This week, the NFB Quebec Centre is holding its annual in-house film festival, where employees like myself get to skip meetings and watch this year’s crop of releases. There were some great films and I feel kind of compelled to write about them. So…

Here’s what I watched:

Citizen Sam

A documentary about the 2006 mayoral race in Vancouver. The film follows paraplegic, Sam Sullivan, in his underdog bid for City Hall.

The film presents all of Sam’s anger and his vulnerability, side by side, in alarming relief. In one scene, we listen as he metaphorically fantasizes about killing his adversary, and in another we see him struggle for an awkward duration, as he takes off his shirt before going to bed.

I was surprised when some of my peers expressed sympathy for Sullivan – who, in many ways, is a very unsympathetic character. For example, Sullivan’s municipal coalition is called the Non-Partisan Association, but, in spite of this, Sullivan constantly assails his opponent – a charming, bearish anachronism named Jim Green – with personal attacks composed with little political substance.

The film almost never deals with the issues of the campaign; nor does it delve too meaningfully into Sullivan’s personal life. Despite this, it’s a pretty fascinating film. It apparently hasn’t been released yet in Vancouver; I expect it will cause quite a stir when it is.

Cottonland

Glace Bay, Nova Scotia – In the late 90s, doctors over-prescribed oxycotin, a pain-killer with the addictive qualities of heroine, and a community is scourged with addiction. In one year alone, 22 people die from illnesses related to their addiction.

This is an amazing film; one of the the most moving documentaries I’ve seen in years. Through a former addict, Eddie Buchanan, the film-makers gained unprecedented access to other addicts in the community, so their honesty and pain comes through in vivid detail. It is at once a hopeful film and a hauntingly intimate portrait of addiction.

Radiant City

I’ve wanted to see this film for some time. It’s a film about the suburban sprawl that’s choking the Canadian landscape. Through the lens of one suburban family, we discover how we have made a series of compromises that have led us out of the city and into the horrifically unsustainable suburbs.

It is perhaps edited a little on the long side, but it’s still a very compelling look at the decline of urban planning in recent decades. It would work well as a companion piece to the excellent TVO doc from a couple years back, The End of Suburbia.

Whew! Okay, that’s my round-up.