BY STEVE MARTINDALE
FOR SSI FILM FESTIVAL
Over two dozen Canadian and American filmmakers and film subjects will visit Salt Spring to attend the 26th annual Salt Spring Film Festival at Gulf Islands Secondary School from Feb. 27 to March 1.
Travelling from as far away as Los Angeles, San Francisco and Whitehorse — and as close to home as Nanaimo, Cowichan Bay and Vancouver — several filmmakers will present the Canadian premieres of their films, which have yet to be seen by audiences anywhere else in the country.
Globe-trotting, Oscar-nominated producers Linda and David Cornfield will join us from Los Angeles to present two new films: Whistle, about the unapologetically eccentric international Masters of Musical Whistling competition in Hollywood; and Viva Verdi! a joyful celebration of Milan’s elegant retirement home for musicians, which has been nominated for the Oscar for Best Song.
Art enthusiasts won’t want to miss Vancouver filmmakers Jenn Strom and Kevin Eastwood’s The Painted Life of E.J. Hughes, a gorgeous portrait of the reclusive Vancouver Island painter, who quietly became one of Canada’s most successful artists from his Shawnigan Lake studio by capturing the beauty of B.C. in vivid, meticulous detail.
Yukon filmmaker Teresa Earle — who was last here in 2023 with Voices Across the Water —returns to Salt Spring with director Fritz Mueller to present Mammoth Hunters, a fascinating scientific and artistic journey through time to learn more about the enormous Ice Age beasts that once roamed the tundra. Making its B.C. premiere, the film features artist Joyce Majiski, who is well-known locally for her 2020 Salt Spring Arts residency at Mahon Hall and her short film Song of the Whale from the 2023 Salt Spring Film Festival.
Several other attending filmmakers will also be familiar to Salt Spring audiences from their prior visits, including Nova Ami and Velcrow Ripper from the Sunshine Coast — last here in 2019 with Metamorphosis — who will present their new film Emergence: Women in the Storm, about efforts in B.C. to mitigate the damage of the climate crisis by better preparing for flooding and wildfires. Film subject and disaster and displacement specialist Dr. Lily Yumagulova will join them from Vancouver, with Salt Spring Search and Rescue on hand to address local emergency preparedness.
First responders are also featured in the Canadian premiere of San Francisco filmmaker Jeanne C. Finley’s A Radical Thread, about San Juan Ridge’s efforts to document the history of their vibrant community — which in many ways is strikingly similar to Salt Spring — by creating a series of colourful and detailed tapestries as they battle environmental threats and devastating wildfires.
Beth Harrington from Vancouver, Wash., will present the Canadian premiere of Our Mr. Matsura, a luminous portrait of a talented and prolific Japanese photographer’s immigrant experience in Okanogan County, where he became one of the community’s most beloved characters by documenting pioneer life at all class levels, including surprisingly respectful portraits of Indigenous people.
First-time filmmaker Claire Sandberg from nearby San Juan Island will present the Canadian premiere or The Ramba Effect, a heartwarming and unexpectedly gripping story of the complex logistics of rescuing Chile’s last remaining circus elephant, transporting her across the Andes to a Brazilian wildlife sanctuary in order to live with other elephants after decades of caged isolation.
Local film guests include Robert Bateman, Bristol Foster and Briony Penn, who will present Alison Reid’s award-winning film The Art of Adventure, following two sold-out screenings at ArtSpring in November. Bateman and Penn also appear with Harry Warner in a 25th anniversary presentation of Mort Ransen’s 2001 NFB documentary “Ah…The Money, The Money, The Money” – The Battle for Saltspring, about the successful campaign to prevent the Texada Land Corporation from clearcutting Burgoyne Valley.
A number of filmmakers and film subjects will present their delightful short films, including Vancouver filmmaker Teresa Alfeld and musician Cassidy Waring with the BC premiere of Hearse Chasing; Nanaimo-based French filmmaker Robin Ferand and Salt Spring basket-maker Joan Carrigan with Pacific Weave; Cowichan Bay filmmaker Michelle Tremblay and her husband and film subject Guy Johnston with Sea to Land, about Vancouver Island’s first community-supported fishery; co-directors Adam Combs and Carter Kirilenko with Silent Sanctuary, about innovative efforts to save BC’s kelp forests; and director Chad Townsend, composer Dale Nichols, film subject Morgan Brewster and animator Tony Bulnes with 1910 – The Uncovering, about Canada’s deadliest avalanche, which killed 58 people in Rogers Pass, most of them Japanese railway workers.
The Film Festival kicks off with a splash on Friday, Feb. 27, with A Life Illuminated, Tasha Van Zandt’s breathtaking, immersive profile of marine biologist Edith Widder’s life-long efforts to explore and protect the world’s oceans, with a particular focus on the mysterious phenomenon of bioluminescence, in which elusive deep-sea creatures communicate by producing their own light in the darkness of the abyss.
Full festival passes can be purchased in advance from the ArtSpring box office. Tickets and passes will be available at the door once the Film Festival gets underway at GISS.