The 2013 Toronto Jazz Festival descends on the city this Friday with a huge “free for all” event. That means all of Friday’s programming at every Jazz Festival venue is, yes, completely free of charge. There will be concerts from local favourites Molly Johnson and Mary Margaret O’Hara, plus a show by Smokey Robinson and Martha Reeves, who will be launching the fest from its epicentre, Nathan Phillips Square.

Here’s a rundown of some of the shows worth checking out on Friday—and during the rest of the festival, when you’ll actually have to pay.

Folks who are planning on having a swim in the pool at Scadding Court Community Centre over the next few days may find themselves a little disappointed. Those who want to go fishing, however, will probably be ecstatic.

For the rest of the week, the Community Centre will be holding its annual Gone Fishin’ event, meaning its indoor pool will be an indoor fish pond. The pool has been drained, dechlorinated, and refilled with 2,000 rainbow trout, to be caught by local children and families.

It kind of makes sense, but it’s a shame that anyone living on an isolated compound hundreds of kilometres away from civilization gets labelled a “cult leader.” So goes the campaign against Wiebo Ludwig, patriarch of a family of devout Christians living in northern Alberta. But more damaging to Ludwig’s reputation is his status as “eco-terrorist,” a label that has been applied to him for the better part of two decades.
Since the 1990s, Ludwig and his family have been butting heads with Big Oil companies drilling sour gas wells in the vicinity of their family ranch. In 2001, he was convicted for sabotaging the wells, causing millions of dollars of damage. York’s film benefits from its incredible access to Ludwig, allowing him to develop an image of a labelled “eco-terrorist” who seems more fed up than malevolent. And he has good reason to be fed up: the errant toxins from the wells have caused miscarriages among his livestock and his daughters (a glimpse into the burial of an unborn child is particularly unflinching).
Considering how much time York spends with Ludwig, it’s hard to gauge how “fair and balanced” Wiebo’s War is. But should it matter? The film shows a compassionate, deeply religious family whose right to their own well-being is threatened by an oil and gas industry that views them as a lunatic fringe nuisance. There’s real emotions wrapped up in Ludwig’s mission, and real tragedy in seeing just how trivial he’s made to feel by the corporate interests circling him.

In a country where inter-tribal tensions are at an all time high, a co-ed and ethnically diverse soccer team must overcome their personal and cultural differences to lead Kenya to victory.
This isn’t the plot of The Team, but rather a Kenyan soap opera by the same name which the documentary follows. Following the electoral riots of 2007—a violent period considered one of Kenya’s darkest—a team of producers set out to mend the wounds and prevent recurrences by appealing to the youngest generation’s twin obsessions of soccer and television. Drawing actors from the 70+ tribes and vastly diverse social and economic areas in the country, the serial tackles the daunting goal of diffusing inter-ethnic tensions and promoting empathy in a society on the brink of civil war.
Director Patrick Reed subtly focuses on the microcosmic world that is not only the scripted plot of the soap opera but the clashing personalities of its amateur performers, many of whose lives run dangerously parallel to those of their characters. Part behind-the-scenes DVD easter egg and part deconstruction of Kenyan society, The Team is a clever exploration of the power of using popular media for social change.

In celebration of the centennial of the founding of Parks Canada, 13 directors and 39 musicians set out into the wilds of our national parks with the intention of exploring and channeling the beauty of our country’s diverse landscapes. The result is The National Parks Project, an epic multimedia experience that could have come from The Group of Seven if they had acoustic guitars and digital cameras instead of easels and paintbrushes.
A team of one director and three musicians visited a park in each province and territory, drawing inspiration from their surroundings and performing their work on site. Each film and its music is different, from a haunting elegy for Saskatchewan’s Prince Albert National Park, to a jarring rock ballad on the rocky shore of Newfoundland’s Gros Morne, to the lofty poetic pretension of Ontario’s own Bruce Peninsula. Although the collection is far more high brow art project than documentary per se—and can seem to drag out a bit when all 13 films are watched straight—the visuals alone are enough to make it worth checking out.
If a luscious tour of the most majestic corners of our fair country isn’t motivation enough, consider the marquee of musicians involved. Among those who trekked into the woods for the film are Sarah Harmer, Shad, Sam Roberts, and Old Man Luedecke, as well as members of Broken Social Scene, Woodpigeon, Patrick Watson, The Weakerthans, Ohbijou, and many more.

