The Foot That Moves the Pedal… is a month-long celebration in images of the diverse ways bikes are used globally. The exhibit brings together some of Henry’s favourite images of bicycles from North America and East Africa.

I came to know Henry last summer and have had the chance to know more about him and his work since. I like the way he is able to capture people and some really personal moments through his photography. According to soulfunkspecial.com, images of people are one of the most desirable types of image for the internet in particular and it’s hard to argue with that. But overall, his photographic work is pretty diverse. This lends itself perfectly for this upcoming exhibit.

His fascination with bikes has been a theme in his photography for some time. He shares, “Ever since I was a child watching my father bike to work each day, bikes have had a hold on my imagination… I indeed love how bikes are often both functional and graceful objects of style, and even art.”

The space provided by the Toronto Public Library makes this a good way to learn more from Henry himself, but also take a closer look at his work. He is really excited to share several new, previously unshown, photos at this exhibit. The images on display were captured while travelling in Santa Monica, Los Angeles, Toronto, Montreal, Paris and Rwanda over the span of a few years.

If you’d like to meet Henry, hear more about his work and take in the exhibition, drop by Runnymede Library on one of the following times:

Saturday March 1st, 12:00 – 2:00 PM
Thursday March 20th, 6:00 – 8:00 PM

You can also take a look at the gallery on the Culture Snap Photography website, as well for more information on Henry and his work.

My neighbourthood cinema, The Royal Cinema, presents the Festival Of New Spanish Cinema beginning this week. This 11-city touring festival will run for every Wednesday for five weeks at the Royal, starting on February 26th.

Now in its sixth year, and still as fresh as ever, North America’s leading showcase of Spanish cinema comes to Toronto for the first time, allowing audiences to discover the latest and most exciting films from Spain. The festival arrives after its presentation in Ottawa, Houston, Vancouver and Portland, and will travel to Seattle, Miami, Washington, San Juan de Puerto Rico, and Chicago over the next few months.

“We have hand-picked the best films Spain has to offer. From our favorite directors such as Cesc Gay and Alberto Rodríguez, to impressive indie feature by avant garde directors Jonás Trueba and Juan Cavestany, these films are not to be missed… We have an array of genres from surreally-Buñuelinean stories to thrillers, romantic comedies and social charge features.” – Marta Sanchez, founder of Pragda and the main organizer of this important event.

The festival will spotlight five hits from Spain:

A GUN IN EACH HAND / UNA PISTOLA EN CADA MANO
Wednesday, February 26th 7:00 pm
Dir. CESC GAY
With Ricardo Darín, Luis Tosar, Javier Cámara, Eduardo Noriega, and more

Eight men in their 40s are caught up in everyday situations that reveal their main conflict: a masculine identity crisis. Their behavior forms a mosaic of emotions men usually don’t reveal. J. is depressed and is the perfect victim for psychoanalysis. E. has lost everything and lives with his mother and his cat. S. is attempting to win his ex-wife back. With the help of drugs, G. is trying to understand why his wife is having an affair. The rest of their friends are doing their best with similar catastrophes.

THE WISHFUL THINKERS / LOS ILUSOS
Wednesday, March 5th 6:45 pm
Dir. JONÁS TRUEBA
With Francesco Carril, Aura Garrido, Mikele Urroz, Vito Sanz, lsabelle Stoffel, Luis Miguel Madrid

This is the life of dreamy filmmaker Leon, in between projects – a sort of limbo with an endless postponing of things, low-key frustration, lover’s quarrels, conversations, coffees, drunkenness, classes, concerts and walks…

UNIT 7 / GRUPO 7
Wednesday March 12th 6:45 pm
Dir. ALBERTO RODRÍGUEZ
With Antonio de la Torre, Mario Casas and Inma Cuesta

A group of renegade cops decides to take the law into their own hands in this gritty thriller. The drug problem in Seville, Spain is spiraling out of control as the city prepares to host the 1992 World Exposition. With pressure mounting to clean up the city, an overworked group of cops starts writing their own rules. Selling dope for cash and information, padding their bank accounts and arrest records, they become local celebrities, poster boys for a new tough-on-crime era in Seville. But their brutal tactics draw press attention and the local drug lords secretly plot their revenge.

PEOPLE IN PLACES / GENTE EN SITIOS
Wednesday March 19th 6:45 pm
Dir. JUAN CAVESTANY
With Ernesto Alterio, Carlos Areces, Raúl Arévalo, Enric Benavent

Working with the tiniest of micro-budgets, playwright and independent filmmaker Juan Cavestany stages a series of bizarre, Buñuelian scenarios that offer a cracked view of contemporary Spain in the wake of the economic crisis. To uncover the strange in the ordinary, the unsettling in the everyday: this is the mark of imaginative wizardry that can be found in abundance in People In Places. Moving from one nondescript location to the next, a theme, or perhaps more of an undercurrent, emerges — until the fiercely political nature of the film becomes apparent.

