Face2Face with David Peck

Avi and I talked about his brilliant and beautiful new film Past Life, and letting go, about justice, pessimism and why he believes we need to "let life take over."

For more information about Past Life(IMDB) and TIFF.

Synopsis

In the fascinating new film from director Avi Nesher (The Wonders), two Israeli sisters delve into the dark mystery of their father's former life in Poland during World War II.

The newest film by Avi Nesher boldly charts dangerous emotional territory as it tells of two sisters trying to uncover their family's past.

It is 1977, and talented but introspective singer Sephi Milch (Joy Rieger) is singing with her choir in a Berlin concert hall. At the reception afterwards, Sephi is shocked when an older woman, upon hearing Sephi's name, hisses "murderer." The woman is immediately hustled away by her son, but the incident haunts Sephi, and when she returns home to Tel Aviv, she shares the story with her older sister, Nana (Nelly Tagar). A fiery tabloid journalist with a political bent, Nana immediately wants to investigate.

Sephi relates the incident to her parents, too -- and it causes an uproar, with her authoritarian father finally confessing that he had another name and life in Poland during the Second World War. But Nana is unwilling to accept their father's tale of survival and loss at face value. The search for the truth of their family's past raises almost-unbearable questions for the sisters: is our father who he says he is? If he's not, who is the man who raised us? And will we bear the spiritual weight of his troubled past?

The story is fascinating right up to its last revelations, and the performances keep us engaged from the first frame. A familial detective story about family, secrets, and identity, Past Life will occupy thoughts and conversations long after the credits roll.

Biography

Avi Nesher studied international relations at Columbia University. His films include The Troupe (1979), She (1982), Timebomb (1991), Turn Left at the End of the World (2004), The Secrets (07), The Matchmaker (2010), and The Wonders (2013), the latter three of which screened at TIFF.

For more information about my podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit my site here.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ashley and I talk about her new film Werewolf, choices and addictions, modern existentialism, Albert Camus and about "paying attention."

For more information about TIFF go here.

IMDB

Trailer

Synopsis

Blaise and Nessa are outcast methadone users in a small town that doesn't offer an easy way out. Each day starts in a long lineup at the tiny pharmacy, then it's door ­to­ door begging to cut grass for people who just want them to go away and die.

At dusk they push their rusty lawnmower up a steep hill and crash in a filthy camper at the edge of town. In this bleakness, Nessa plots an escape, while Blaise lingers closer and closer to relapse, arrest, hospitalization, or worse. Tethered to one another, their getaway dreams are kept on a very short leash.

Biography

Ashley McKenzie ​is an emerging writer­/director from Cape Breton Island, Canada. Her 2015 short 4 Quarters screened at TIFF, VIFF, Stockholm IFF, Festival du nouveau cinema, and won Best Short Film at the Atlantic Film Festival. With her previous work, Stray ('13), When You Sleep ('12), and Rhonda's Party ('10).

Ashley has earned a spot on Canada's Top Ten Shorts list by TIFF, been a three-­time recipient of the Shaw Media Fearless Female Director Award from the National Screen Institute of Canada, and won CBC's Short Film Faceoff.

She is an alumnus of the TIFF Talent Lab and co­-owner of grassfire films.

Werewolf is her first feature film.

For more information about my podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit my site here.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today we talk about a documentary which engages politics and religion, the Gaza Strip, the Middle East, and why surfing is a brilliant metaphor for community and change.

For more information about Gaza Surf Club (IMDB, trailer) and TIFF.

Synopsis of Gaza Surf Club

This handsome and heartfelt documentary takes us into the world of the Gaza Strip’s surfing enthusiasts, and reveals a formidable resilience pulsing within a beleaguered population.