What’s better than one Billy Elliot? Eight Billy Elliots. For those who think this might be an attempt at a shortcut to review a film called Boy Cheerleaders, be assured the film invokes this parallel itself. Originally broadcast on the BBC, director James Newton captures the all-boys cheer squad, the DAZL Diamonds from South Leeds, on their journey to the top of the competitive cheerleading pyramid—the first and only boy’s team to do so.
The DAZL Diamonds are a motley crew of young boys, ranging from about eight to 13 in age, who really love to dance. Some boys joined since they were bullied out of rugby, others split their time between pom-poms and the pitch, while some are genuine Billy Elliots, trying out at the Northern Ballet Academy. But unlike Billy Elliot, Boy Cheerleaders doesn’t only focus on the individual. While the documentary does centre around Harvey (the most Billy-esque of all the boys) as we follow him to his auditions, it is also invested in two other members of the team, Elliot and Josh. Further, these individual stories are tightly woven into the broader group dynamic as they train for the annual national cheerleading competition. While the boys may be the stars their mothers (all the families featured were single mums) and the head coach Ian Rodley (the most unsuspecting of role models in a tough South Leeds estate) round out the documentary.
Unlike that dancing boy who has been previously cited numerous times, Boy Cheerleaders doesn’t suggest dance as means of escape from poverty, but rather as a means of expression. As Ian says at the end: “We just proved boys can do whatever they want.” That statement, like the film, isn’t revolutionary but it’s certainly touching.

Though the buzz around this film is “that Canadian dude who was doing crazy stunts before Jackass,” Beauty Day is less about eating dog hair pie and rooftop tobogganing than it is about a passion for filmmaking and the matter of what makes life worth living. Centred around St. Catharines’ own Ralph Zavadil—better known as Cap’n Video from his cable TV show in the ’90s—Beauty Day weaves interviews with Zavadil, family members, and friends, with home videos and clips form the Cap’n Video Show, creating a surreal portrait of a man who is out of tune with our reality, but perfectly in tune with his own.
Zavadil rose (or rather fell) to fame when his final stunt for the Cap’n Video Show went terribly wrong. Attempting to jump into his parent’s pool from two stories up, he lost he footing and fell head first onto the pool deck. The entire stunt, from the neck-breaking landing, to his neighbours panicked cries and the arrival of the EMS team, is captured on video. Shot before going viral was a possibility, the video did the next best thing: it got picked up by American network television. Though this video was the “highlight” of Zavadil’s career, spring-boarding him to cult celebrity status, Beauty Day picks up a decade on.
The film captures the trajectory of Zavadil’s life, reflecting his highs and lows in its pacing. As Zavadil energetically reminisces about creating and shooting Cap’n Video, the film’s score and pacing picks up. It slows, almost lyrically, evolving into a touching love story when he talks of travelling across the country with his girlfriend Nancy, acting as manger for her budding motorcycle-racing career. Ten years on, without Cap’n Video the film becomes slightly lost, just as Zavadil is, drifting from one subject to the next. It’s not until Zavadil and his best friend decide to revive Cap’n Video that the film finds it’s footing again, like Zavadil.
If you’re looking for Jackass 3D, you’ll be entirely disappointed. If you’re looking for a reflection on film, what drives us to pursue our passions, and live life to the fullest—you’re in luck.

The first five minutes of The Battle for Barking has everything a documentary filmmaker could dream of—specifically, a politician crying, swearing and being publicly called a racist. In short: raw, spontaneous drama. Opening at such a high-octane pace, one’s inclined to wonder: Can they keep this up? Luckily director Laura Fairrie’s filmmaking, and her subject matter, only become increasingly engaging.
Set in the riding of Barking, Fairrie’s crew follows two MP candidates in the run up to the 2010 elections: the Labour Party incumbent, Margaret Hodge and Nick Griffin, of the far right British National Party. If you are feeling saturated with politics as our own election approaches and inclined to give this a pass, that would be a mistake. The BNP is an equally fascinating and terrifying manifestation of British politics, campaigning on a platform of expelling immigrants, racism, and what is tantamount to “white is right.” Fairrie immerses the camera into both campaigns and also the neighbourhood, capturing moments that are both amusing and shocking.
The film clearly sides with Hodge (though a lingering shot on her Jimmy Choo shoe that slips off at a construction site highlights the class difference between the politician and the disadvantaged riding she represents), and develops into an interesting character study that goes beyond politics. Still, a larger contextualization of the failings of the Labour party under Tony Blair would have better explained the swell of support for the BNP. Further, the narrative is so emotionally charged the occasionally heavy-handed score feels melodramatic at moments. But overall The Battle for Barking eloquently captures a unique moment in British politics with journalistic integrity and engaging filmmaking.

