A Perfect Getaway is form turned inside out

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May 13, 2013

This year’s documentary film festival shows its artistic side

By Max Hill

Documentary films aren’t always considered artistic or creative: they tend to be categorized as straightforward, didactic and anonymous, not unlike a news article. The Documentary Media Society, a non-profit organization based in Vancouver, would beg to differ. Now in its 12th year, the Society’s DOXA has become one of the foremost documentary film festivals in Canada, running from May 3–12 each year. Mixing short and feature-length films ranging from the politically charged to straightforwardly entertaining, the festival has aimed to redefine the typical definition of a documentary film.

This year’s festival was headlined by Occupy: The Movie (dir. Corey Ogilvie), which focuses on the Occupy movement, an international protest movement which took aim at social and economic inequality. Other notable films included Human Scale (dir. Andreas Dalsgaard), which explores the work of urban visionary and architect Jan Gehl; Good Ol’ Freda (dir. Ryan White), which focuses on Freda Kelly, former secretary for The Beatles; and The Mechanical Bride (dir. Allison de Fren), shedding light on the increasingly popular trend towards mechanical sex dolls and their effect on societal views of femininity.

The festival also offered several special programs, including their Rated Y For Youth program, which allows high-school age students a chance to attend the festival, and features films seeking to increase social awareness and inspire appreciation for art in young people. The Justice Forum program featured films which focus on issues of social justice, such as gentrification and racism. The aim of the program, according to the festival’s website, is “to facilitate active and critical engagement, create space for dialogue, and sow the seeds for social change.” The Philosopher’s Cafe program pairs selected films from the festival with philosophical discussion topics, and gives audiences a chance to actively engage with the subjects of a wide variety of featured documentaries.

A staple of film culture in Vancouver, the DOXA Film Festival is one of the most interesting and varied film festivals the city has to offer. Although many of the films require membership in the Documentary Media Society, the Rated Y For Youth program — which included the headliner, Occupy: The Movie — gave SFU students and other Vancouverites a chance to learn about a wide variety of subjects, and to expand their understanding of the documentary film format in the process.

Wrong Place Wrong Time

Documentary tells story of victims, not killer

By Ljudmila Petrovic
Photos by DOXA Festival

On July 22, 2011, the world was shaken by the news of the Norway shootings. The first of the two attacks, a car bomb explosion, claimed eight lives and resulted in another 209 injuries. The second target was a youth camp, where the gunman opened fire and killed 69 youth, injuring 110.

In the wake of several tragic shootings in the past several years, the question has emerged: why do we only look at the crimes and the killer? Why don’t we talk about the victims? In Wrong Time Wrong Place, director John Appel does just that.

Anders Breivik — the individual responsible for the crimes — is never mentioned, and his face is shown only once; even then, it is in the context of his trial and its effect on the father of one of the victims. The documentary focuses exclusively on weaving together the stories of the survivors and of the victims’ families.

There is the man who lost his son in a base-jumping accident and then suffered even further when he was in the first explosion. There is the man who worked in that same office building, but took the day off to go base-jumping — a decision that saved his life.

There is the young woman from Georgia who was the last victim in the second shooting. Her best friend — the two usually being inseparable — was, through a twist of fate, in the washroom hiding with two other youth attending the camp during the shooting . The film follows the victim’s parents at length: the mother, clad in black, weeps and speaks of Georgian prophecies, while the father, proud but with a quivering lip, angrily shakes his head and says: “If he had not done it, nothing could have killed my daughter.”

There is the political activist from Uganda — one of the three youth that survived by hiding in the bathroom — who was two months pregnant at the time. By the end of the documentary, she has given birth to baby Michael, named after the angel she is sure was watching over them.

The thread that strings all of these stories together is that of resilience: of the families that have been lost and of those that have survived. The human lives portrayed in the film — both those that remained intact and those that were taken away — were made to seem frail; a recurring theme was “what could have happened” had the person left two minutes earlier or had made some other seemingly small and meaningless decision.

As the credits rolled, I looked around the theatre at the faces of the other audience members: those people that weren’t wiping away tears were stunned and thoughtful. It makes you think about how closely intertwined our lives and choices are, and how fleeting every moment can be.

