How often do students get to meet filmmakers in person and hear them discuss their films?
About 20 fourth year Laurentian University geography students heard Montreal filmmakers Daniel Schorr and Belinda Oldford at a Geography 4116 course, Human Impacts on the Environment, in the classroom building Monday night. The two discussed three of their short animated films.
They delayed their departure from the city, after screening their films at Cinefest Monday, to talk to students said their professor Jorge Virchez.
Schorr screened first his animated short about how a young boy is forced onto the streets after being assaulted by his alcoholic step-father.
"When I made this film I wanted to be very accurate so I talked to people involved in the issue of street children, including the kids in my native country Brazil," said Schorr.
"Often we see the hordes of children living in the streets and wonder why they are there in the first place. My film explains the social cause-family breakdown and domestic violence, that often lead to this problem," he said.
Schorr's second film, Dominoes, screened during the
Canadian Animation shorts Monday at 1:30 pm at Cinefest at
SilverCity.
An oddly shaped domino struggles to fit in with other dominoes.
"The theme is about fitting in, whether from a racism angle or
even sexism. I find that when I show this film to children they
really enjoy it-half catch on quickly while the other half are
befuddled. But they all are kept attuned by my lively Brazilian
musical soundtrack," he said.
Belinda Oldford screened her film, Come Again in the Spring. It also screened at Cinefest during the same time period as Schorr's. It is a haunting, very well crafted, animated film about how an old man who loves living in the country, feeding a multitude of birds, thwarts the attempts of the Grim Reaper, Death, to call him to his death.
"My film depicts how with enough perseverance, you can still attain what you want to do despite those who try to prevent you from succeeding and I think that it is food for thought for this class which is studying the impact of humans on their environment for the better and worse," she said.
Professor Jorge Virchez said he met the filmmakers at the
Cinefest opening ceremonies Saturday at Science North.
"We ended up going for a sail on my boat parked at Ramsey Lake
Sunday and I asked them to speak to my class. They really
enjoyed the experience of an intimate talk with my students
with all the discussion that entailed. Though they screened
their films late in the class, after a number of speakers,
almost all students stayed even after 10 pm to see the films.
That impressed me immensely about the power of film to hold an
audience," said Virchez.
