Crazy 8’s: “Red Light Rebel”: Will the Road to Hell Start at a Red Light?

Running since 1999, Crazy8s is an annual 8-day short filmmaking challenge that provides support and funding to 6 emerging and mid-career filmmakers to produce a short film and provides training opportunities to crew and cast. After a Gala Screening and Afterparty, the films go on to be seen by audiences worldwide at film festivals and on other distribution channels.

Pastor Peter Kim (Andrew Woo) is a straight arrow raised by a strict pastor father. Childhood fun is according to Peter’s father the road to hell. Peter swallows it hook line and sinker forgoing a relationship with long time “potential” sweetheart Jessica for Bible College.

Peter is so rigidly indoctrinated by his faith he waits at a red light in the middle of the night for hours fearful of breaking the law. Passersby are both puzzled and humoured by this. Peter waits and prays and naps and reads “Stop, Park and Pray”.

Peter reflects on his life, or lack thereof, and we the viewer wait. Should he cross the red light and reject his doctrinally fabricated prison and like James Dean in “Rebel Without a Cause” floor it?

Written and directed by Hannah Yang.

And this is the work of emerging and mid career filmmakers! Hallelujah!  What is Yang blessing us with next?

Watch the trailer here https://crazy8s.film/films/red-light-rebel/

RKS 2025 Canadian Short Film Rating 91/100.

Screening at the Crazy8’s gala in Vancouver 29March2025.

The 27th Thessaloniki International Documentary Festival: “Together We Stand”: It Was Not I But We

The 27th Thessaloniki International Documentary Festival screened from 6-16March2025.

“Together We Stand” is a Greek documentary focusing on the 1973 occupation of the Polytechnic University in Athens in protest against the military dictatorship in Greece that seized power on 21April1967 and surrendered it on 23July1974.

Through archival news footage, photographs, interviews of the participating students years later and Polytechnic radio announcements a very personal history both inspiring and painful has been recorded. Inspiring as it reveals the courage and idealism of youth and painful to both participating students and to the viewer for its fierce repression.

Upon the military junta seizing power in 1967 Greek youth were targeted seemingly because of the junta’s hatred of them. Some degree of liberalization fluttered about in 1970 which was exploited by the student movement and fostered student Pan Hellenism through regional student associations. Repression ensued in 1973 including removing military draft exemptions for university students forcing them into the army so they could be scattered throughout Greece and neutered.

Tensions increased and reached a flashpoint with the 1973 occupation by students of the Athens Polytechnic which held out for days until stormed by police and army units. During the occupation and immediately after it mass demonstrations occurred in Athens that included not only students but the general population.

The army was mobilized, live ammunition and tanks replaced teargas. Hundreds of students were beaten, fired upon, arrested, tortured and raped not so much for the purpose of gaining any information but for the “joy” of violent repression. Even the wounded were beaten in hospitals by the paramilitary and police.

Was the Polytechnic occupation responsible for bringing down the Greek junta? It certainly must have played the part in opening the eyes of Greeks to the brutality and resulting carnage. It illustrated the junta was not as effective as it originally was.

A compelling and spine-tingling recounting of events by student participants leading up to the Polytechnic occupation and its violent conclusion made increasingly intense by archival footage and the announcements from Polytechnic radio broadcasting to Greece the inevitable clash between students and security forces. Well composed soundtrack adds to the tension.

Police fired 24,000 bullets and the military 300,000. There were 24 deaths, 1,103 injuries, 16 unidentified dead, unrecorded suspicious deaths and an unknown number of missing persons. Successful prosecutions were minimal.

From a personal perspective I spent six months between 1971-73 in Greece and learnt how a dictatorship maintains its power. I became no stranger to Greeks shushing and whispering, “The walls have ears”. I recall one evening talking to someone on a beautiful summer evening on a Greek island musing how fascist the regime was. Unknown to me it was in front of a police station where I heard a voice piercing the evening air, “You are mistaken. With Papadopoulos every day is Christmas for the Greek people.” You might want to say at that point I decided I would be studying political science in university.

Directed by Stavros Stagkos.

RKS 2025 Documentary Film Rating 91/100.

RKS 2025 CANADIAN Wine: Two Bees 2019 Cabernet Sauvignon: Not Quite the Little Engine That Could

Aroma: Robust blueberry, blackberry, black cherry with raging black currant accompanied by oak influences that are not bashful.