The film is framed by a violent and tragic shooting, but there is no trace of anger or retribution in the interviews; rather, it is a film about overcoming calamity and about staying strong, and guaranteed, you will leave it with the overwhelming urge to call the people in your life with words of love.

East Hastings Pharmacy

The reality of DTES pharmacists

By Ljudmila Petrovic
Photos by DOXA Festival

East Hastings Pharmacy is Antoine Bourges’ first feature film, focusing on a methadone pharmacy in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. It combines professional actors — such as the one playing the pharmacist — and actual patients playing a sort of cameo role.

Methadone programs are prescribed as part of recovery from heroin addiction, and the province’s regulations of these pharmacies call for strict guidelines, including meticulous records of prescriptions and having pharmacists witness each and every patient drinking their methadone.

The film manages to successfully capture the monotony of the pharmacy’s daily routine, as well as the instances where individuals become irate.

The pharmacist gets to know the patients by their first name and dose of methadone, and they are usually friendly to one another; what Bourges portrays through the character of the pharmacist is the exhausting nature of helping professions, especially in an area as marginalized as the Downtown Eastside.

Yet, at under an hour, the film only seems to skim the interactions within the community — both between patients and with the pharmacist. There are several instances where we glimpse into interpersonal relationships and we see laughter or moments of bonding, but for the most part the audience is left with a framework and a mere hint at the atmosphere of this type of pharmacy — which is really all that a documentary of this length can hope for.

It illustrates BC’s regulations of the methadone pharmacies and some of the barriers and downfalls, but the director missed many opportunities to delve deeper into the heart of the community and the personal stories of the various people coming into or working at the pharmacy.

As far as an artistic analysis of the issues in the Downtown Eastside, it does not create dialogue. That being said, the specific issues surrounding regulations of methadone programs are not often looked at through this medium and the film is well-shot, and despite its downfalls, it’s worth a watch.

Forum a better choice for SFU politics

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May 13, 2013

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More students reached, more problems solved

By Kyle Acierno

I was on the board for two years and would like to add my two cents about what Moe needs to know. But before starting, I will give some background on the SFSS. The board is composed of the president and five executives, eight faculty representatives, and two at-large representatives (at-large means they can do anything or nothing).

The structure and working hours allotted to the board means the president and the executives spend a lot of time together. Either they love each other and are able to conspire and carry out plans behind closed doors (like the past couple years) or they do not get along and do nothing but spend their days bickering and backstabbing.

Faculty representatives work half the time and are generally half as informed. They each get one vote even though the Arts rep has 10,000 students in his or her faculty and the Health Sciences rep has less than 700. Until recently, there were no faculty student unions and the only methods to represent faculty constituents were to attend a plethora of department student union meetings all over the university, send out mass emails that are usually deleted with a passion, or go to the pub every night and exchange words with other patrons. With all this running around, faculty reps get left out of the everyday politics of the SFSS, meaning the president and executives wield an extreme amount of power.

The fact is that the board answers to no one. Although students, members of Forum, the rotunda groups, and even staff are welcomed to participate in the SFSS committees, it is very easy for students’ wishes to fall on deaf ears.

This is not just due to poor postings of meeting times and places, but also because whether a recommendation comes from Forum (which is composed of all department student unions and constituency groups) or from one of the many SFSS committees, it is just a recommendation. There are absolutely no checks and balances. This explains why the board could lock out the union, construct a student union building levy, and place a former board member and founder of Build SFU in a $60,000/year position with little to no student input.

So the problem is obvious — the board is accountable to no one except themselves. I have a simple solution that will involve more students, institute a more democratic system, and help solve many of the problems plaguing student politics at SFU.

Give the power back to the students by empowering Forum! Forum is the only truly representative student body at our university, and the board should be accountable to the students elected to serve its chambers. This would involve a three-step process: first, establish Forum as the ultimate decision making body. Second, ensure every member of Forum is involved in at least one committee. Third, eliminate faculty representatives and redistribute their earnings to the members of Forum or remove the stipends all together.

This form of student government is not just employed at more mature universities like UBC, McGill, and Queens University, but used to be the way the SFSS was governed. So Moe, if you are looking for more ways to get students involved and improve the student experience at SFU, here is your answer.

