ArtFIFA 2017: Agatha Christie Contre Hercule Poirot

AGATHA CHRISTIE CONTRE HERCULE POIROT:

QUI A TUÉ ROGER ACKROYD?

WHO KILLED ROGER ACKROYD?

FRANCE | 2016 | 57 MIN | French

Category: FIFA Grand Panorama

This film clearly illustrates how little, until now, have we understood the real genius of Agatha Christie, at least vis-a-vis her novel The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. It is only when Pierre Bayard undertakes to stage the novel as a play that he ends up discovering an amazing, original concept of this novel.

At first the film takes us through Agatha Christie's early biography and what motivated her to write. Then it focuses on Pierre Bayard's staging of the play, his need to minutely analyse Christie's writing, the novel's characters and scenes, and even to look into the police investigative tools that he himself then applies to understand better the novel's action and timing. This leads him to discover that the way the novel and its plot have been understood until now is not exactly what the novel insinuates. Unfortunately, if I say anything more, I would give out too many clues and spoil the film, which in itself becomes an investigative narrative, a search for the clues of Who's Done It?

The film elucidates Agatha Christie's technique and intent, and lets the viewer to discovers how much she was in the forefront of the crime novel genre, how avant-garde for her times, to the extend that it is only now this aspect of her writing is becoming finally understood. 

I had a problem with only one aspect of this film: the way the interviews with English researchers were audibly translated into French, both English and French simultaneous narrations heard at the same volume. Since neither of the languages is my mother tongue, and I acquired them both later in life, I had a hard time, actually had failed to pick up any of them clearly enough to understand what was being said. When previously presented with a similar situation in a film where one of the languages was my mother tongue, I had no problem to hear my native tongue clearly. I additionally suspect that people with some hearing problems, even slight ones like tinnitus, would also have  problems to pick up one of the languages more clearly, even a mother tongue. I therefore recommend that the film has a written translation s.- t.  to facilitate the understanding of what is being said.

Agatha Chritie as a child

Agatha Christie

OFFICIAL SYNOPSIS

“The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926) is one of Agatha Christie’s most celebrated novels. Its renown stems from a plot twist that was highly original for its time: the killer is hidden behind the mask of the narrator himself. This earned Christie the wrath of some critics, who considered the artifice dishonest, a violation of the conventions of the genre. Eighty years later, Pierre Bayard, a professor of literature and psychoanalyst, revisits the book in order to deconstruct it. His textual analysis leads to an exploration of the context of the work’s publication and the private life of the mysterious novelist. Bayard finally arrives at a stunning conclusion.”

DIRECTOR

JEAN-CHRISTOPHE KLOTZ

Born in Washington, Jean-Christophe Klotz is a graduate of the Centre de formation des journalistes in Paris and of Paris II (Economics, Information and Communication). He wrote the documentary Kigali, des images contre un massacre(2006), presented at the Semaine de la Critique in Cannes in 2006. In 2009, he directed his first feature-length film, Lignes de front.

Filmography | Lignes de Front (2010) ; L'Argent, le sang et la démocratie - A propos de l'affaire Karachi (2013); Kigali, des images contre un massacre (2006).

Cinematography: Alberto Marquardt

Distribution: Arte Distribution

Editing: Pascal Ariel

Music: Jean-Christophe Klotz

Producer: Estelle Fialon

Sound: Marc Soupa

Production: Les Films Du Poisson

FILM TRAILER

For more information and FIFA film festival and scheduling, visit the Art FIFA website.

In 2016 Montreal's PAC Museum held a commemorative exhibition to honour Agatha Christire. You can read about it here.

ArtFIFA 2017: Zhu Xiao-Mei

 Zhu Xiao-Mei: How Bach Defeated Mao

Germany / 2016 . 58 min / Chinese, French, English s.-t.

Category : FIFA Competition

This is another excellent film on a classical music piano virtuoso in FIFA competition category this year. You can read about FIFA documentary on French pianist Alain Planès here. It is interesting to compare those two musicians because each creates from a very different private perspective and each has achieved great success. With Planès, it is the integration of all his aesthetic, artistic senses into a unified expressive wholeness. With Xiao-Mei, it is finding the balance within herself, the unity of music and her emotions, and anchoring her being and her music in the timeless ancient philosophies of Lao Tzu and Buddha. 

Zhu Xiao-Mei's favourt composer is Bach. She is best known for playing Bach. She loves interpreting his music and claims that Back was a Buddha disciple, though he did not know it. It is the focus and unity in Bach's music that are Buddha-like, and with which Xiao-Mei strongly identifies. Her second favourite composer is Schubert, she also plays Chopin. She appears to limit her repertoire to those scores that resonate within her, that she strongly identifies with emotionally and philosophically since they correspond to her personal integrity, her sense of centring within and finding the all embracing wholeness. 