LIVING IS EASY WITH EYES CLOSED /
VIVIR ES FACIL CON LOS OJOS CERRADOS
Wednesday, March 26th 6:45 pm
Dir. DAVID TRUEBA
With Javier Cámara, Natalia de Molina, Francesc Colomer


Beatles fans will recognize the title, as lyrics from the song Strawberry Fields Forever. John Lennon wrote it in 1966, while in southern Spain playing a minor character in Richard Lester’s anti-war movie How I Won The War. This forms the backdrop of David Trueba’s film about Antonio, a Spanish school teacher who is also an avid Beatles fan. When he learns that Lennon is filming in Almeria, he sets out to meet him… Lennon’s words take on special significance in this charming road movie set in Franco’s Spain.

Certainly an impressive list of films, filmmakers, and stars in this festival lineup. Looks I’ll be spending several nights at my neighbourhood cinema in the next few weeks… Nos vemos!

All films will be screened with English subtitles. Screenings take place at The Royal cinema, starting this week, Wednesday, February 26th. Tickets range from $8 (students) to $10 (adults). Tickets on sale at theatre’s box office or online at theroyal.to.

This week, Toronto film aficionados have the opportunity to catch a screening of Public Hearing. Brought to us by Refocus, the film revolves around a civic meeting in a rural American town, wherein the locals discuss whether to accept the re-zoning proposal to allow the town’s Wal-Mart to expand.

Public Hearing is a verbatim re-performance from this meeting; taken from a transcript downloaded as publicly available information. Shot entirely in cinematic close-up on black-and-white 16mm film, a cast of actors and non-actors read between the lines in an ironic debate over the replacement of an existing Wal-Mart with a ‘mega’ Wal-Mart.

Director James N. Kienitz Wilkins uses the transcript as a tool to create satire.. The film is somewhat of an experiment; in that it’s meant to have the audience question what is “lost in translation” during such mundane, civic proceedings.

The film comes with some strong support from various outlets, including Indiewire. It is a documentary that expands its boundaries, and one that will provide plenty of post-screening discussion material.

Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw is well-known for works like Pygmalion and Hearbreak House, among many. What many came to know later on was his intimate correspondence with Mrs. Patrick Campbell, the celebrated actress with whom he was “violently in love”.

This correspondence began in late-Victorian London in 1899 and ended with the death of “Mrs. Pat” in France in 1940. The two lovers wrote each other letters over the span of four decades, from the Boer Wars to the Second World War.

Cher Menteur (Dear Liar: A Comedy of Letters) is an adaptation by Jerome Kilty of this 41-year correspondence. The play was later translated into French by the famed poet Jean Cocteau. At times tender, at others spiteful, the letters between Shaw and Campbell evoke a sense of mutual admiration, respect, and love.

In this production by Théâtre Français de Toronto, the play stars two legends of the Québec stage, Louise Marleau and Albert Millaire. The one act show offers an intimate look at these two very strong personalities, their emotions, and their vulnerabilities. Millaire and Marleau embody Shaw and Campbell quite nicely and with grace. I found myself drawn to each of them almost equally throughout the performance.

Given that the show is based on letters, Millaire (who also directs the piece) chose to have himself and Marleau read from such letters while interacting with each other from time to time. At times, this took away from the performance. However, during the moments where Shaw and Campbell adress each other face-to-face, Millaire and Marleau held the audience’s attention fully.

My fluency in Spanish helps only so much in understanding parts of spoken French. For those of us who are not fluent in French, the surtitles assist in understanding the dialogue much more. There are aspects of the dialogue that I’m certain make better sense in French; however, this production has made me curious to find the English version and read it. There is humour, candour, and of course, some great lines. One such line that stood out for me came from a letter by Campbell. She wrote, “I’ve been thinking a great deal lately and I find that love sentiment…” Campbell goes on to describe how she admires Shaw’s ability to show sentiment through his words; his writing. This was a key point in my believing how ‘real’ their affection was.

Other aspects of the production I’d like to point out are the set and light desing by Jean-Bernard Hébert. These were minimal but used appropriately to evoke mood and time. At 75 minutes long, the play moves rapidly enough. As stated before, the minor drawback was having Millaire and Marleau read from the ‘letters’ the majority of the time. I’d have liked to see them interact with each other a bit more. Nonetheless, it is an enjoyable one-act show. One that leaves you with a sense of appreciation for those with whom we have a connection, but may not be able to interact with face-to-face. If you’re a ‘romantic’ person, like I am, go see this.

