BY STEVE MARTINDALE
FOR SS FILM FESTIVAL SOCIETY
The Salt Spring Film Festival celebrates its 25th anniversary from Friday, Feb. 28 to Sunday, March 2 with world-renowned environmentalist and broadcaster David Suzuki and his partner Tara Cullis, co-founders of the David Suzuki Foundation, presenting the Opening Night Gala film.
The Giants is an award-winning profile of Australian environmentalist and politician Bob Brown, which will be followed by 42 more documentaries screened over the subsequent two days at Gulf Islands Secondary School (GISS). This year’s program boasts a remarkably balanced line-up of films, with several documentaries focusing on the recent rise of anti-democratic forces around the world, alongside an array of joyful and entertaining films on a wide range of subjects, including music, fashion, sailing, filmmaking, photography, children’s picture books, theatre, dance, artificial intelligence, soil regeneration and food sustainability.
The program includes two Oscar nominees, one of which is almost certain to win the Academy Award for Best Documentary: Porcelain War, Brendan Bellomo and Slava Leontyev’s visually astonishing portrait of how Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine has forced Ukrainian artists to become soldiers; and Sugarcane, Julian Brave NoiseCat and Emily Kassie’s staggeringly powerful indictment of the Canadian residential school system.
In addition to presenting the opening night film on Feb. 28, Suzuki will present the Saturday morning screening of The Stand, a captivating NFB film in which he is featured. Haida filmmaker Christopher Auchter from Burnaby will present the Sunday afternoon screening of the film, which examines the Haida Nation’s pivotal anti-logging stand-off on Lyell Island, revealing how much — and how little — has changed in this province since the 1980s.
Half a dozen other documentaries at the festival will be presented by visiting filmmakers, including festival favourite Suzanne Crocker from Dawson City, Yukon, presenting her short film The Home Team, about immigrants from warmer climates adapting to life in Northern Canada. Crocker was last here with her first feature film All the Time in the World, which was named Audience Favourite in 2015; her second feature First We Eat was presented at Fulford Hall in 2021.
Screening alongside The Home Team is Anthony Bonello’s spectacular short film Farming Turns, presented by film subjects Chris Rubens and Jesse Johnston-Hill. Rubens is a world-class downhill skier who gave up his athletic career in order to reduce his carbon footprint, launching an organic farm in Revelstoke with his partner Johnston-Hill, who is originally from Salt Spring.
Also from Salt Spring, Emmy-winning filmmaker Peter Klein will present Bribe, Inc., a mesmerizing, globe-trotting exposé of the byzantine web of corruption in the global oil industry, which has to be seen to be believed.
Festival guests include two Vancouver filmmakers: Jon Ornoy will present Lost in the Shuffle, a delightful mystery in which world champion sleight-of-hand magician Shawn Farquhar of New Westminster travels to Europe to investigate the unsolved 500-year-old murder of a French king, the clues to which can be found in any deck of playing cards; and Jeff Lee Petry will present the deeply moving Ari’s Theme, about talented Victoria composer Ari Kinarthy, who was born with a severely debilitating condition, which opened this year’s Vancouver International Film Festival for its gala evening.
Emmy-nominated Edmonton filmmaker Roswitha Dransfeld will present the engagingly optimistic medical investigation The Good Virus, about the promise of microscopic bacteriophages – viruses that kill bacteria – in the international battle against drug-resistant superbugs, filmed in the US, Canada, Kenya and Uganda.
Full festival passes can be purchased in advance from the ArtSpring box office, and a variety of passes and tickets will be available at the door.