Day: 23 October 2023

VIFF 2023 Review: Apolonia, Apolonia

Jon The BlogcentricLeave a comment
French painter Apolonia Sokol and her attempt to make a career as an artist is the subject of the documentary Apolonia, Apolonia.

Those of you who are into the new artists may or may not know who French painter Apolonia Sokol is. The documentary Apolonia, Apolonia appears to be a documentary about Sokol, but becomes a lot more.

The film starts in 2013 as Apolonia gets herself ready for her art exhibit. The film then flashes back to 2009 when Danish film maker Lea Glob first meet the young Apolonia after just graduating from the Ecole National Superior de Beaux-Arts de Paris. She talks of her childhood of just growing up, the daughter of two actors, with her mother in an artist’s flat owned by a Parisian theatre company. She also reveals she had cancer as a child and was not expected to survive but the nuns prayed over her and she made it. As Apolonia has graduated, she decides she wants to be a professional artist. She feels it’s in her. She’s grown up her whole life around the artistic friends. Her artistic influence throughout her life is inseparable from her. Though it comes right after her professor tells her that her paintings are less interesting than her personality.

Undaunted, she starts her first works in Paris. She decides with her first paintings what her art will be about. They won’t simply be portraits of people, mostly women. She aims to get to know the subjects she paints more intimately and wants that reflected in her paintings. For painting women, she has a goal of redefining the modern woman through her paintings. She sets up her works in her flat which she continues to hold parties with many artistic types. Soon the theatre building she’s lived in her whole life is repossessed and her mother has to find a new apartment. One woman she meets from a party, a Ukrainian woman named Oksana, soon becomes Apolonia’s girlfriend and she starts living in her apartment with the mother. Oksana, who formed a feminist activist group at her college called Femen, is very understanding of Apolonia’s artistic goals, unlike Apolonia’s recent ex-boyfriend. Early in her pursuits, she has many art exhibitions in Paris and various cities in France. Apolonia continues her works just as both Oksana and her mother are living in the apartment and it makes things cramped.

It’s only a matter of time until Apolonia captures the eye of someone big in the arts world. His name is Stefan Simchowitz and he is famous for being a renowned art collector. Simchowitz sees promise in Apolonia’s works and he offers her a ‘big break’ where she can have her art viewed in Los Angeles by some of the biggest names in the art world. There is one catch; the deal includes a minimum number of paintings to create. This becomes a case of both ambition and frustration for Apolonia. She struggles with that demand with the number of paintings she tries to do simultaneously, with the expense of her flat in Los Angeles, with the expense of her painting materials, and her loved ones being thousands of miles away. When the works are finally launched on display, her works get a lot of good reviews. She also gets some critiques including one critic saying that her works look more forced than inspired.

Over time, Apolonia continues to paint and continues to showcase her works around the world in France, Denmark, other American cities, Argentina and Turkey. As her exposure grows, things become more difficult for her. She questions her artistry and if it should even submit to commercial pressures. Things also stand in the way with the relations with people closest to her. The relationship with Oksana ends and her new love is a man. She’s still insistent on not being a mother, and even has an abortion. Then in 2018 while doing an exhibit in another country, Oksana commits suicide. It breaks Apolonia’s heart, but she paints her memory in her next paintings. Then suddenly, the filmmaker herself becomes hospitalized after giving birth. Lea, the director, is not supposed to make it, but she recovers. Flashing forward to the 2020’s, Apolonia has been honored for her works by the artistic board of the French government. She reflects on all it took for her to make it to this level.

This is a telling documentary. It is very rare for a documentary to showcase an artist and their attempt to make it in the arts work from their very start to when they finally make it. As we follow the artist’s path, we can easily see why Apolonia would want to be an artist. She was surrounded by the arts and artistic people throughout her life. It eventually becomes her turn to express herself. We get a look at all the works she creates and why she paints she does. We see all the difficulties Apolonia goes through to achieve her renown such as her first exhibitions, her first contract, the cost of creating the many works expected of her, the critics she has to deal with, the sexism in the arts world, the loss of her former girlfriend. Even family situations as her father wants her to become a mother but her grandmother is fine if she doesn’t have children. It’s a long 13 year struggle that comes with the triumph in the end. Anyone who’s interested in making it as an artist should see this. It will show them a lot and remind others familiar with the arts world it’s still hard to make it as an artist. Always was.

Those who watch this documentary will also see it’s not just about Apolonia Sokol. The film is also about the documentarian herself. As she continues to film Apolonia and her life, she grows as a human. Apolonia’s emergence as a great in the world of art coincides with Lea’s emergence as a documentarian and also as she grows as a person. In a bizarre twist of fate, Lea also cheats death as she was given a low chance of surviving after her child’s birth. Just like Apolonia was given a low chance of surviving her childhood bout with cancer. Sometimes it seems the two were fated to be together.

