Top flicks from the AGH film festival

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Porch Stories

Saturday, Oct. 17 at 9 p.m. @ Mills Hardware - Runtime: 73 min. - Rating: 14A  |  Drama

From the director of acclaimed 2004 Hot Docs prizewinning documentary Army of One, Toronto filmmaker Sarah Goodman displays a sure hand with her first narrative feature. Porch Stories captures the intersecting lives of three people. With a strolling camera and beautiful black-and-white cinematography, Goodman perfectly portrays the web of events and overheard conversations that make up the city’s soundscape.

Court

Monday, Oct. 19 at 1 p.m. @ Ancaster SilverCity Cinemas - Runtime: 116 min. - Rating: PG  |  Drama

Winner of top prizes at the Venice and Mumbai film festivals, Court is a quietly devastating, absurdist portrait of injustice, caste prejudice, and venal politics in contemporary India. An elderly folk singer and grassroots organizer, dubbed the “people’s poet,” is arrested on a trumped-up charge of inciting a sewage worker to commit suicide. What truly distinguishes Court is the brilliant cast of professional and nonprofessional actors; an affecting mixture of comedy and tragedy; and the naturalist approach to the characters and to Indian society as a whole, rich with complexity and contradiction.

Al Purdy Was Here

Saturday, Oct. 24 at 1 p.m. @ Mills Hardware - Runtime: 95 min. - Rating: PG  |  Documentary

The story of Al Purdy, Canada’s leading poet, and the A-frame cabin that he built, now being restored as a writers’ retreat. Featuring interviews and performances by artists including Leonard Cohen, Bruce Cockburn, Gord Downie, Gordon Pinsent, Margaret Atwood, Michael Ondaatje, Sarah Harmer, Tanya Tagaq and Joseph Boyden, the film moves between Purdy’s story and the compelling characters bound up in his legacy. Purdy has been called the last, best and most Canadian poet.

Amy

Sunday, Oct. 18 at 7 p.m. @ Landmark Cinemas 6 Jackson Square - Runtime: 90 min. - Rating: 14A  |  Documentary / Biography

With a voice oft-described as a combination of Billy Holiday, Dinah Washington and Sarah Vaughan, Amy Winehouse was a pop star with soul, a once in two generational musical talent whose appeal crossed cultural and demographic boundaries. As riveting as it is sad, Amy is a powerfully honest look at the twisted relationship between art and celebrity — and the lethal spiral of addiction.