Main Programming B, Saturday 7:00 PM
LOCATION
Theater 222, 2nd Floor — Innis Town Hall, Innis College,
2 Sussex Street, U of T Campus (1 block South of St. George Subway)
Filles de Jardiniers (Daughters of Gardeners)
Director, Karina Marceau, Quebec, CDN
Thirty-six million women are missing in India. The economic burden of dowries and the ancestral preference for boys make the birth of a daughter a shameful event. Trapped between tradition and progress, many Indians terminate the girls before they are born. Demographers do not hesitate to qualify the crisis of selectively aborting female fetuses as a real foeticide. Daughters of Gardeners is a one-hour film that follows the journey of a young Canadian journalist, in her quest to understand and document this demographic crisis as well as its disastrous consequences on the entire Indian society; the inability of men to find wives; the increase in prostitution; the worsening AIDS pandemic; the kidnapping and trafficking of women; the advent of illicit marriages, etc. Unexpectedly poetic images for such a subject succeed in capturing the human element behind a reality that nonetheless appears quite inhumane.
À part égale (An Equal Share)
Director, Melissa Vincelli, Quebec, CDN
In St-Marcel-de-Richelieu, near Montreal (Quebec), only 32 children are studying at the elementary school, which is divided in 2 multiple levels classes. What are the consequences of this situation whose main goal is to prevent the school from closing down? Is every child receiving an equal share of education?
It’s In the Blood:
Leo Abshire & the Cajun Tradition
Directors, Cyndi Moran, Eric Scholl
Leo Abshire may be the best musician most people have never heard of. He was a world-class musician who played for royalty, presidents, and at the Olympic Games in Atlanta. However, outside of Cajun music circles, he was relatively unknown, at least in the United States. He worked on the Louisiana and Texas oilrigs and factories until his retirement in 1995. But for decades, he was a living embodiment of the traditions of Cajun culture, and made it his life’s work to pass those traditions on to a new generation of musicians. This documentary tells the story of Mr. Abshire’s music, and places it within a broader context of what it means to be Cajun and part of a long and unique tradition.
Website www.myspace.com/amalgamatedmediaworks