Caught between Israel and Egypt, assailed by airstrikes and rockets, the Gaza Strip has been called "the world's largest open-air prison." But Gaza is also bordered by the Mediterranean, and the sea's majestic white caps are drawing a new generation to the country's coastline to taste freedom in the rolling surf. This heartfelt documentary from directors Philip Gnadt and Mickey Yamine takes us into the world of Gaza's surfing enthusiasts and reveals a formidable resilience pulsing within a beleaguered population.

For the young surfers at the centre of Gaza Surf Club, social forces present challenges as great as any wave can. Ibrahim, a hardworking 23-year-old, has jobs as an orderly and a lifeguard, but his all-consuming dream is to construct a facility that would function as a surf club, archive, and meeting place for Gaza's youth. Ibrahim is desperate to go to Hawaii to train as a surfer and surfboard maker. There are, however, numerous obstacles. Chief among them is simply getting out of the country. Ibrahim speaks of being denied entry to Egypt five times — after paying prohibitive fees simply for the application. Another determined character is Sabah, a 15-year-old girl who loves the water and longs to surf. The sport is considered shameful for women in her conservative community, but her father hopes to give her the opportunity.

The interviews assembled by Gnadt and Yamine are candid and insightful; their visuals speak volumes about the contrasts of life in Gaza. They tour the pockmarked dirt roads and heaps of rubble. At one moment they spot an abandoned tank tread in a park that could be mistaken for public art. They then reveal the splendour of the sea and those who thrive on the rush of open water. What might seem like a fun weekend sport to some is for these young people an expression of defiance and, ultimately, hope.

For more information about my podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit my site here.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Katell Quillévéré and I talk about her new film Heal The Living, science over mystery, living for our loved ones, taking care of others and the rituals of death.

For more information about TIFF go here.

IMDB

Trailer

Synopsis

Unintended consequence is the theme of this potent, pulsing drama, which draws seemingly unrelated stories together into a narrative about the moment when tragedy meets hope. Life's precariousness, its chance encounters, and the mysteries revealed by modern science all provide the foundation for Réparer les vivants. Director Katell Quillévéré brings both remarkable technique and sensitivity to this deeply moral, humanist tale, adapted from Maylis de Kerangal's novel Mend the Living, which was nominated for a Booker Prize.

The film begins in innocence as a French teenager leaves his girlfriend's apartment and joins his friends on a road trip to a seaside surfing spot. In another town, a woman receives the news that her heart condition has become more serious. Elsewhere, medical staff at a regional hospital work through the critical daily details of saving lives.

These stories are destined to intersect, but not before we are led through a series of intense and carefully balanced scenes in which people are forced to deal with the unexpected. Estranged parents, families with secrets, and children hiding news from parents (and vice-versa) become the grist of this emotionally intelligent story.

For her third feature film — her first won the prestigious Prix Jean Vigo for best feature in 2010 — Quillévéré has taken on a psychologically complex tale and told it with both technical skill and attentiveness to the nuances of human interaction. Moving easily between scenes with great control and a powerful visual imagination, she transforms Réparer les vivants into a deeply moving experience.

Biography

Katell Quillévéré was born in Abidjan, Ivory Coast. She studied cinema and philosophy at the University of Paris 8.

Her films include the shorts À bras les corps, L'Imprudence, and L'Échappée, and the features Un poison violent, Suzanne, and Réparer les vivants.

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For more information about my podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit my site here.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Maya and I talk about her important new film Forever Pure, racism, religion and hate, Israel, the cost of remaining silent, and politics as sport.

Forever Pure recently premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival. For more information about the festival go here.

Watch the trailer.

Synopsis

Beitar Jerusalem F.C. is the most popular and controversial football team in Israel, the only club in the Premier League never to sign an Arab player. Midway through the 2012-2013 season, a secretive transfer deal by the owner, Russian-Israeli oligarch Arcadi Gaydamak, brought two Muslim players from Chechnya.

The deal inspired the most racist campaign in Israeli sport that sent the club spiralling out of control. One season in a life of this famed club is a story of Israeli society, personal identity, politics, money and a window into how racism is destroying a team and society from within.

