Meet the Filmmakers at This Weekend’s Film Festival

February 26 to February 28: What better place to be this weekend than at the movies? And more than the movies you get to meet the movie makers!

Submitted by Diane Copeland Thomas

Sandy Cioffi is not only a great director, and her film Sweet Crude beautifully crafted—Sandy’s also a dynamo speaker who’s wowed audiences at a number of festivals. Sweet Crude is showing at the Dance Studio, Saturday and Sunday afternoons.

Other filmmakers attending include: Salt Spring’s own Mary Fowles, with her documentary, Taxi Casablanca; Norm Lofts, who made Michael Schmidt: Organic Hero or Bio Terrorist (on the ongoing battle over raw milk) and his wife Lisa, the film’s narrator and script writer;

Cathleen Smith and Arwen Hunter with Here are the News (about Edith Josie, the journalist from Old Crow who recently passed away) ; Julie Lee, with Regeneration, and Heather MacAndrew and David Springbett, with The Monarch: A Butterfly Without Borders.

We’re also screening two films that have been nominated for this year’s Academy Awards — Burma VJ and The Most Dangerous Man in the World.

And for those wishing to share the marvelous Film Festival experience with younger members of the family, we can suggest Home Grown, Bogota, Rebecca’s Wild Farm, The Italian Doctor, Regeneration, Ferron: Girl on a Road, Only When I Dance, Here are the News, Reel Injun, The Monarch: A Butterfly Beyond Borders and My Mother’s Farm.

The 11th Salt Spring Film Festival kicks off Friday night at GISS with the daring adventures of the amazing ‘Yes Men’ as they set out to fix the world. And if the Yes Men can fix the world, the Film Festival can certainly fix a few of our own glitches too. Last year some of the viewing rooms got really crowded; this year we’re having double screenings for many of the popular films.

Check the schedule and you’ll see that many films shown on Saturday are repeated Sunday. See at the movies!

For more information about the festival and the film schedule go to: http://www.saltspringfilmfestival.com/