A look at the not-so-seedy underbelly of Toronto’s underground poker circuit, Grinders is not to be missed. Granted, much of this has to do with all the local colour: it’s inviting to imagine a secret shadow Toronto where card sharps ply their trade into the wee hours, filling out ad hoc gambling clubs set up in otherwise unassuming commercial space. As a filmmaker (and an underground poker player, or “grinder”), Gallagher understands this appeal. Many of his film’s more memorable, resonant moments come in the early morning dawn, when he or one of his subjects is driving home, bleary-eyed, after an all-night session.
Grinders is built around Gallagher’s own entry into the circuit. Facing financial problems, he decides his only option is to chase the “easy money,” by playing cards. While immersed in the scene he meets Andre, a 25-year-old dreaming of being cast on a poker-based reality show; Lawrence, a Toronto immigrant whose landlord is extorting him for the profits he makes running an illegal “social club”; and Danny, an aspiring pro player. Gallagher also travels to Vegas, following Danny as he plays in his first high-stakes tournament, and interviewing world poker champ and former Toronto boy Daniel Negreanu.
Though a bit amateurish at times (Gallagher’s connections between gambling, luck, and his own life sometimes seem a bit forced), Grinders is pretty excellent. It examines the sport of poker at face value, not casting any particular aspersions about its enthusiasts.

In 2002, filmmakers Bill Weber and David Weissman made a bit of a splash in the film festival circuit with The Cockettes, a look at a drag performance group popular in San Francisco in the late 1960s and early ’70s. With We Were Here, the filmmakers return to San Francisco, jumping a decade down the line to look at the fallout of AIDS in the early ’80s.
For those of us possessing only a faint notion of the AIDS crisis in 1980s San Francisco (people got AIDS, people died), We Were Here is as shocking as it is enlightening. Shocking if you didn’t know that something like 50 per cent of San Francisco’s gay male population was infected with the then-named “gay cancer” by 1981, and enlightening if you only had no idea of how galvanizing the crisis was.
We Were Here analyzes how San Franciscans united both to care for AIDS victims and defend against AIDS panic in America: at one point, archival footage of Tom Brokaw claims that 48 per cent of Americans believed AIDS sufferers should be quarantined. The film is a bit glossy at times, blushing in its triumphant salutation of gay activism and skating over potential fissures in the movement (namely, gaps between the gay men’s and women’s interests). But given the subject matter, the intense emotions on display, and how the crisis worked to radically reform LGBT causes in America, it’s hard to fault Weber and Weissman for being a bit uncritical.

There’s a lot of blah blah blah (to pilfer a Ke$ha-ism) about the end of print media and how blogs and websites and citizen reporting are doing a better, or at least speedier job, of delivering news to the masses. (Sorry, print media.) But what about at the far-flung fringes of civilization, where cellphones are still novel and the word “blogosphere” sounds as stupid and made-up as it probably should?
In the remote village of Uljanovsk, Russia, Andrej Shkolni and his wife self-publish Our Newspaper. A former employee of the state paper, The Leninist (whose editor-in-chief admits on camera that he has difficulty smiling), Shkolni went rogue and began publishing news that was relevant and meaningful to his local community. Where The Leninist prides itself on connecting local events to their historical backdrop (that old material maxim of Marxist historiography), Our Newspaper is chock-o-block with local colour: stories about UFOs, lost dogs, or dedicated doctors who cycle through the driving cold to make house calls.
But it’s not all “Talk of the Town” fluff for Shkolni. Flipse follows him as he digs deeper into a crisis surrounding the village’s water supply drying up, leading our savvy reporter into a web of intrigue and backroom politics worthy of Chinatown. His investigation earns the ire of local authorities who threaten to shut down Our Newspaper, stressing the importance of independent voices against a national-historical backdrop that has favoured the propagandist dissemination of state-approved “news.” (Yeesh, now who sounds like a Marxist?) At 58 minutes, Our Newspaper (the film) is unsatisfying brief. But considering Shkolni’s seriously delimited beat (again: lost dogs), it’s brevity is fitting.

The Chocolate Farmer opens with the assertion that nobody can explain the collapse of the ancient Mayan civilization. And indeed, while there may be no one, grand, over-arching theory, overpopulation seems to be one of the more reasonable suggestions. And if not reasonable, then certainly thematically appropriate, considering how The Chocolate Farmer depicts the pressures of globalization and modernization on contemporary Maya peoples.
In the jungles of southern Belize, Eladio Pop works his cocoa farm, spending his days hacking through vines with a machete, and labouring to support his family and community. In keeping with ancient Mayan traditions, he tries to encourage his children to relish in the satisfaction of this labour, and in living close to the land. The generational shift signalled by global capitalism, however, frustrates his attempts to preserve both his farm and his culture.
With vivid cinematography of the region’s natural beauty and of less-enticing impoverished areas, Fernando offers a tender portrait of a culture being faced with an “adapt or die” ultimatum by the world encircling them. The Chocolate Farmer elegantly portrays global capitalism not as some Big Business boogeyman, but as a complex system that places complex strains on the Maya.