When Tomorrow Dies + Betty and Vera Go Lawn Bowling

When Tomorrow Dies 
Canada 1965. Director: Larry Kent
Cast: Patricia Gage, Douglas Campbell, Neil Dainard, Nikki Cole, Des Smiley

In 1963, 26-year-old UBC student Larry Kent wrote and directed the first modern and truly Canadian feature made in Vancouver, The Bitter Ash. It was followed closely by Sweet Substitute (1964) and When Tomorrow Dies (1965); Kent’s early films were amongst the first in Canada to explore the social, cultural, and sexual revolutions of the 1960s, and were the subjects of controversy and censorship as a result. When Tomorrow Dies was his first professional film — cast and crew were actually paid — and demonstrated Kent’s obvious interest in his female characters. “A genuine cinematic gem ... When Tomorrow Dies takes an unsentimental but not unsympathetic look at the plight of the everyday housewife: bored, trapped, wanting to run, but with nowhere to go. Wynn is 36 and feeling neglected and abused by her husband and two daughters. Baffling her family, who cannot understand what she’s carping about, Wynn returns to university and becomes attracted to her English professor.... Kent’s ground-breaking film is uncommonly perceptive concerning the contradictory condition facing the independent woman in a sexist society” (Toronto I.F.F.). When Tomorrow Dies won the Centennial Prize at the 1966 Vancouver film fest, where it was cited for “skill in the reproduction of the fabric of ordinary lives.” B&W, 35mm. 88 mins.

Betty and Vera Go Lawn Bowling
Canada 1990. Director: Bruce Sweeney

The first-ever film by Vancouver writer-director Bruce Sweeney (Dirty, Last Wedding, Excited) was this short, modestly self-proclaimed as “one of the best lawn bowling films of ’90.” Two older women set on a road trip to have some fun and throw some balls. Colour, 16mm. 17 mins.