After being in exile first in the USA for 8 years and then in France where she still lives, she was finally persuaded to go back to China and face her fears and memories of repression and persecution. What surprised her the most, despite years of cultural banishment and even the outlawing of instruments like piano, she encounters a terrific interest in her concerts mostly from China's young generation. She is stunned because her western audiences are mostly in their sixties, and the demand for classical music is nothing so intense as what she encounters in China.

When Zhu Xiao-Mei was asked how could she play and understand Bach so well although she was Chinese, she replied that Bach music transcended cultural barriers and was a heritage of the entire humanity. She also stated that Chinese people might understand Bach better than westerners because of their attunement to such Chinese philosophers as Lao Tzu.

This film makes a viewer to ask a question why in the west the interest in the great classical composers and their music is waning, why it does not find much resonance with the younger generations? Why do rock concerts get so much funding and promotion and classical music concerts are being neglected? Could the old music masters come back to the forefront in our western society soon, as they did in China after years of political rejection and neglect?

OFFICIAL FILM SYNOPSIS

Presented in partnership with ICI ARTV

“The music of Bach enabled pianist Zhu Xiao-Mei to cope with the worst challenges of her life. After experiencing all of the consequences of the Mao regime and the Cultural Revolution, she emigrated to Paris in 1980. She was deeply marked by the great cultural darkness that came over her country under Mao. She was publicly humiliated, her teachers were intimidated and her musical scores were burned. In this personal and touching documentary about the immense power of music, Paul Smaczny tells Zhu Xiao-Mei’s story as she agrees to return to China for the first time and discovers a country transformed.”

DIRECTOR

Paul Smaczny

Emmy Award-winner Paul Smaczny is a German-based documentary filmmaker and producer of music films and concert, ballet and opera recordings. His latest works include the award-winning documentaries Die Thomaner – A Year in the Life of St. Thomas Boys Choir Leipzig (2012), John Cage – Journeys in Sound (2012) and Music – A Journey for Life (2013), about conductor Riccardo Chailly. In 2010, he founded his own production company, Accentus Music, which quickly became one of the most distinguished production companies in the classical music sphere.

PRODUCTION TEAM

Cinematography: Michael Boomers, Nyika Jancsó

Distribution: Accentus Music

Sound mixing: Karl Atteln, Markus Krohn

Editing: Dirk Seliger

Producer: Anca-Monica Pandelea, Paul Smaczny

Sound: Sebastian Braun, Toine Mertens, Robert Sandow, Christoph Wonneberger

Production: Accentus Music

FILM TRAILER

Two years ago, Art FIFA festival presented another excellent film about pianist Zhu Xiao-Mei. You can read about it here.

FIFA 2015: LE RETOUR EST LE MOUVEMENT DU TAO

For more information and FIFA film festival and scheduling, visit the Art FIFA website.

ArtFIFA 2017: Alain Planès, l'infini turbulent

Alain Planès, l'infini turbulent
Alain Planès, the Turbulent Infinity
France  / 2016  / 55 min. / French,  English s.-t.

Category : FIFA Competition

We all tend to put various art forms into their respective categories. This film brakes such barriers. A music interpreter can actually hear colours or see music in a poem's turn of a phrase. This film, more than any other film about a concert music performer, makes one to understand that all the forms of art stem from the same creative source and have no boundaries separating them. One can put into music the colours one sees, or paint the musical notes one hears. This is how a genius of an artist or musician is revealed in how sensitive he or she is to the variations of the shades, shapes, tonalities, and sounds in any visual, auditory or tactile domain, and how the ability to interconnect all these aspects so the music which is being interpreted acquires a spacial volume of a sculpture, the colour of a painting, and the expressive meaning of a poem. This is what is unique about this film - it makes us understand that music is multidimensional and not simply auditory. It also reveals that the true virtuosos have understood this intuitively and it is what separates them from other music and concert performers who have not grasped this fact.

The film plunges a spectator into music and colours through which the life and career of Alain Planès is presented. It reveals his many connections with the people at the artistic and music avant-guard at his times, and how these relationships and his personal need for art and poetry shaped not only his understanding of music scores, but helped him to find the correct keys to unlock the composers' intent and to interpret it. The film is concise and well put together to reveal to the audience a pianist many of whom might not have known, or have not known him well enough, or might not have understood the source of his artistry. 

OFFICIAL SYNOPSIS

Presented in partnership with ICI ARTV

“Alain Planès is a virtuoso performer of both classical and contemporary music, a versatile and demanding musician and ardent enthusiast of painting and poetry. From his relationship with the visual arts and words, he derives the meaning and power of his creativity. Although he has always avoided the glare of the media, he agreed here to reveal his sources of inspiration and musical choices. Looking back at his artistic path, from his very early days on the piano, his conservatory studies in Paris and the United States, and the launch of his career in the 1970s, this profile by Dominique Lemonnier immerses us in the world of the artist. In her directorial debut, the violinist offers a candid and intimate portrait of the pianist, shedding light on his influences and pivotal encounters.”

