicked telescreened adventures

eros remains helpless
joylessly suffocating
while thanatos
gleefully offers an exit
and
frustrated young poets
sit in buses
unable to meet the 5 year plan of literature
futilely attempting to explain all

Virus # 26: Chapter 46: “so what did we learn from these plagues: the never ending stream of diseases “

Chapter 46 “so what did we learn from all these plagues: the never-ending stream of diseases”

It is quite plain and clear as day humanity will always be hunted down by diseases. Germs and bacteria are smarter than humans. As you as you knock out polio, then there is a surge in cancer which as you know despite billions in research funding there is no cure. Then AIDs, Ebola, COVIDs and Virus # 26. Viruses have an incredible ability to mutate and stay ahead the virus hunters.

Now why is this? As a physician it all can be rationally explained where diseases emanate from but that seldom addresses the issue of why we have diseases. Some may argue it serves to keep the population down and as there are limited resources to be shared or monopolized the killing factor of diseases brings about equilibrium. Some may take a spiritual view saying it is God punishing wicked humanity or that it is Mother Earth seeking revenge from too many human abuses to it.

Why were Virus # 26 and COVID-19 so deadly? Could it have been a coincidence the spate of natural disasters preceding these diseases was a warning from a higher source? Tsunami’s, horrific forest fires, devastating floods and hurricanes. Was the warning in your face with deforestation of the Amazon and global warming?

Well let me take a bold step as a minimally spiritual man and say the plagues were an act of God. I don’t mean the God that Europe or Asia bows down to but an inexplicable force and something that can’t be explained to or understood by the scientific mind.

The truth is God can be a brutal and unforgivable force that kills even those that believe in God whether that be Allah or Buddha. Perhaps the godly people of the world were killed by Virus # 26 to teach survivors a lesson how fragile and insignificant they are. As it was said Jesus died to save us did these godly people have to die to save us. Perhaps these events caused all us survivors to query why these events happened. To simplify matters in a generic way the consensus was that humans had acted very badly towards each other and their environment and were being punished by some force we could only guess about.

I spend many hours thinking about why this all happened but of course I’ll never find the answer in life but perhaps in death? My daughter Alexis has since joined a quasi religious group “The New Humanist Movement” that spends an incredible amount of time discussing why humanity was slammed so badly by COVID and Virus # 26. It recognizes a higher force had a hand in all this calamity and in prayer asks for forgiveness for the sins of humanity that were conditions precedent to the plagues. The New Humanist Movement is not a cult but survivors seeking answers and praying for guidance on how such terrible waves of viruses can be dodged by humanity. I don’t discourage Alexis from participating in the New Humanist Movement but one thing I can say with certainty there has always been a plague of some sort and I pray to the unknown that Alexis and her future family will not have to suffer through yet another one

Bread & Olives; Good Greek German short film

Greek brothers Vangelis and Leonidas have a coffeeshop and bar that had to close due to harsh times in 2014 Greece so they phone their uncle Giannis in Munich who leads them to believe he owns a successful Greek restaurant in Munich so off the brothers go with their mother leaving Greece behind.

Well Giannis operates out of a ramshackle food cart and the restaurant he told the bothers he owned is actually across the street and owned by a German. Giannis admits he has been a failure in Greece and returns home with Leonidis and his mother but they open a beachside hut and sell big mugs of German beer and pretzels doing good business. And their mom’s olives are purchased by the German Greek restaurant owner. Vangelis and Nicole, the German Greek restaurant owner’s dcaughter, are becoming very chummy so he stays behind in Munich. Considering the wreckage caused by the Greek financial crisis I suppose we have a happy ending.

Yet another film dealing with the economic pain suffered by Greeks during the financial crisis. Well it is not a doom and gloom film being more of a comedy where at that time in Greece there was not much good humour around.

You should check out the Hellenic Film Society USA https://hellenicfilmusa.org/ for 2 new films each Sunday you’ll have to pay for but there are a few free films and shorts you can see like Bread and Olives which you can see here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJ9dl9KIZ5w

This 2014 Bavarian/Greek production is a film by Alexander Jaschik and Jordanis Orfanidis and is in Greek with English subtitles.

Plant vs. a Human; “Green” a short Canadian film

Counterbalance Collective is a new game in town operating out of Toronto. Very determined young women operating as a collective learning their craft of making film by assuming interchangeable roles of film production. All done with high intentions and spirit but short on funds.

I watched their little over 9 minutes short “Green” and the camerawork has improved and the musical score by Kiia is snappy and perfectly suited. A young lady (Seled Calderon) is given a fern by her friend in the hope that it will help her “get her shit together”. Well the opposite happens as she tries to transplant the little fern she has named Christina and creates a disaster of epic proportions. Calderon shows good range from determination, frustration and then tears and in the end her self proclaimed title “Plant Momma” is rather exaggerated!

A study in good intentions being bombed to smithereens by lack of technical ability and the range of emotions that can flow over a plant and a personality not suited for caring for a plant. Plant Momma loveable and human as she is lacks the ability to care for a fern. If you are searching for a deeper meaning learning and understanding your limitations often is a result of what we might call insignificant events. In fact Calderon is so Chaplinesque in her physicality this could very well be a silent short!

Well written by Victoria Kucher.

You can see this study in plant disaster here https://youtu.be/1TnFNUSPvTc

British Columbia’s Okanagan Wines Power On!

From British Columbia’s Okanagan Valley we have a Meritage from Sunrock Vineyards which is a blend of Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc. The Okanagan does a splendid job with these grapes on a singe varietal basis so I expect that usual high quality in a blend! Unfortunately expectations can sometimes be shattered.

A lush and plush nose. Seems like Okanagan Merlot is showing its stuff. Blackberry, black cherry, blueberry and a bit of coconut courtesy of I am guessing some older American oak? On the palate you get what you got on the nose. Perfect balance of acids, tannins and oak with this wine. Really well put together. It is rich and full bodied with a moderately long finish. I really only eat meat a few times a year. I have not even grilled anything on the barbeque this year. Yes I admit at times I miss it but quite frankly a plant based diet is much better for your health and over the past few years digging deep I have discovered some very satisfying vegetarian dishes so I’ll say go ahead and have this with a steak or lamb and you’ll be well rewarded but tonight I had roasted squash, heirloom carrots and potatoes drizzled with olive oil and beer with red pepper flakes and maple syrup served over some basmati rice. Delicious and this wine would have suited it so well.

Another excellent wine from our neighbours in British Columbia. A veritable treasure trove of wines the world should experience.

(Sunrock Vineyards Red Meritage 2016, BC VQA Okanagan Valley, Sunrock Vineyards, Oliver, British Columbia, $34.95, Liquor Control Board of Ontario #408392, 750 mL, 14.5%, Robert K. Stephen A Little Birdie Told Me Rating 94/100)

We move lastly to a Monte Creek ranch 2017 Cabernet Merlot. A predominant nose of blackberry and blackberry all very clean and pure. On the palate noticeable tannins with Santa Rosa plum, black cherry and a hint of coffee. The finish is moderate. This is a right at you type of wine. I say it is made for food and my vote would be a vegetarian lasagna preferably with all local produce which unfortunately is months away but you can try it with the less than tasty California or Mexican produce. And canned Italian tomatoes.

(Monte Creek Ranch 2017 Cabernet Merlot, BC VQA, Monte Creek Ranch Winery, Monte Creek, British Columbia, $23.95, Liquor Control Board of Ontario #15770, 750 mL, 14.4%, Robert K Stephen A Little Birdie Told Me Rating 86/100)