Filmmaker to screen award-winning documentary, ‘Fig Trees’
IF YOU GO
What: ‘Fig Trees’ Screening
Where: Life Sciences Auditorium
When: Today, 7:30 p.m.
How much: Free
A singing albino squirrel and unfair distribution of AIDS treatment drugs are rarely mentioned in the same sentence. Leave it to Canadian filmmaker John Greyson to unite them in ‘Fig Trees,’ his latest award-winning feature.
Greyson, whose work frequently deals with homosexual themes, will screen the film Tuesday at 7:30 p.m. in the Life Sciences Complex Auditorium at Syracuse University.
‘Fig Trees’ centers on AIDS activists Zackie Achmat and Tim McCaskell and their fight for more fair access to treatment drugs. The film, which was influenced by Gertrude Stein and is narrated by a singing squirrel, took home a best documentary award at the Berlin International Film Festival in 2009.
The film will be screened as part of the Transnationalizing Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Studies Project. Margaret Himley, professor of writing and rhetoric and co-director of the LGBT studies program, said that the work produced by Greyson, a professor at York University in Toronto, highlights LGBT objectives.
‘Professor Greyson’s work, and especially ‘Fig Trees,’ illustrates the challenges and urgencies of doing transnational queer analysis and thinking,’ Himley said.
Roger Hallas, an assistant professor in SU’s English department who helped bring Greyson to SU, said he applauds Greyson’s ability to depict controversial themes concerning homosexuality, HIV and AIDS. Part documentary, part opera, ‘Fig Trees’ illustrates these subject matters, with the musical aspect of the film shedding light on the subject.
‘Greyson’s musical numbers become an opportunity to bear witness to AIDS in ways that address both the psychological imperative to share the experience of trauma and the political imperative to fight discrimination, stigma and inadequate access to treatment,’ Hallas said.
While his film deals primarily with homosexuality, Hallas believes Greyson’s work transcends boundaries and should appeal to a wide variety of students.
‘I was motivated to invite Greyson to SU because ‘Fig Trees’ speaks to so many different constituencies across campus,’ Hallas said.
Greyson’s work has garnered honors from many of the world’s most well-known film festivals, including the Toronto International Film Festival and the Montreal World Film Festival.
‘It seems that his work touches on socially relevant issues that permeate some of the classes offered to me in my minor, English and textual studies,’ said Hunter Lurie, a freshman television, radio and film major. ‘I’m interested to see what thematic offerings Greyson has.’
Hallas compared Greyson to French filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard, one of the most revered directors of all time, noting the two filmmakers take every opportunity to experiment with and explore the relationship between art and politics.
‘Whether you’re interested in music, film, avant-garde literature, political activism, gay culture, public health or even the history of saints,’ Hallas said, ”Fig Trees’ challenges you to re-conceptualize your very notions of documentary, of opera, of activism and, perhaps most importantly, the relationship between art and politics.’
Published on April 25, 2010 at 12:00 pm