Albert Millaire and Louise Marleau Photo: Avital Zemmer

My Letters! all dead paper… (Sonnet 28)
By Elizabeth Barrett Browning

My letters! all dead paper, mute and white!
And yet they seem alive and quivering
Against my tremulous hands which loose the string
And let them drop down on my knee tonight.
This said—he wished to have me in his sight
Once, as a friend: this fixed a day in spring
To come and touch my hand. . . a simple thing,
Yes I wept for it—this . . . the paper’s light. . .
Said, Dear, I love thee; and I sank and quailed
As if God’s future thundered on my past.
This said, I am thine—and so its ink has paled
With lying at my heart that beat too fast.
And this . . . 0 Love, thy words have ill availed
If, what this said, I dared repeat at last!

Source: wikipedia.org

Elizabeth Barrett Browning (6 March 1806 – 29 June 1861) was an English poet of the Romantic Movement.Her poetry was widely popular in both England and the United States during her lifetime. In 1844, Barrett Browning produced a collection entitled simply Poems. This volume gained the attention of poet Robert Browning, whose work Elizabeth had praised in one of her poems, and he wrote her a letter.

Elizabeth and Robert, who was six years her junior, exchanged 574 letters over the next twenty months. Immortalized in 1930 in the play The Barretts of Wimpole Street, by Rudolf Besier (1878-1942), their romance was bitterly opposed by her father, who did not want any of his children to marry. In 1846, the couple eloped and settled in Florence, Italy. Political and social themes embody Elizabeth’s later work. A collection of her last poems was published by her husband shortly after her death.

For one night only, audiences can partake in a workshop presentation of Parts to Whole, a new play written and directed by One Little Goat Theatre Company’s Artistic Director Adam Seelig.

Sochi Fried and Ben Irvine star in Parts to Whole as a couple discussing and exploring their intimacy in ways so simple as to be radical. Much like Seelig’s previous play (Like the First Time), Parts to Whole is written without punctuation so that the actors may choose how they emphasize the text. The unorthodox spacing on each page is generated by the vertical alignment of certain letters and words. This play also marks Seelig’s further exploration into his notion of “charactor”.

Fried and Irvine were recently seen together in One Little Goat’s The Charge of the Expormidable Moose, which I thoroughly enjoyed. The casting and dialogue are two elements in which I believe Seelig excels in. I have seen most of Seelig’s plays in the past four years, there is something about poetic theatre that really draws one in. Well, at least me… Seelig is also the founder of One Little Goat Theatre Company, with which he has premiered works by Yehuda Amichai, Thomas Bernhard, Jon Fosse, Claude Gauvreau, Luigi Pirandello and himself.

Seelig’s plays and books include Every Day in the Morning (slow), Talking Masks (Oedipussy), Antigone:Insurgency and others. Parts to Whole is being published in print and as an e-book by BookThug, now celebrating its 10th anniversary in innovative Canadian publishing. This marks BookThug’s third publication with One Little Goat.

This workshop will feature work from, Dora Award recipients and nominees, design consultants Jackie Chau (sets and costumes), Laird MacDonald (lighting) and Thomas Ryder Payne (sound).

With the support of Canadian Stage, this workshop presentation of Parts to Whole takes place on Monday, February 24, at 8 pm at the Canadian Stage Main Rehearsal Hall. Admission is free. More information available at OneLittleGoat.org.

Eurydice To Orpheus
A Picture By Leighton
By Robert Browning

BUT give them me, the mouth, the eyes, the brow!
Let them once more absorb me!  One look now
      Will lap me round for ever, not to pass
Out of its light, though darkness lie beyond:
Hold me but safe again within the bond
       Of one immortal look!  All woe that was,
Forgotten, and all terror that may be,
Defied, –no past is mine, no future: look at me!

— from Poetry And The Drama: The Poems of Robert Browning Volume II (1844-1864), E. Rhys (Ed.), J.M. Dent & Sons, Ltd. N.Y. 1909.

Robert Browning by Herbert Rose Barraud c.1888 Source: wikipedia.org

Robert Browning (7 May 1812 – 12 December 1889) was an English poet and playwright whose mastery of dramatic verse, especially dramatic monologues, made him one of the foremost Victorian poets.

In 1833, Browning anonymously published his first major published work, Pauline. After reading Elizabeth Barrett‘s Poems (1844) and corresponding with her for a few months, Browning met her in 1845. They were married in 1846.

The Browning Society was founded while he still lived, in 1881, and he was awarded honorary degrees by Oxford University in 1882 and the University of Edinburgh in 1884.

