EDvent: Edmonton International Film Festival '09, Pt. II
Anne Wheeler's Bye Bye Blues kicked off the 2009 EIFF with a free screening on Churchill Square BY EMIL TIEDEMANN O NE week before Edmonton kicks off its 23rd annual International Film Festival on September 25th, it hosted a free double feature screening at Churchill Square last Friday (September 18). Initially intended to be a 2-day series that offered up one picture per evening, organizers were forced to cancel Thursday's outting due to weather, squeezing both films ( Man on Wire and Bye Bye Blues ) into Friday evening instead. Drive-in movie theatres are a thing of the past, or at least they are here in Edmonton, so I was excited to take in Anne Wheeler 's Bye Bye Blues (1989) on the giant inflatable screen (supplied by Fresh Air Cinema ) in the heart of downtown. I had never even heard of this 20-year-old feature film by Edmonton-born director/ writer/ producer Wheeler, but it was more about sitting in a lawn chair in the Square on a Friday evening, sipping on hot ...