Biography

Maya Zinshtein is an Israeli filmmaker and journalist, who emigrated from Russia during her childhood. She now lives in Tel Aviv.

She holds a BA in Cinema and French studies, and an MA in Security and Diplomacy from Tel Aviv University. She has produced documentaries, includingThieves by Law (by Alexander Gentelev, ARTE/ZDF), the inside story of Russian Mafia, and Operation Successor (By Alexander Gentelev, Channel 1, Israel), about the 2008 presidential elections in Russia.

For years as an investigative journalist (Haaretz newspaper) she covered many of the ills of Israeli society and directed investigative stories for Israeli channels.

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For more information about my podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit my site here.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Raoul Peck

Raoul and I talk about white privilege, consumerism and class economics, apathy and ignorance and how most issues are not about guilt, but about “knowing”.

For more information about TIFF go here.

IMDB

Synopsis

Working from the text of James Baldwin’s unfinished final novel, director Raoul Peck (Moloch Tropical, Murder in Pacot) creates a stunning meditation on what it means to be Black in America.

In 1979, James Baldwin wrote a letter to his literary agent describing his new endeavour: the writing of his final book, Remember This House, recounting the lives and successive assassinations of his friends Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King, Jr. Baldwin was not able to complete the book before his death, and the unfinished manuscript was entrusted to director Raoul Peck (Moloch Tropical, Murder in Pacot) by the writer's estate.

Built exclusively around Baldwin's words, Peck's I Am Not Your Negro delves into the complex legacy of three lives (and deaths) that permanently marked the American social and political landscape. Framing the unfinished work as a radical narration about race in America, Peck matches Baldwin's lyrical rhetoric with rich archival footage of the Civil Rights and Black Power movements, and connects these historical struggles for justice and equality to the present-day movements that have taken shape in response to the killings of young African-American men including Trayvon Martin, Tamir Rice, Mike Brown, and Amir Brooks.

Exploring what it means to be Black in America today, Peck reflects on the legacy of racial violence that still permeates the country.

In Baldwin's words, "You cannot lynch me and keep me in ghettos without becoming something monstrous yourselves. And furthermore, you give me a terrifying advantage: you never had to look at me; I had to look at you. I know more about you than you know about me. Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced." By revealing the deep connections between past and present injustice, I Am Not Your Negro weaves an epic narrative about America's irrational relationship with skin colour — a relationship that would be absurd were it not so tragic.

Biography

Raoul Peck was born in Port-au- Prince, Haiti. His many films includeHaitian Corner (88), The Man on the Shore (93), Sometimes in April(05), and the documentary Fatal Assistance (13). His films Lumumba(00) and Murder in Pacot (14) screened at the Festival. I Am Not Your Negro (16) is his latest feature.

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For more information about my podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit my site here.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Half a Man

Kristina and Maja and I talk about their beautiful new film Half a Man, the Balkan War, innocence, overcoming trauma, denial and what family is really all about.

TIFF Runs from: September 8th – September 18th, 2016

For more information about the festival go here.

Trailer

Biography

Kristina Kumric

Kristina Kumrić graduated design at the Faculty of textile technology of the Univeristy of Zagreb and later Film and TV directing at the Academy of dramatic art in Zagreb. She is the author of several short fiction and documentary films. Her short documentary “Welcome to Igrane” won a special jury prize at the Vukovar Film Festival, 1st jury prize at Liburnia Film Festival and best film awards at FRKA festival. Kristina has been working with the Croatian Radiotelevision and since 2013 she is a lecturer at the Culturology department of the University of Osijek in Croatia.

Maja Hrgovic

MAJA, born in Split, Croatia in 1980, is an award winning fiction writer, journalist and cultural activist. Her first short story collection “Pobjeđuje onaj kojem je manje stalo” (he who cares less, Profil, Zagreb 2010) won the national Kiklop award (2010.) for the best newcomer of the year.

