Today was the date of the Vegetarian Film Festival in Auckland. The festival was organised by my friend Aaron, so I went along to see what it was all about, and I must say that I enjoyed all three films in the session I saw.
The first was Remembering Bob, a short film about a young boy learning an important lesson from his friendship with a pig. The film looked exactly like what it was, a student short made as part of a course, but it came across as sweet in an unpolished sort of way.
The second short was Harvie Krumpet, an Australian stop-motion film about a man with an unfortunate life. It was included in the festival partly because the title character has the hobby of rescuing chickens from battery farms. As this was presented as only one of a large number of unrelated peculiarities that the man possesses, it may not have been the best example of the vegetarian lifestyle. Great little film though.
The feature was McLibel, a documentary about two people (gardener Helen Steel and postman Dave Morris) who were famously sued in Britain by McDonalds for handing out leaflets stating that among other things McDonalds was unhealthy, exploitative, cruel, and no friend of the environment. The film follows the two people as they defend themselves against the corporationâs crack legal team in what turned out to be the longest civil trial in British history (match summary: McDonalds just ahead on points, but fans of Pyrric victories will not be disappointed). I would have preferred some more analysis of the legal points involved, but following around the two people involved made for an excellent documentary, and it's always fun to see a multinational slammed.
In fact, all three movies were better that the DVD I watched this evening The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissouui. That film looks great, but is a confused mess.