Having lots of free time sucks

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May 13, 2013

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If idle hands are the devil’s playground, I’m see-sawing with Satan right now and hating it

By Rachel Braeuer
Photos by Ben Buckley

Sixteen hour work days, seven days a week for two months with a week or two of rest may sound like hell to most people, but to me it sounds like the ideal schedule.

A lot of my friends have graduated and lead normal adult lives where they go to work for a reasonable amount of hours every day, and come home to do just enough self-care and household tasks to keep up to date and sane before awaking the next day to have a balanced breakfast and do it all over again. I don’t get how they do it.

Does updating the world with every instance of your daily progress help? Maybe, it sure seems to. I feel like I’m bombarded daily with all of my friends’ “achievements.” “Cleaned the house, made dinner, read half my book and in bed ready to take on the world again tomorrow!”

While fulfilling a month in one go because you managed to cram a month’s worth of cleaning into one day is dandy, shit like that just doesn’t cut it for me on the daily. It’s not that wearing clean clothes isn’t a worthwhile pursuit, it’s just that if it’s not a challenge, who cares? I can’t just do laundry, I need to do the laundry olympics ten hours before I get on a flight for which I’ve yet to pack. Only then is it worthy of my time.

I handed in my last paper a few weeks ago, and while the first bit of doing basically nothing except watching shitty TV, going to the gym in some sad attempt to make up for the last half a decade, and drinking too much on the weekends was fun, I’m now finding myself with a lot of free time and not enough worthwhile activities to cram into that time. This would make most people rejoice. Me? I’m miserable and don’t want to complete the few must-do’s still present in my life.

For the last seven years I’ve been working at least one job and going to school. At the most, I was working three jobs, paying for school, rent, car insurance and expenses out of pocket and sleeping about five hours a night, and frankly I liked it that way. There was no room for error or self-doubt, there was no “last minute” because there were no spare minutes to waste to begin with.

There wasn’t even a question of making a schedule. I got shit done because I had to.

Self-care involved singing loudly to my favourite songs while washing the dishes. Alone time was grocery shopping at 11:30 at night, roaming the aisles free of the idiots who drive grocery carts as well as their SUV’s and whose shitty babies were at home, getting ready for another day of screaming in public while their parent(s) texted their friends about how much they accomplished that day.

I don’t just wear the proverbial hair shirt, I made it myself on my lunch break while also reading some Judith Butler.

You might read this and think I’m crazy, and honestly you’re probably right. I should be enjoying all of my new freedom to its fullest. I’m sure some of you reading this would kill to have my “problems,” but I’d kill to have yours. Freaky Friday, anyone?

University life: are you involved?

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May 13, 2013

Why your happiness at SFU is determined by you

By Leah Bjornson
Photos by Mark Burnham

It’s easy to go through life at SFU while remaining relatively unseen. Riding the rickety road up to Burnaby campus, sitting at the back of classes, then heading home as quick as you can to escape the grey of the mountain. This was my reality for the first year and a half I attended SFU. This is what life was like before I realized how important it was, not for my school, but for my own happiness, to connect with my campus.

It must be strange for new university students to transition to higher education. Especially if you live off campus, the busy hallways and spacious lecture halls can be intimidating. Personally, I was kind of the kid in high school that did everything: student council, grad council, sports, and other clubs. Then all my friends went to UBC or ventured out east, and I went to SFU.

Maybe I was burnt out from high school or maybe I just wanted to make sure I passed my first semester, but whatever it was, university became just a rigid schedule of classes. As I drifted by my first, second, and third term on the hill, I began to question the idea that university would be the “greatest years of my life.”

I kept hearing stories from friends about what frat they’d joined, or how they were training to lead Frosh week, and I wondered: why can’t I find somewhere I fit as well as they do? I tried to get involved, to “engage SFU” as President Petter might put it.

I’d gone out to the Rugby team for a few practices, but a hectic class schedule and long commute from North Vancouver stifled my enthusiasm. Again I tried to help out with a club when I began to speak with World University Services of Canada (WUSC) at SFU, but my help never reached much further than my good intentions.

Things changed when I started writing for The Peak. It finally felt like I had somewhere to call home on campus, other than the stool in West Mall overlooking the mountains. That was also when my thoughts seemed to cement: university has the potential to be the best years of your life, but only if you are determined to make them so. Opportunities, and especially those which really speak to you, don’t always arrive at your doorstep. Therefore, it’s up to you to reach out. Joining a rugby team or WUSC was obviously not the right fit for me, but over time I was sure to find comfort within one of the myriad of groups and clubs at SFU.

