The 2013 Winter CVAG/TIFF Film Series begins this Sunday at 4:30 p.m. with the much-anticipated film Midnight’s Children.
A gala presentation at the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival, this momentous collaboration between Academy Award nominated director Deepa Mehta (the trilogy Fire, Earth and Water, Heaven on Earth) and celebrated novelist Salman Rushdie is an epic saga that spans borders, generations, wars and fragile peace as it chronicles a pivotal time in India’s history.
Rushdie’s inspired adaptation of his own Booker Prize-winning novel follows the destinies of a pair of children born at the stroke of midnight on Aug. 15, 1947, the very instant that India claimed its independence from Great Britain and which, in Rushdie’s brilliant magic realist conceit, endows the children born on the same night as their country’s liberation with supernatural abilities ranging from flight to invisibility, with those born closest to midnight possessing the most powerful gift.
“Handcuffed to history,” and switched at birth by a nurse in a Bombay hospital, Saleem Sinai (Satya Bhabha), the son of a poor single mother, and Shiva (Siddharth), scion of a wealthy family, are condemned to live out the fate intended for the other.
Imbued with mysterious telepathic powers, their lives become strangely intertwined and inextricably linked to their country’s careening journey through the tumultuous 20th century.
An irreverent epic of Shakespearean proportions, shot through with moments of arresting intimacy, Midnight’s Children is a production of truly impressive scope, featuring state-of-the-art computer graphics, impressive production design by the director’s brother Dilip Mehta, and 62 locations.
A luxurious feast of a film brimming with romance, spectacle, intrigue, sly social commentary and uplifting optimism, Midnight’s Children is as vast and beguiling as the country to which it pays homage.
This film starts at 4:30 instead of the regular time of 5.
Jan. 13 - Midnight’s Children. Director: Deepa Mehta; Cast: Satya Bhabha, Shahana Goswami; Year: 2012; Runtime: 2 hr. 28 min; Country: Canada; Language: English, Hindi, Urdu with English subtitles; Rated: Unrated; Genre: Drama, Science Fiction & Fantasy.
Film tickets are available at the CVAG gift shop. Call CVAG at 250-338-6211 to purchase tickets and passes over the phone with Visa or Mastercard. If the film is not sold out, tickets will also be available in the Rialto Theatre lobby before the film (cash only, exact change appreciated for lobby sales).
All films are at the Rialto Theatre at Driftwood Mall and are fundraisers for the Comox Valley Art Gallery. For updates and more information on the films, visit www.comoxvalleyartgallery.com.
— Comox Valley Art Gallery