The Winnipeg Film Group’s latest screening series is not for the faint of heart. All of its films, whether they be comedy to animation to drama, all focus on subjects surrounding some of the darkest points of human history and the worst of human nature.
At the same time, for Olivia Norquay, the films that comprise Bleak Week at the Dave Barber Cinematheque also hold brightness within them.
“One of the threads throughout the whole series is this sort of hope for humanity,” explains the week’s film programmer, “whether it’s from very individual stories to larger global catastrophes.”
Cinema of despair
As much as Norquay and the Winnipeg Film Group team highlight the hope and humanity in Bleak Week’s collection, the darkness of the subject matter is still a lot to overcome. Two of the examples that Norquay highlights include the 2002 thrillers Lilya 4-ever and In My Skin, both of which centre on the experiences of women enduring horrific living conditions.
Leslie Supnet, the executive director of the Winnipeg Film Group, notes that as difficult as these stories may be to watch, they are necessary, nonetheless. “I think it’s important because these types of movies that are very difficult, very polarizing and divisive, in some way allows us to see the universal side of human experience,” she says, “and that through pain and suffering, we can access empathy for others and be a witness to the pain of others that we can feel more human in a way in that pain.”
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Empathy from screen to life
As Bleak Week continues, Supnet hopes that audiences can take the hope and the empathy that these films inspire and apply it to their lives outside of the theatre.
“I feel like [film] is an important access point into empathy because we are being desensitized to war and violence,” she says, “Somehow, cinema allows us to reconnect with that human side of us… to think of the morals about violence.”
“You access these complicated feelings through the characters and through the writing and these stories that are ordinary people,” Norquay adds.
The other avenue for empathy and hope comes from the connection that audiences find sharing these experiences in the theatre as opposed to encountering these dark stories alone. “Most of these films I watched by myself on my laptop,” Norquay says, and I feel like there’s something added to watching very dark films in a communal space in a movie theatre with other people.”
Bleak Week runs at the Dave Barber Cinematheque in the Exchange District until June 28. Viewer discretion is strongly advised. Tickets and more details are available at the Dave Barber Cinematheque’s website.