This documentary is unique that it mixes three different stories into one and somehow pieces it together well. It first comes as a film that follows a young emerging artist as she works to establish herself. It shows the works she does, her inspiration, her free personality and the sexist hurdles she tries to overcome. It also shows her in her personal life. It shows her as she tries to establish herself as an adult and faces the pressures from family and others to find someone she can commit herself to or even the pressure to become a mother. It also shows her relationships: first with a Ukrainian woman named Oksana, then with a French man. There’s also dealing with Oksana’s suicide which hurts Apolonia to this day. Finally there’s the filmmaker herself Lea Glob. Just as Lea helps make Apolonia in her film, it becomes a case where Apolonia makes Lea. Definitely a documentary that goes beyond its original mission.

Top accolades belong to Lea Glob. From first meeting Apolonia in 2009 to constantly coming back to her to tracing her career’s biggest moments, she captures an artist in the making. She captures an artist’s soul with a fierce feminist attitude that she includes in her works. She captures the difficulties Apolonia faces to make it as an artist, especially sexism and capitalism. She captures Apolonia’s relationships with the people around her and some of the heartbreak she experiences. She also captures her own unity with Apolonia as she is also an against-all-odds survivor story too. One could joke the two may be long lost sisters!

This film has already won many a documentary award at film festivals. Among them, wins in documentary categories at the Amsterdam International Documentary Festival, Hong Kong Film Festival, the CPH: DOX Festival, the Goteberg Film Fest and the One World International Human Rights film Festival

Apolonia, Apolonia is a documentary intended to track the growth and progress of a rising artist, but it also tracks the growth and progress of the film maker herself. It’s rare to see and it captures your intrigue too.

VIFF 2023 Shorts Segment Review: Forum 2

Jon The Blogcentric1 Comment

With me having to spend the entirety of VIFF in Vancouver this year, I have better chances of completing my three annual VIFF goals. I was able to complete the second of my goals: see a segment of short films. I did so at a “Film Forum” titled Forum 2. Not the most original of titles, but the stories made up for it. On top of it, they’re all from Canadian film makers. Definitely worth checking out:

-Sisters (Ontario – dir. Marisa Hoicka): The film begins with a 1960’s look and it appears to be an instruction film on how to be a “proper woman.” Instead the film is the narrator talking about how her “sister” taught her how to be a powerful woman with what she said and how she lived.

This is a unique short film. It comes in the guise of your stereotypical instructional film on how to be prim and proper, but instead is a story about empowerment. Throughout it all, it never loses that 60’s feel it intends to have. Very good film that does a lot in its brief time.

-Four Mile Creek (Quebec – Dir. Ryan McKenna):****The story begins with the retelling of the Cormier family as they go through Ontario until their eventual settlement to La Salle, Manitoba. Their journey is in the mid-1880’s and during a time of rampant smallpox. While in Ontario, the Cormier children were hit and their eight year-old daughter Aurore died. She was buried in the plains near their house and outside Kenora, Ontario by her father because a priest would not perform the blessing. A century later, a group of University of Winnipeg archivists, including family and one claiming to be haunted by Moise Cormier’s ghost, go on a mission to research and uncover Aurore Cormier’s grave.

This is a docudrama that combines recalling of letters from the Cormier’s to re-enacting of the moments of the family and their smallpox ordeal to those involved in the uncovering telling their story. It’s two films in one and tells a revealing historical story known to few. Impressive and creative.

-Cloud Striker (B.C. – dir. A.W. Hopkins): At an Indian Residential School in 1931, four male students are being punished by the nun. Their crime: speaking in their Indigenous language. One student, Elijah Cloud Striker, is defiant and even uses his Indigenous name in front of the nun. She slaps him and gives him the hardest of the punishment. A man comes to visit. He’s Chief Cloud Striker and he’s looking for his son. Both the nun and the priest try to persuade him to stop but the Chief punches the priest in the face after he hurls the chief a racist slur. The Chief and Elijah make a run for it. Later while resting in a remote area, they talk and wonder why their people aren’t angrier about this

The treatment of Indigenous peoples through the residential school system has scarred our nation like nothing else. Especially since Canada has been dealing with the ugly aftermath this past half-century. It’s unclear if this is based on a true story or if this is a story of an incident the filmmaker wishes had happened. The film is good at retelling ugly things that happened at residential schools and how it hurt peoples. The ending talk between the Chief and Elijah gives an impression of how a lot of Indigenous people feel about this system. That mention from Elijah of two boys being buried is another ugly reminder. Even though the residential school system completely ended in 1996, I’m sure there’s a lot of harbored anger with the system, the Roman Catholic Church, and the Canadian government. This story tells a lot.