Clubs are important for university students for many reasons. While it’s always possible to work up the courage to make new friends in tutorial or lecture, I find that these friends can quickly turn into “Kin 140” buddies, or “Pol 241” buddies; the class ends and we part ways, perhaps meeting again in future courses. When you join a club, not only are you participating in an activity you enjoy, but you’re making connections with other students who share the same interests.

This semester, my column will attempt to shine a light on the numerous ways we as Clansmen connect to our community and to each other through the multitude of lesser known or underrepresented opportunities at SFU. Maybe you’ll be inspired to join a club of your own. Maybe you’ll find that cliché university friend who shows up when you’re married in 20 years to wreak havoc, You, Me and Dupree style. Maybe you’ll find a club you love as much I love The Peak.

Time to start teaching turning degrees into jobs

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May 13, 2013

Post secondary cannot just be education for education’s sake

By Stephen Power
Photos by Vaikunthe Banerjee

ST JOHN’S (CUP) — Entering the final year of my undergraduate degree, I am thankful for the practical abilities I have been taught over these four years. I know how to write a resume and a cover letter. I know that employers generally don’t hire prospective employees that don’t bother to sell themselves. These skills, a few of many that I picked up over my academic career, will serve me for the rest of my life.

Those who boast the liberal arts point to a number of other benefits that, although intangible, allegedly serve students in becoming better citizens. Adam Chapnick, an associate professor of defence studies at the Royal Military College of Canada, argued along this line in a recent online column for University Affairs, an online magazine centered on post-secondary education.

“If only they understood that the value of a liberal education cannot just be measured in dollars and cents,” goes the traditional “lament” of liberal arts supporters, according to Chapnick. “What about the role of the arts in promoting democratic citizenship? In fostering critical thinking? In creating the entrepreneurial spirit that is so necessary for innovation?”

What about all these things, indeed. I’m proud to say that I do understand these values, having gone through a fairly broad cross-section of what the university has to offer in the liberal arts. These courses — English, history, philosophy, political science — all did well to tutor me on these subjects.

Critical thinking? No problem — I can crank out literary criticism without breaking a sweat. Democratic citizenship? I can talk for hours (to anyone foolish enough to listen) about the myriad of flaws infesting our current system of governance, on all levels.
I’m not attacking the value of these skills; Chapnick has a point in his mention of the development of an “entrepreneurial spirit.” Students are done a disservice, however, when these skills are not coupled with the knowledge necessary to apply them outside of academia.

It is here that the reality of the needs of students comes up against the values of academics that value learning for the sake of learning. Most students, and even most liberal arts students, envision some sort of job or other kind of employment existing at the end of the post-secondary rainbow. Many of these students, however, are ill informed as to how valuable their Bachelor of Arts really is, especially when it isn’t supplemented with volunteer and other extra-curricular work.

These students need to be taught early, and the best place to do so is where they spend most of their time interacting face-to-face with university employees: the classroom. More connections need to be made between course curricula and extra-curriculum resources that provide hands-on learning experiences and opportunities to network with employers in a student’s field.

To make this possible, academia needs to change to meet the needs of the students that it serves. Professors and university administrators can no longer prioritize the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake. This desire, however noble, must be balanced with the need to help students build opportunities for themselves when they graduate into the real world.

Activism is on a dangerous crash course

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May 13, 2013

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By Cedric Chen
Photos by Vaikunthe Banerjee

I’ve been an activist ever since I was a high schooler in China. Although activism in China is largely underground and therefore very different from activism in North America, the aim is the same: to make this world a better place for more people. After I came to Canada, I decided that it was time for my underground activism to come above-ground, so I joined Greenpeace and became a volunteer. Later, I joined Occupy Vancouver. For these past six years, I’ve been working hard and doing whatever I can to spread the word that a better world is possible. However, there have recently been quite a few incidents that got me rethinking what has been going on in the various activist movements I follow, and my conclusion is honestly sad: it’s on a crash course.