The 2nd edition of the Toronto Black Film Festival (TBFF) begins tonight, February 11th and runs until Sunday, February16th. Coinciding with Black History Month, TBFF aims to celebrate diversity within the black communities through powerful films, a community program, and some interesting special events.

The year 2014 is a symbolic year the festival, which will be commemorating several ground-breaking anniversaries such as; 210 years of Haitian Independence, 20 years of the Rwandan Genocide; 20 years since Mandela was elected president of South Africa, and 5 years since Barack Obama became the first black American president.

On this special year, TBFF offers 33 films depicting black realities from around the globe. Some of the films and events, I’d like to hightlight include:

THE FORGOTTEN KINGDOM – OPENING FILM
Isabel Bader Theatre – Tuesday, Feb 11 – 7 PM – $20.
Andrew Mudge – Lesotho, South Africa
A young man reluctantly embarks on a journey to his ancestral land of Lesotho to bury his estranged father and finds himself drawn to the mystical beauty and hardships of the people and land he had forgotten.

Still from Cristo Rey Source: TBFF

CRISTO REY
Carlton Cinema – Friday, Feb 14 – 5 PM – $10.
Leticia Tonos Paniagua – Dominican Republic , France, Haiti
Cristo Rey is a unique Caribbean retelling of Romeo and Juliet to the big screen. It is set in the Dominican Republic that is home to over a million Haitians, the country’s biggest minority facing widespread discrimination. The film showcases the story of these mostly undocumented migrants and follows the love between a kind teenager, ostracized for his mixed Haitian-Dominican descent, and the beautiful sister of a local drug boss he’s hired to protect.

TBFF COMMUNUTY PROGRAM – BEHIND THE WORDS!
Carlton Cinema – Saturday, Feb 15 – 1PM – FREE
Presented by Up from the Roots
Through a panel of young artists, learn to understand the real impact of the ‘Spoken Word’ on the youth and why it’s becoming a way for them to escape, survive and communicate.

TRIBUTE TO NELSON MANDELA
Carlton Cinema – Sunday, February 16, 2014 – 7 PM – $10.
A special program of 4 retrospective short films about the legendary world leader Nelson Mandela:
Banished by Sharon Cort; King of Hearts by Mandy Jacobson; Mandela, A Royal Revolutionary by Nhlanhla Mthethwa; and Beverley Palesa Ditsie’s Release Mandela.

THE RETRIEVAL – CLOSING FILM
Carlton Cinema – Sunday, February 16, 2014 – 9 PM – $15.
Chris Eska – USA
On the outskirts of the Civil War, the story follows a fatherless thirteen year-old boy sent north by his bounty hunter gang on a dangerous mission to retrieve a wanted man. Along the journey towards their reckoning, the initially distant pair develops unexpected emotional bonds. As his feelings grow, the boy is consumed by conflicting emotions and a gut-wrenching ultimate decision.

In addition to the films, there are some special events, as well as, free community events at this year’s TBFF. All details about the films, events, locations, and box office information can be found at the Festival’s website torontoblackfilm.com.

Moisie
By Lisa Jeanne Jodoin

For Marie-Jeanne and Tibasse St. Onge

Beneath the ice of the Moisie river
the water rolls in Innu-aimun,
tshiashi-innu-mashinaikan
if you listen, the wind speaks
the breath of ancestors,
the blood coil of DNA that runs
vein to vein. But language settles
the body, and subepidermal
Jesuits still spread alveolar
with their books to sharpen tongues
into rib bone arrows
that sever man from woman
with surgical pronoun precision,
and split our blood
into absure mathematics.

By tongues and by laws
we were made distant relations,
but we refuse to scar.
Our bodies know
the secrets of a world
our tongues cannot shape,
ussimeu, the words are not dead,
8,000 years of blood
come rushing through our heads.

**This poem appears in the Summer 2013, Issue 96 of Matrix Magazine titled INM (Idle No More).

Moisie River, Katchapahun Rapid with Fish Ladder Source: wikipedia.org

Lisa Jeanne Jodoin is an emerging writer of Innu, French, and Italian lineage. She is currently completing her Ph.D. in English at the University of New Brunswick, where she also researches representations of the body and sovereignty in First Nations and Métis Gothic Literature.

Her poetry has appeared in The Artery and Algoma Ink. She also has poems forthcoming in an anthology of Thunder Bay, Ontario writers titled Fuel.

Regardless of the ocassion, seeing classic films with live orchestral accompaniment is always a treat. This month, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra (TSO) will perform Max Steiner’s glorious score live to the film Casablanca, starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman.

Almost 71 years to the date the film was originally released, Casablanca is still widely admired and endures as a prime example of the golden age of Hollywood. TSO Principal Pops Conductor Steven Reineke will lead the Orchestra in the challenging task of accompanying a film live. The original surround sound!