The upcoming Bowen Island Film Society screening is of the short films, twelve in all, which were solicited from the youth of Bowen. Yes folks, it’s the first-ever Bowen Island Film Society Youth Gala, and we anticipate that many of the filmmakers will be on hand at this screening to accept the huzzahs of their peers and hopefully answer a question or two about their creations.

This Saturday’s Bowen Island Film Society’s screening is Emotional Arithmetic. The story is set in the summer of 1985. A reunion is taking place at a farm in rural Quebec. Melanie [Susan Sarandon] is about to reconnect with two other survivors of a transit camp where she was interned as a child during World War II.

This film marks the directorial debut of Sarah Polley, well-known Canadian actress who, at 28, has now broadened her resume to include screenwriting and directing. The film is based on Alice Munro’s short story The Bear Came Over the Mountain. It deals with the subtle changes in a lifelong relationship between husband and wife when the wife begins to suffer the early symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease. The story seemed “immediately cinematic,” says Polley.

Hot on the heels of Kinky Boots comes the Bowen Island Film Society’s screening of Steel Toes [Canada, 2006].   

"Steel Toes" is an engrossing drama, adapted from a successful stage play, which pits a progressive Jewish defense attorney against his own client, a neo-Nazi skinhead who's confessed to murder. With co-direction from the playwright, David Gow, the picture boasts Oscar-nominated David Strathairn [for George Clooney’s Good Night and Good Luck] in a sizable and interesting lead role.

The horrific crime committed by skinhead Michael (Andrew Walker) is shown upfront and over the opening credits, leaving no doubt about his guilt. Drunk and looking for trouble, Michael confronts an Indian cook in a Montreal alleyway and pummels him with the titular steel-toed boots. The drama focuses on Michael and his court-appointed counsel, Danny Dunckelman (Strathairn), whose Jewishness is at first a fetishistic point of interest for his client.

This weekend’s upcoming Bowen Island Film Society screening is Kinky Boots.

"Kinky Boots" tells the truth-based story [www.divine.co.uk/ -- caution, do not open link at work] of a provincial shoe factory on the brink of collapse resurrecting itself by switching from making Oxfords for civil servants to stiletto-heel boots for cross-dressers.  [This is known as identifying an unoccupied niche in the market].  While on a business trip to London, factory owner Charlie (Joel Edgerton) stumbles down a dark alley and meets Simon (Chiwetel Ejiofor), also known as Lola, a drag queen and cabaret star who heads his own revue. Lola breaks a heel, a lightbulb goes off in Charlie's head, and soon Simon is off to small-town England to counsel Charlie on the art of making hot, strong footwear for men.