The most vital sign of a movement’s decline is that many activists, even activists from the same front, have started turning their guns at each other rather than keeping their guns aimed at their common enemies — be it the big corporations, big real estate developers, the government(s), etc. To make things more disheartening, they didn’t do so because some activists decided to join the enemies, but simply because they have different opinions regarding how their common goals can be achieved. The first time I experienced this was in an online discussion about a BC Green Party’s proposal that suggested TransLink should increase fare check density. I said I thought that was a brilliant idea, since I’d had enough of TransLink sucking fare payers’ money to compensate the loss to fare-evaders, but someone immediately retorted, “What the hell is wrong with you?” I suppose she didn’t know that I’m also a strong advocate for TransLink to undergo financial reform, but regardless, is this any proper way to treat a fellow activist?

This phenomenon intensified when Occupy Vancouver started its encampment at VAG and got worse after Occupy Vancouver was evicted. While the moderators tried their very best to provide a platform for a variety of people to advocate for how we can improve the world, there were always those who enjoyed interrupting the speakers for the sake of hearing their own voices. While they’ve got their points, is it really so difficult to give someone that is not from the one per cent some basic respect? Although I didn’t agree with all the speakers, I never interrupted any of them. When Occupy: The Documentary was premiered at Rio Theatre, I met someone who left Occupy Vancouver before the exodus following the Ashley Gough accident. He told me, “The alienation in Occupy Vancouver forced me out.” This is a warning sign that shouldn’t be overlooked.

There appears to be doctrines specific to individual movements that not only can one not break, but also not question. If you disagree with any of them, you’re a troll, and/or there must be something wrong with you. If you don’t agree with that transit services should be absolutely free, you’re a troll. If you believe in even the most modest form of nationalism, something’s fucking wrong with you! Even if you argue that TransLink must undergo financial reform, and even if your form of nationalism is simply for the preservation of your already-endangered cultures and languages without declaring that any culture is supreme while others are subprime, something must be wrong with you and other activists therefore have free reign to yell at you all they want!

While I understand that dissenting voices make many activists anxious, it’s extremely vital for all of us to keep digging for more background knowledge about any statements made by activists, especially those on our side. If someone believes in modest nationalism because he grew up experiencing his native culture being overwhelmed by a foreign culture, we should not shoot first and ask later. When others say “What the fuck is wrong with you?!” they’re wasting energy bringing down their peers instead of focusing that energy on effecting change. No wonder we can no longer gather the momentum that we used to have.

Not many people like to be compared to communists, but in this case communist parties offer us an apt comparison. When socially-minded movements begin to fight internally rather than externally, the forces they originally rallied together against easily usurp their power. After the Big Purge, the Nazi forces were able to strike into the Soviet Union and kick the Red Army in its groin for three long months; after Khmer Rouge slaughtered hundreds of thousands of intellectuals, the Vietnamese army was able to bulldoze into Phnom Penh within one month. Similarly, the activists are weakening not the oppressive forces, but themselves. The one per cent can only benefit from these divisions forming within our ranks.
This trend is dangerous for sure, but the cliff is still a ways off. If activists stop tagging everything they don’t like as “the one per cent’s crap,” even if its the opinion of someone within the movement, and start respecting a variety of voices instead of just those that adhere to a strict doctrine, there’s still hope for Occupy to make real change in the world. It’s time to recalibrate and aim not at one another but the oppressive forces we came together to oppose in the first place.

A Comic’s Comic #1

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May 13, 2013

By Brad McLeod

Math department offers “Fractions 101” in order to appeal to lowest common denominator

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May 13, 2013

BURNABY — SFU’s Mathematics is holding a brand new course this semester on the subject of fraction and although it’s been criticized by some as being too simplistic, the department hopes that it will attract students who wouldn’t normally take math.

“Our department has been struggling to keep up our numbers recently, and stupid math jokes alone aren’t really helping us reach out to average students,” explained Dr. Lorne Smith, who’s been assigned the new class this semester “We’re hoping that teaching fractions can help attract dumb art students who might be intimidated by calculus or linear algebra, especially when we cover ‘the fractions of Two and a Half Men’ during week 5.”

While the course is expected to drastically increase the Mathematics department summer numbers, the English department is receiving some residual benefits as this article’s headline is now required reading for a new 300-level course on ‘bad jokes.’

Interview series tells the stories of homicide survivors

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