In November 2013 her novel „Živjet ćemo bolje“ (we shall live better, Arteist, Zagreb, 2013) was published and adapted for theatre (ZKM, Zagreb, January 2016., directed by Senka Bulić). She is also the author of the essay collection „Žena, majka, glupača“ (woman, mother, emptyhead, Arteist, Zagreb, 2014), in which she explores gender stereotypes in Balkan politics, media and pop-culture.

Her fiction has been included in several collections, including the anthology “Best European Fiction 2012” (edited by Alexandar Hemon and published by Dalkey Archive Press) and The Granta Magazine. She was nominated for the European Prize for Literature in 2015.

Her journalistic work has been represented in numerous international media, including the book “Identity: The Search for Belonging in a Changing Europe”. In 2009. she was awarded the first prize for journalistic excellence (Journalistic Excellence Award by Balkan Investigative Reporting Network).

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For more information about my podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit my site here.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Khushboo Ranka and Vinay Shukla

We talk in this interview about Khushboo’s and Vinay’s new brilliant film “An Insignificant Man”, about social and political change and why India is a “very ambitious project”, inequality and hope and why these two young directors want

TIFF Runs from: September 8th – September 18th, 2016

For more information about the festival go here.

Trailer

IMDB

Biography

Khushboo Ranka

Khushboo Ranka was born in Mumbai and studied documentary filmmaking at Goldsmith's College in London. She has directed the short film Continuum (06) and co-wrote Ship of Theseus (12), which screened at the Festival. An Insignificant Man (16) is her first documentary feature.

Vinay Shukla

Vinay Shukla was born in Raipur, India and studied at Mumbai University. He has directed the short film Bureaucracy Sonata (11).An Insignificant Man (16) is his first documentary feature.

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For more information about my podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit my site here.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Kulvir Gill

Kulvir and I talk about generosity, the biggest delusion of humanity, our authentic selves and how the right thing can be done in the right way,

Biography

Kulvir Singh Gill is a Senior Principal with Clareo Partners, a corporate strategy and innovation management consultancy. He has over 15 years of consulting and mining industry experience. Mr. Gill started his career with Oliver Wyman as a management consultant before holding several positions with Barrick Gold Corporation’s supply chain and organizational effectiveness teams. 

Mr. Gill serves as the Chair of the Board of Directors for William Osler Health System Foundation and was previously on the board of Habitat For Humanity Brampton.

He is also the co-founder of the Seva Food Bank and coordinates the annual Toronto Sikh Retreat for Sikh-Canadian youth. Mr. Gill holds a B.Sc. and a B.Comm from the University of Calgary. He was a 2010/11 Action Canada fellow and is a recipient of the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal.

Mr. Gill currently lives with his wife, two young sons and parents in Brampton, Ontario.

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Please visit my website for more information on my podcasting, writing and public speaking.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Marko Papic

Marko and I talk about our multi-polar world, risk, why he reads the news for a living, American hegemony, and why “should” is a four letter word.

Biography

Marko Papic joined BCA Research in September 2011 and is the Chief Strategist of BCA’s Geopolitical Strategy service. Marko launched Geopolitical Strategy in March, 2012, a service that blends BCA’s macroeconomic research with the geopolitical methodology, with the goal of avoiding bias and providing investment-relevant forecasts. The GPS service is the financial industries only dedicated geopolitical strategy. Prior to joining BCA he was a Senior Analyst for STRATFOR, a premier global intelligence agency where he contributed to the firm’s global geopolitical strategy as well as its analyst recruitment and training program. Before joining BCA, he also helped create the Center for European Union Studies at the University of Texas at Austin.

Marko holds graduate degrees from the University of Texas at Austin and the University of British Columbia, and has lived in 8 countries on 3 continents.

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Please visit my website for more information on my podcasting, writing and public speaking.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.