-Conviction (Alberta – dir. Bruce Thomas Miller): A former convict named Joseph, an Indigenous man, is released from prison after years of incarceration. He is given a job as a custodian at a thrift store. He is given residence with a man maned Quincy who himself was a former convict and is to look out for him. At his job, he has to deal with co-workers who find him suspicious, a second-in-command who wants to be at odds with him, a customer who hurls an insult at him and traumatic memories of his crimes and his incidents in prison. At the end, Quincy reminds Joseph of what he himself had been through and he’s someone for Joseph to turn to.

We go from a film about the ugliness of Residential Schools to a film about the aftermath. Over time, it became evident the residential schooling system was a terrible idea as it led to substance abuse, homelessness, substance addictions, suicides and crime among the Indigenous people’s. Joseph is like a lot of Indigenous men who want to leave their ugly past behind and want to start a new life, but doesn’t know if he can. The director/writer wrote this script as he himself was going through his own healing of PTSD. It speaks volumes of the struggle they have to go through. Sometimes, Joseph doesn’t know if his freedom is a bigger hell than prison and may feel it’s better to return. At the same time, it’s a reminder there is support along the way from those who also went through what they went through. Excellent story that’s well-acted and gets one thinking.

-Black Box Investigations (B.C. – dir. Paige Smith): A woman buys a disposable camera. She takes all sorts of pictures of her, of her surroundings and of various angles. She buys another with a flash. Again all sorts of weird photos, including inside her mouth. The photos are for all to see.

This is the kind of short film I’d expect to see in a shorts show of MODES. Although I didn’t exactly like this short film, I give the director credit for wanting to play around and want to do something creative and fun.

-Autre Chose (Quebec – dir, Etienne Lacelle): A biker is repairing his motorbike. He had a bad crash the day before. He has a hard time repairing his bike but succeeds. He wants to go for one last ride in the wild. On thing. Just before he leaves, he comes across a strand of long blonde hair on him. It’s a strand of his late girlfriend who died in the crash. He puts it in a small bag and heads off on his bike with a rifle. He drives through the terrain but gets his bike stuck. He tries to camp out and throws his girlfriend’s hair in a bonfire. While out walking the wilderness, he contemplates shooting himself. He doesn’t and moves on. As he comes across a lake, he cleanses himself in it. But as he drives off, he comes across her hair again.

This is a unique short film with no dialogue and lets the images and the sounds tell the story. You can get a sense of what is happening with the story. The images of the story even gets one asking questions. Like did he kill her during the accident? The thought of suicide and the bathing in the lake just after could mean it’s showcasing a chance at redemption. The ending can also send a message that even if redemption is possible, he still has to deal with the unresolved aftermath. The film really gets you thinking and will leave you with questions of your own..

-The Great Kind Mystery (Newfoundland =dir. Ella Morton): Images of Daniel’s Harbour, Newfoundland and its surrounding area are shown as young artist Amy Hull, who is of Mi’kmaq and Inuk descent, tells her story. The stories she tells are of the area of Daniel’s Harbour and its history, her denial of her Indian Status while she was attending university, and of the pride she feels of her ancestry.

This is the third Indigenous-themed short that was part of the segment. The first dealt with oppression of the past, the second dealt with the aftermath and this short deals with the current systemic racism in Canada’s Indian Act. This film is a reminder that Canada still has a long way to go to do things right and drop its racist systematic treatment of Indigenous peoples, especially in these post-Residential School times. This documentary is also a film that inspires hope. Amy is young and resilient and refuses to let racist politics destroy her pride or her identity and pursue her artistic dreams. She embraces her identity despite what has happened to her and won’t bow down. This film, and Amy’s story, is a ray of hope for the future.

-Element (Quebec/Ivory Coast – dir. Will Niava): It’s a hot summer day in Abidjan, the capital city of the Ivory Coast. A group of four young thugs have a hard time trying to make money. Their current business is not doing so well so they decide to get involved in illegal things. As the money gets better, things make a turn for the worse such as in their unity, the leader’s relationship with his girlfriend and even his soul. He even comes across a vision of himself of him dead and all of his loved ones at his funeral. It’s there he emerges from the ocean water and starts a new life, but not without something tragic at the end.

This is a unique story as it tells the story of pursuing life in the fast lane with the mix of spirituality. What the leader experiences is consequences both in the earthly world and the spiritual world. The inclusion of the spiritual world adds to the film and shows a form of spirituality rarely seen by others. It’s rare to see something like that in a film about young thugs trying to live fast. Overall, a great unique drama.

That’s what it was. Eight shorts from eight Canadian directors. Two were from BC, three were from Quebec. Three were from female directors and three were Indigenous themed. Most were dramas, some were experimental and some were even documentaries or docudramas. All of them are unique in the stories they showed and what messages they want to send. Also all of them showcase directors with a promising future.

Those are my thoughts on the eight short films of Forum 2. Some I liked, some I found intriguing, a few I didn’t. All of them did showcase the director’s works and abilities very well.