Jasper Film Club coming to a theatre near you

The Jasper Film Club gets rolling again next week in bringing cinema from the Toronto International Film Festival to town.

The first screening of the season falls Oct. 2 with a movie called AMAL, which club president Fred MacMillan said is named for the film’s main character, a rickshaw driver.

“It’s a Canadian movie set in India, it’s filmed on location in New Delhi,” he said. “Of course when you start dealing with a country like that , the colours are beautiful and the things are so bizarre to us. This is going to be a really good movie.”

Chris Garnham, club secretary and treasurer ,said the club went through a transition about eight years ago, when he learned of a sub-organization of TIFF called The Circuit. 

“The Circuit’s reason for being is to bring films to smaller communities that would not normally be able to do that, to bring films of TIFF,” Garnham said. “The thing they were hoping to have happen is to bring Canadian films to Canadians. It’s really kind of a far-reaching, far-sighted mission.”

Garnham knew there was some local interest for off-beat, artistic films, but not enough to warrant bringing them for a full run to the local theatre. Dwayne Wacko, general manager of Chaba Theatre, where the films are screened, said the club allows for different types of films to be played that otherwise wouldn’t be economically viable.

“We love running the program, it brings different people into our facilities that normally don’t come to our regular fare,” Wacko said. “We’re happy to see those faces in there. We’re happy to see that kind of product offered in the community.”

Garnham recently returned from TIFF where he viewed screenings of films that could potentially play in Jasper in the spring. “We get to pick from a catalogue of a selection of films that have played at TIFF,” he said, adding the selections are always current. “The first rule is whatever film you see at the film club, you can’t go and rent the thing, so it’s got to be before it goes to DVD,” he said.

After the club’s board chooses 10 films from the catalogue, Garnham goes into negotiations to try and get them for Jasper. “Lots of times there are only one or two prints floating around the country,” he said.

So far, the current incarnation of the club is doing well, according to MacMillan. “In the past eight years we only had two or three clunkers that were really not wonderful,” he said.

The films are generally not mainstream but do appeal to a range of tastes. “We try and give a real diverse cross section for the population here in Jasper,” MacMillan said. “Even though we only have about 40-45 members, there’s a core group of 75 that show up to every show, and if we have people from the country the movie’s done in they’re definitely going to be showing up.”

And foreign culture definitely gets picked up on this film buff’s radar. “I want to see other countries, cultures, how people handle things, whether it’s Spain or Argentina or Japan,” MacMillan said. “I just want to see how people handle things and find out that people are actually the same the world over.”

For MacMillan, the best show is a visually stimulating one. “I like exotic locales, it doesn’t even have to be a poignant story,” he said. “I’m a more visual person so sight and sound and wonderful photography really get me going.”

The film club has screenings at 7:30 p.m. on the first Thursday of every month, except for when holidays affect the schedule. Mongol will show in November with Heaven on Earth to follow in December, and the spring line-up has not yet been announced. Save $2 off the regular price of admission with a membership, available at Tekarra Color Lab.