Eco Focus

Green Vision Award: 24 SNOW

Green Cinema Award: PLASTIC CHINA

Friday, October 20

The Revue Cinema

6:30 PM

Friday, October 20

The Revue Cinema

9:00 PM

Mikhail Barynin | Russia | 2016 | 90 min | PG

If temperatures of -40°C make Canadian winter seem intolerable, then one can only imagine living in a climate that dips below -70°. But that’s the reality for farmers like Sergei in the Siberian Russian territory of Yakutia who breeds horses in an environment where the ground is almost always frozen. Despite the unforgiving weather, 24 Snow captures Yakutia in all its staggering beauty. Sumptuous cinematography and a vibrant score make this film a work of art and a stirring portrait of a land and its inhabitants. This gorgeous film shows how Sergei and his neighbours thrive despite the extreme elements and warm up to modern technology as they adapt their way of life to the south.

Jiu-liang Wang | China | 2016 | 81 min | PG

The class system is alive in all its toxicity in Jiu-liang Wang’s IDFA award-winning Plastic China, a film shot in Shandong on the country’s east coast. There, the hard drinking Peng makes $6.50 a day working in a plastic recycling plant run by the authoritarian Kun. Working alongside Peng are his three children, including the 11- year old Yi-Jie, a bright girl who wants to attend school. While Kun’s son gets to go to private school, Yi-Jie’s prospects of getting an education and bettering herself are minimal. “Wang’s inquisitive cameras compile a grim reportage of what looks like an unwholesome, even toxic environment for workers, bosses and pint-sized residents alike. Harmful, insidious, invisible forces are evidently at work here, both of a socioeconomic and physiological nature.”—Neil Young, Hollywood Reporter