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About Portland observer. (Portland, Or.) 1970-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 10, 2016)
Page 6 Black History Month Showdogs is a full service salon. We do baths, all over hair cuts, tooth brushing, nail trims, soft claws, lea treatments, mud baths, and ear cleaning. We also have health care and grooming products to keep your pet clean in between visits. Show Dogs Grooming Salon & Boutique 926 N. Lombard Portland, OR 97217 503-283-1177 Tuesday-Saturday 9am-7pm Monday 10am-4pm Yo dawg is gonna look like a show dawg and your kitty will be pretty. February 10, 2016 Peruvian director Salvador del Solar makes his irst feature ilm debut in ‘Magallanes,’ a ilm set in Lima, Peru about a soldier’s struggles to atone for past sins. The movie screens on Saturday and Sunday, Feb. 13-14, as part of the month-long Portland International Film Festival. Films Feast on World Diversity, Languages Portland International Film Festival begins d arleen O rTega Every year at this time, I am reminded of the range of stories I mostly don’t get to see depicted in local theaters, because for a brief month in Portland, I get to broaden my palate. There really is a whole world out there beyond what Hol- lywood gives us -- and there is no better time to partake of that world than February in Portland when o PinionAted J udge by J udge d arleen O rTega by the Northwest Film Center gives us its Portland International Film Festival. The festival opens Thursday night with “The Fencer,” which is set in the 1950s and tells the story of a Baltic dissident who lees the Russian secret police for a quiet life in a small Estonian vil- lage. After he inds work teaching fencing to children, his commit- ment to that work brings him into conlict with his old life when his students are invited to compete in Leningrad. Based on a true story, the ilm provides a window into Soviet and sports history to which we in the States have little access. The opening night ilm is al- ways a packed affair, so if you miss your chance to buy an ad- vance ticket, you’ll still have ac- cess to another 96 feature length ilms and 62 shorts from 48 coun- tries. Every year I revel at the op- portunity to watch ilms with im- migrants from all over the world who live here in Portland and are out for a rare chance to see a ilm in their native languages on the big screen. A handful of the screenings will also feature visiting artists to answer questions afterwards, including two ilms that I saw in press screenings. First, the Feb. 12 screening of “Sleeping Giant” from Canada will feature its pro- ducer, James Vandewater. A com- ing-of-age story about a reserved teenage boy, Adam, who falls in with a couple of rougher boys during his family’s annual sum- mer vacation on a lake in Ontario, the ilm astutely depicts a type of recklessness common in teenage boys. Adam comes from relative privilege while his two friends, Riley and Nate, come from more challenging circumstances and pull Adam into a world of risk-tak- ing and pushing against the rules. Their disdain for the little lies that adults tell leads all three boys into waters none of them are ready for, and will remind you to won- der how anyone survives adoles- cence -- and to question what kids unconsciously learn from adults. The show will run a second time on Feb. 16. Both showings of “A Good American,” a U.S. documenta- ry, will feature the opportunity to dialogue with one of its subjects Diane Roark, formerly a senior staffer to the House Intelligence Committee. She and several other subjects of the ilm explain how the American of the title, Bill Bin- ney, a crypto-mathematician and former NSA analyst (who is also interviewed on camera), devised a surveillance and analysis system that was low-cost, had built-in pri- vacy protections, was operational in 2000, and was so effective that Binney and others are convinced that it “absolutely would have prevented 9/11.” What happened instead is an all-too-familiar sce- nario of a small team of experts diligently creating something of great signiicance, while less tal- ented but more self-interested su- periors barely notice -- and when they do notice, they shut the pro- gram down because it would make them look bad. The ilm’s story is a complex one, and what its deliv- ery lacks in nuance it makes up for in clarity and importance. It plays Feb. 13, Feb. 15 and Feb. 17. I caught two other ilms in pre- views that I recommend. “Ma- gallanes,” set in Lima, Peru, is named for its main character, a taxi driver who earns extra cash C OnTinued On P age 10