Palate: Gushes of black currant and lesser notes of blueberry buzzing about in the background but they just can’t land in swarm fashion on the palate. Tannins are not hiding deep in the bee’s nest and they are keeping much of the worker bee fruit at bay. The aroma has high pedigree and hints at a brilliant Cabernet Sauvignon but unlike that little engine that knew it could, it just can’t reach the peak of Ontario Cabernet Sauvignon excellence but it gives hope for admittance (perhaps next vintage) to the Niagara Cabernet Sauvignon Hall of Fame currently putting the final touches on to a splendiferous building in downtown Beamsville. Opening gala themed dinner will be “Do We Really Need More and More Gallons of California Cabernet Sauvignon” on 1July2025 where a bonfire, a burning of a Tesla and fireworks will be displayed after dessert.

Personality: Half the battle is winning over your nose and I have done that. And I am close to winning over your palate. Perhaps not this time but I am on the right track.

Food Match: Corned beef spaghetti sauce over bucatini.

Cellarbility: Consume no later than end of 2026.

Price: $ 25 CDN.

RKS 2025 CANADIAN Wine Rating: 89/100. Natalie MacLean Community Score 90.

(Twenty Bees 2019 Cabernet Sauvignon, VQA Niagara Peninsula, Lakeview Wine, Niagara-on-the-Lake, 750 mL, 13%).

The 27th Thessaloniki International Documentary Festival: “Where Are They”: Missing After the 1974 Turkish Invasion of Cyprus

The 27th Thessaloniki International Documentary Festival wrapped up today 16March2025.

“Where Are They” is a Greek documentary revealing the ongoing attempts to locate 1,619 Greek Cypriots “missing” immediately after the 1974 Turkish invasion of Cyprus. The missing are soldiers never registered as Prisoners of War or were civilians. Most of the missing are men but 116 women and 32 children are included. Occasionally remains are recovered but as relatives of the missing make abundantly clear time is running out and memories fade. One relative who lost his mother, father and young brother laments the failure to locate remains and the forgetting of the missing is an insult to history. Maria Kalmpourtzi the President of the Panhellenic Committee of Parents and Relatives of Unregistered Prisoners of War and Missing Persons in Cyprus terms “missing persons” as an insult to humanity and is critical of the Greek Government for not being more aggressive in pursuing the cause.

The Turks displayed unbridled barbarity in torturing, raping and executing Greek Cypriots. As with Russian kidnapping of Ukrainian children Turks kidnapped young children for adoption. One Greek Cypriot whose baby was shot in the leg by a Turkish soldier and told he would be taken to a hospital for surgery and then returned to her never returned being adopted by a doctor at the hospital and taken to Ankara where he now works as a physician.

There are sources in the American intelligence community working with the Israeli Mossad who claim some of the missing soldiers were used in medical experiments in Turkey or kidnapped to work on “heroin plantations” for Turkish drug kingpins.

The documentary is a reminder casualties of war are not only soldiers but civilians. And the casualties are not only the dead and the wounded but families of the missing. The question is are they really missing or is it the lack of will and effort causing them to be missing.

Unfortunately the documentary does not give any background about the history of Cyprus and the events leading to the 1974 Turkish invasion presupposing the audience is exclusively Greek or has knowledge of the 1974 invasion. If you know nothing about Cyprus it would be hard to put the documentary into a proper context which is a great shame.

Directed by Nikos Aslanidis.

RKS 2025 Documentary Film Rating 58/100.

27th Thessaloniki International Documentary Festival: “Children of the Dust”: Great Expectations of a Vietnamese Amerasian Cultural Orphan

The 27th Thessaloniki International Documentary Festival runs until 16March2025.

Ngo Thanh Sang is one of thousands of Amerasian children left behind in Vietnam as South Vietnam finally collapsed in 1975 with Americans beating a hasty retreat. Sang’s father was an American soldier in Vietnam serving a 1966—67 tour of duty. The result of his relationship with a South Vietnamese woman was the birth of Sang. A moment of pleasure became a lifetime of suffering for Sang.

Through a DNA matching programme Sang locates his father in the United States. He must decide to take advantage of an American reunification programme covering his costs of travel so he can relocate there but his move must be permanent and will not include his grandchild and daughter, at least initially.