DIRECTOR

Dominique "Solrey" Lemonnier

Dominique “Solrey” Lemonnier is a violinist who has performed in concerts and theatrical works, in addition to recording numerous film soundtracks. In 2005, in an effort to combine video, visual arts, texts and music, she formed the Traffic Quintet. Following her last concert at the Philharmonie de Paris in 2015, she decided to set her violin aside and devote herself to directing musical films.

Filmography | First film.

PRODUCTION TEAM

Cinematography:  Justine Emard, Xavier Forcioli, Edward Japp, Gerard Quiles, Ange Leccia

Distribution:  Dominique "Solrey" Lemonnier

Editing:  Idit Bloch, Cyril Polinacci

Narration:  Alain Planes

Producer:  Dominique "Solrey" Lemonnier

Sound:  Romain Allender, Xavier Forcioli, Alexandre Tanguy

Production:  Galilea Music 

For more information and film scheduling, visit the Art FIFA website.

FILM TRAILER

1700 La Poste - Vide et Vertige

 

Vide et Vertige
Ivan Binet, Jocelyne Alloucherie, Mathieu Cardin

Photography and Installation
March 24 - June 18, 2017

1700 La Post galley is presenting three Quebec artists: Ivan Binet, Jocelyne Alloucherie, and Mathieu Cardin. This time, there is not much colour in the gallery as was the case with the previous 1700 La Post exposition. There are only some accents of subdued or mono colour mostly in Ivan Binet's works. 

Ivan Binet

Ivan Binet contribution to the exhibition is largely photographic. Looking at his works one immediately assumes they are photo-shopped. Surprisingly, this is not the case. He uses his camera's setting and maybe also the Jet-ink photo printer settings to create very unique visual effects.

In addition, Binet also presents two photos of Cornelius Krieghoff's paintings in an installation-like setting inside the former post office's vault.

Jocelyne Alloucherie

Jocelyne Alloucherie, a sculptor who also became a photographer, went up north to photograph glaciers and their monumental shapes and forms. She also uses additional sculptural elements to complete her installation.

Mathieu Cardin

Mathieu Cardin's work is conceptual and sculptural. His reproduction of mountains and mountainous ridges and the additional use of photography to create his spatial structures is quite impressive. His mirror technique to conjure distance, perspective, and the illusion of an endless mountainous ridge is quite ingenious.

Click on images to enlarge them.

Hover your mouse over images for description and credits.

Participate in a virtual visit of the exhibition by watching this short video on VIMEO.
https://vimeo.com/210809606

1700 La Poste is a private space dedicated to visual arts. It presents events in the form of exhibitions and lectures. It is housed in a former Postal Station F, built in 1913, that was originally conceived by the architect David Jerome Spence. It is located in Montreal's Griffintown, 1700 Rue Notre-Dame West. The building was fully restored a century later, thanks to private financing from Isabelle de Mévius, and the vision of the architect Luc Laporte.

For more information, visit the 1700 La Poste website.
The admission to the exhibition if free of charge.

1700 La Poste

McCord Museum 2017 - Fashioning Expo 67

FASHIONING EXPO 67
March 17 - October 1, 2017

Expo 67 marked a high point in the history of Montreal and Canada as it also highlighted Canada’s Centennial and Montreal’s 325th anniversary celebrations. 50 years later, to commemorate Montreal's 375th anniversary (and incidentally also Canada’s 150^th birthday), the McCord Museum presents a new temporary exhibition Fashioning Expo 67.  In 1967, this Universal and International Exposition received over 50 million visits. The world discovered Montreal as the city opened its doors to the entire world.

Fashioning Expo 67 exhibition presents Expo 67 for the first time through the prism of fashion, as an original concept developed by the McCord Museum. 

Expo 67 was a watershed moment for Montreal. It embraced artistic and architectural expression, image-making, and also spectacle and display to promote an optimistic and forward-looking world view. Its modern mix of art, architecture, technology and design conveyed a message of boldness and creativity that resonated with the Canadian fashion milieu. Young designers and manufacturers alike seized the many opportunities to participate in Expo 67 projects, taking advantage of this exceptional showcase to make their personal creative statements on the world's stage.

The exhibition features over 60 outfits: hostess uniforms from various pavilions, clothing by Quebec designers, as well as products from every sector of the Canadian fashion industry, including hats, gloves, umbrellas, purses, jewellery, and even fur. The different sections of the exhibition also display drawings, photographs, archival film footage, and documents. In addition, there are videos of interviews that the Museum conducted with several designers from that era. 

