TUESDAY MAY 10
7:15 PM VANCITY
TUESDAY MAY 10
8:30 PM CINEMATHEQUE
The Final Passage
Skin
Made entirely using 3-D models, The Final Passage is an uninterrupted journey through the Chauvet-Pont d’Arc Cave that approaches the experience of the first humans who spent time in the cave 36,000 years ago. An uncut sequence-shot filmed with a subjective camera allows us to discover in an immersive manner one of the greatest sites of human history. Lions, mammoths, rhinos, bears, and half-human, half-animal figures come to life in this never-before-seen, hyper-realistic digital reproduction. Discovered in 1994, the Chauvet-Pont d’Arc Cave has proven to be extraordinary, enormous, and sumptuously beautiful. Today it is one of the oldest underground sanctuaries recognized in the world.
In the face of the bitter horror of the Syrian situation, three young artists (Sobhi, Hussein, and Afraa) attempt to find some meaning in their lives through art and theatre. These might seem like paltry weapons against Scud missiles, but they are the only things these young artists/activists have. Fragmented and intimate, the narrative moves between the shattered Syrian city of Aleppo to Turkey and Beirut. In cramped messy apartments, noisy karaoke bars, and city streets, the three friends talk about their experiences, write dialogue, and make puppets for theatrical productions. But you get the sense that their attempts to winnow in on small things, to make art that can be fashioned by hand, is a means to regain some sense of control. Skin is very much a young filmmaker’s work. This is both its charm and, occasionally, its frustration. Sobhi, Hussein, and Afra are like young people anywhere, uncertain about the future, their ambition spiked with weary cynicism and a protective irony. But the bleak reality of their homeland is unshakeable. Through endless cigarettes and drunken late night discussions, they circle back to Syria, and to the revolution.
Pascal Magontier, France, 2016, 26 mins
Afraa Batous, Lebanon/Syria/Turkey, 2015, 85 mins
Slinking through rock gaps, down passageways, hovering past stalactites, over fossilized remains, the camera, at roughly eye level, progressively reveals the centerpiece of the Cave: dozens of paintings, some of the earliest ever discovered, of horse heads, mammoths, bears, cave lions, panthers, hyenas, two rhinoceroses butting horns, red ochre hand prints and dots, a partial Venus figure. -VARIETY THIS SCREENING WILL BE PRESENTED IN 3-D AND WILL BE FOLLOWED BY AN EXTENDED TALK FROM DR. JEAN-MICHEL GENESTE AND PATRICIA MARQUET GENESTE. THIS FILM IS PART OF THE FRENCH FRENCH PROGRAM. MORE ON PAGE 22.
SCREENING PARTNER
AUDIENCE PARTNER
Part of our curated series on new Arab cinema (please see Zeina Zahreddine’s terrific essay on page 27), Skin is very much a film that is attempting something new. In a world blown apart by seemingly endless violence and horror, what does art even mean? In this way, director Afraa Batous is following in a long line of cultural tradition that dates back to Goya’s Black Paintings or Picasso’s Guernica. -DW THIS SCREENING IS PART OF THE ARAB SPRING/ARAB FALL SERIES, CURATED BY ZEINA ZAHREDDINE. READ MORE ON PAGE 21.
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