Amerasian children in Vietnam suffered hardship and prejudice. Sang’s mother and extended family “could not afford” to raise him resulting in his working in a poultry farm where he was beaten. Sang is illiterate. He works at construction sites and lives in very modest accommodations with his wife caring for his grandchild abandoned by his drug addict daughter.

A long distance over the phone relationship is established with his gravely ill father, his two brothers and sisters and appears warm. As Sang has experienced dysfunctionality in Vietnam when he travels alone to the United States he walks into the dysfunctional family of his father. His father is divorced having taken up with another woman leaving his wife and children behind. His daughter complains about the lack of affection of her father and the father complains of his abandoned childhood.

Not speaking English Sang feels lonely and confused about his choice. He had such great expectations to finally meet his father but as in Vietnam and in the United States he is “caught in the middle” and not entirely accepted by both cultures.

Sang muses about returning home thinking that he feels as if he in the same place whether in Vietnam or the United States. His only home is his family which by embracing it is the only way he can move forward. Which family is he referring to or is he referring to both and will he return to Vietnam?

A Vietnamese, Polish, Swedish, Czech Republic and Qatar production directed by Weronika Mliczewska.

RKS 2025 Documentary Film Rating 82/100. World premier was at the 27th Thessaloniki International Documentary Festival.

RKS Literature: AN AMERICAN NON DP Feels Like a DP Living With Her Granny (Wally Lamb)

“Displaced persons. People we took in from Europe after the war. You’d think they’d be grateful. Wouldn’t you?”

I understood why they weren’t. A displaced person myself, I was not so much grateful to Grandma for her charity as disgusted by her liver spots and quiet belches, the way she could reach into her mouth and, with a gurgle, remove her top teeth.”

“She’s Come Undone”, Wally Lamb, 1992.

RKS Literature: Trying to Cope with a Parental Split (Wally Lamb)

“Daddy kept sneaking nervous peeks at me and at the rearview mirror. Behind us, the U-Haul trailer wobbled and swayed from side to side. In silence I waited impatiently for the tragic highway accident that would paralyze me but wrench both my parents back to their senses. I pictured the three of us back home on Bobolink Drive, Daddy pushing my wheelchair solemnly up the front walk, eternally grateful for my forgiveness. At the doorway Ma would smile sadly, her hair was clean and lustrous as a Breck-shampoo girl’s.”

“She’s Come Undone”, Wally Lamb, 1992.

RKS 2025 CANADIAN Documentary Film: “Le Plein Potentiel” (Your Higher Self)

From Quebec the documentary “Le Plein Potentiel” a glimpse at the practice and business of “life coaching”.

Having worked in the corporate sector for many years I am no stranger to “life coaching” where at one point it was a hot trend enabling executives to move up the ladder by being able to manipulate the rungs in the ladder. Selfish to the core.

“Le Plein Potential” is an enabling voyage where we witness over a dozen actual coaching sessions including training sessions for coaches.

If any documentary can be neutral here is a good attempt.

What is the coaching witnessed here? It is extremely individualistic as the constant words purloined by these coaches is “you” and “yourself”. How powerful you can be. Letting your deeper self emerge. Your inner journey. It’s up to you. Your inner strength. Embracing your kindness. Defining your life. Be more yourself. Being the king of your life. Your genuine self. The real you.

It is as if coaching has replaced religion and morals excising the collective and glorifying individuality as the superpower and goal of all human beings.

The documentary commences with some “earnest” one on one coaching, moves to group coaching espousing the party line of individuality and becomes increasingly bizarre and commercial. Like mindfulness so earnest initially and hyper commercialized as it evolves.

The filmmaking and cinematography gears into creative and strange as the coaching sessions become increasingly bizarre and commercialized. Yes Zoom calls with some billboard advertised life transformation coach in Asia that no doubt accepts major credit cards or a slick social media type with highly rehearsed infomercial type messages.

While watching I wrote numerous short descriptive notes and perhaps you will share some of them;

  • Earnest
  • Helpful
  • Encouraging
  • Manipulative
  • Deceptive
  • Commercial
  • Evangelical
  • Dangerous
  • Surreal
  • Cult like
  • Smooth talkers
  • Chumps
  • Exploitation of the vulnerable
  • Charlatans
  • Nonsensical
  • Flaky

On the other hand you are welcome to say educational and wonderful?

I am left with a “Nightmare Alley” feeling.

If a documentary ignites so many thoughts in my view it is a mark of success.

The trailer can be watched here https://vimeo.com/1024840691

In French and English with English subtitles.