A Conversation about Fashioning Expo 67, led by Cynthia Cooper, will take place on April 12, 2017.

The Museum’s online boutique offers exclusive items relating to Expo 67, and to other exhibitions currently on view. You can view the items and order here.

For more information on the exhibition and other activities, visit the McCord Museum website.

Click on images to enlarge them.

Hover your mouse over images for description and credits.

Centaur Theatre 49th Season

Centaur Theatre 2017-2018 Season
Applause & Ovation!

Yesterday, Centaur Theatre unveiled its 49th Season 2017-2018. The Centaur has a tradition to allot a metaphor for its seasons: the 47th season's metaphor was Luminous, the 48th season's - Swept Away. This time, the upcoming season has received only a visual metaphor of clasping hands without any words, as seen in the poster above. Yet the image seems to proclaim very loudly, Applause & Ovation! Or more directly, We Live and Create for Your Appreciation, or Your Applause is our Reward. It is also a heartfelt applause for the Executive Director Roy Surette who is departing Centaur in June 2017, for his excellent years at the helm of Centaur, and also a welcoming applause for the new Executive Director Eda Holms.

Eda Holms was introduced by Roy Surette during the unveiling of the Centaur's 49th season. The American-born Holmes has been the Associate Director of the Shaw Festival since 2010. She was also involved with Factory Theatre and the Tarragon Theatre in Toronto. Everybody is now anticipating some creatively interesting times for Centaur Theatre.

Below are six unique plays Centaur Theatre is offering their audiences to experience in the 2017-2018 season. Click on the poster images to enlarge them to be able to read not only the names of the plays but also the names of their authors and directors, and the dates they will be performed.

Click on images to enlarge them, to read all the small print.

For more information on the present and future programs and activities, visit the Centaur Theatre website.

Centaur Theatre 2017: YOU WILL REMEMBER ME

Centaur Theatre /48th Season

Tu te souviendras de moi
The Quebec English-Language Premiere

March 7 - April 2, 2017

Play written by François Archambault

Translated from French by Bobby Theodore

Directed by Roy Surette

François Archambault, who wrote You Will Remember Me (Tu te souviendras de moi) is a Quebec playwright and the winner of the prestigious Governor General Award. The Centaur theatre assumed the honour to stage the Quebec English-language premiere of this play.

This is a story about family, memory, connection, and also a reconnection. The spectator enters into the main character’s slowly changing world, where Edouard, a highly respected professor, who is also a political commentator and a ladies’ man, can recite famous historical dates but can’t remember what he ate for breakfast. When a suppressed memory springs to life, the line between reality and dreams blurs, allowing him to revisit the past and heal old wounds in a sad, touching, and yet refreshingly funny way. 

Many spectators will relate to this play. The story of an ageing man who is progressively loosing his short term memory will especially hit home with those who had to care for a family member with a similar problem. Also, the Quebec political events of the René Lévesque era will revive many memories...

This is a very clever, sharp, and brilliantly acted play. The plots' tempo never fails, and the story line keeps one engaged mentally and emotionally with the subject matter. The stage settings are used effectively to bring the action inside the house and outside into the woods without skipping a beat.

François Archambault stated about his play:

 “I didn’t want to make a play that only talks about Alzheimer’s; I wanted it to be wider than that. For me, it is more a piece on memory ... memory and history, since the main character is a historian. I explore what we retain of our family history and the history of the society in which we operate; the things that we remember and those we prefer to forget.”

Sadly, this is the last play that Roy Surette directed as Centaur’s Artistic

and Executive Director before returning to the West coast in June to helm Touchstone Theatre. The title You Will Remember Me resonates with his pending departure.

Cast:  Bender, Lally Cadeau, Jean Marchand, Johanna Nutter and Amanda Silveira

Assistant Director:  Stuart Fink

Set & Costume Designer:  Eo Sharp

Lighting Designer:  Luc Prairie

Composer & Sound Designer:  Keith Thomas

Stage Manager:  Samira Rose
Apprentice Stage Manager:  Philippe Gobeille

Click on images to enlarge them.

Hover your mouse over images for description and credits.

For more information, visit the Centaur Theatre website.

Chat Up

Sunday, March 12, 2017,  12:30 PM

FREE ADMISSION

Join Lucinda Chodan, Montreal Gazette's editor in Chief as she speaks with Dr. Natalie Phillips, Neuropsychologist and Professor in the Department of Psychology, Concordia University, member of the Centre for Research in Human Development (Concordia) and the Lady Davis Institute for Medical Research (Jewish General Hospital/McGill). You'’ll learn about the latest findings in Dr. Phillips’ research, including  cognition difficulties in Alzheimer’s disease and in ageing, why the two are not the same thing, and questions around risk and prevention.

Complimentary coffee and biscotti, courtesy of Season Sponsor, Bonaparte Restaurant.