Event

Ten Canoes, Sunday Schmooze

Film @ 11am
Hot Bagels @ 10am

Guest Speaker: Vic Skolnick, CAC Co-director

(Also screening Monday, January 14 @ 7:30pm)

Still surviving ancient cultures like the Aborigines in Australia are remarkable for their reliance on oral history to preserve the language and traditions of their unique way of life. David Gulpilil, an Aborigine from northern Australia, lives in two worlds: A multi-talented star on the international scene, he performs Aborigine material - dance, theater, film (Nicolas Roeg's Walkabout, Peter Weir's The Last Wave, and Rolf de Heer's Tracker), the arts, and at home in northern Australia lives a traditional way without light, heat or running water; he also works with Aborigine youth on drug and alcohol rehabilitation. Ten Canoes, inspired by Gulpilil, has it all: set in ancient times, it is a verbal teaching lesson for a wayward youthful warrior who was making eyes at his brother's third young wife. In place of a lecture, the brother tells him the story of The Ten Canoes. Like life itself it runs the gamut of human experience: humor, sex, jealousy, hunting, revenge. War-making, and the remarkable dance and music that accompanies the unique rituals of death. Aside from the material conditions of life, there are more similarities than differences when it comes to love and sex and marriage and parenting. The Aborigine way comes to life in a universal manner. -Vic Skolnick

Australia, 2006, 90 min., color, in aboriginal and English w/English subtitles . Directors: Rolf de Heer & Peter Djigirr . Writer: Rolf de Heer in consultation with the people of Ramingining . Cast: Crusoe Kurddal, Jamie Gulpilil . Narrator: David Gulpilil . Cannes Film Festival: Special Jury Prize