A film by Annie St-Pierre.

RKS 2025 Documentary Film Rating 86/100.

King Charles III Launches Out at President Trump Over Canada Threats: Commonwealth Members Will Attack to Defend Canada: Newcastle Upon Brine: 13March2025: Spoof News Services

King Charles launched out at President Trump of the United States this afternoon in a televised statement broadcast on both the BBC and CBC.

Speculation is Charles has been humbled by Canadians referring to him as “Bonnie Chicken Charlie” for exhibiting silence of cowardice, relying on the shield of diplomacy, against the continual threats of President Trump and his minions to physically annex Canada after its economic destruction by “those beautiful tariffs”.

King Charles statement is as follows; “Good afternoon most loyal subjects. Canada has been threatened by numerous threats of President Donald Trump and his gang of brash, crude and highly lippy bullies.

These statements constitute not only a low brow threat to Canadians but an insult to my royalness and to the Commonwealth grouping of 56 states an international force to be reckoned with.

Attack one member Donald and we retaliate and we don’t mean prohibiting imports of American watery beer and that vile bourbon. Angry kilted men are a force to be reckoned with particularly with those bagpipes a blaring.

My seriousness about this schoolyard bullying has prompted me to make a personal donation of 16 Harrier jets, currently decommissioned by the Royal Airforce, to member state Botswana. We have a few used tanks we will include. I have asked all member states in Africa and Asia to increase their defence budget by 237,000 British Pounds.

As you know, or most likely don’t know as shown by your misunderstanding and manipulation of the 1908 Treaty between Canada and the United States, the Treaty of Paris signed between The United States and Britain in 1793 established boundaries at a whim. Some Yank simply took a ruler and cut off our colonies from the mothership, England. Remove that carve out of the United States and by God what a beautiful commonwealth we would have. Just imagine instead of your population bowing at the feet of actors, hip hoppers and overpaid athletes they could admire a real king! Donald you rule by a dubious set of executive orders. I rule by divine order. You have been warned and I am sure your citizens will be happier being a member of the Commonwealth!”

RKS 2025 Documentary Film: “A Fly on the Wall”: Caution You May be Swatted and Squished!

Assuming you were terminally ill and suffering. Would you fight and suffer until the end or turn to medically assisted in dying (MAID)?

Sixty-year-old Chika Kapadia is in the last stages of an aggressive terminal cancer. He has requested his long-time friend and filmmaker Shonali Bose to film him in Geneva to the point he ingests “the final dose” and his head drops and he quietly dies. Reluctantly Bose agrees.

A date is set for “the big sleep” at Dignitas in Geneva that performs MAID. And the countdown begins. Dignitas permits non residents of Switzerland to avail themselves of MAID.

Chika appears robust, is walking, chatting away and seemingly in good spirits. He is a likeable chap, a former electrical engineer, stand up comedian and beach bum. Are we missing something here or is Chika Captain Courageous?

Each day that passes you’ll see brief handwritten notes on the screen from Chika revealing his thoughts about his impending death and MAID. Pay attention.

A titanic struggle ensues between Chika, Bose and Chika’s family. Initially the family is on board with the filming but how far the film should go is in dispute. To the final bitter end (and the “final prescription” is bitter). Or should it cease when the final dose is swallowed and before his head drops signaling unconsciousness or somewhere in between or perhaps not at all. Will Chika take this final road? How does this effect the longstanding friendship between Bose and Chika?

At one point Chika, heavily involved in directing the director Bose as to the various shots to be taken, instructs her to be “a fly on the wall” meaning remain still and leave after he takes the final dose. Bose has difficulties processing her role as friend and that of filmmaker.

As time ticks on as a viewer you may have conflicting points of view. Do it and God bless! NO as he looks as if he has remaining vitality!

Can Bose finish her “production”?

This story becomes intense veering between realistic and surreal.

The day arrives, a day that Chika had cancelled previously.

Can he go through with it? How far in filming can Bose go if he does.

Disturbing, tense, surreal, graphic, ghoulish, immoral, of poor taste, sensational, didactic, cruel or rattling. Take your choice(s).

Flies on walls are often fly swatted. As a viewer you are the fly here whether you want to be or not. At any point you can fly away.

This 82-minute Indian documentary was filmed by Shonali Bose and Nilesh Maniyar.

RKS 2025 Documentary Film Rating 82/100.