Film festival starts today, free tickets for readers and first film review of "Virgin Tales"

The Visions du Réel Festival starts today in Nyon and we have two pairs of tickets up for grabs for film screenings for readers of this site.  Just email cnp at bluewin.ch with your name and telephone number by 22:00 on Friday 20th April.  Names will go into a hat and 2 lucky winners will be informed on Saturday a. m 21st April.   Every year, Living in Nyon writers review a selection of films on the festival  programme and today we begin with the first review of the film "Virgin Tales" by Suzy Nelson-Pollard.  Suzy is currently a student of International Relations at the University of Geneva. Read her first review below.

"Virgin Tales", directed by Mirjam Von Arx, to be shown on Saturday at 17:00 (Théâtre de Marens) and Sunday at 10:00 (Salle Communale) is a Swiss made documentary about a family of evangelical Christians in Colorado. The Wilson family, who have seven home-schooled children, are vocal and influential within the local community, spreading the message of purity. So vocal indeed that for around a decade they have organised annual purity balls for the daughters and fathers of the community, a chance for both to pledge to protect and guard the daughters’ virginity until their wedding days.  Religious middle America is an easy bandwagon for a European filmmaker to jump on. To many moderate Europeans, scenes of the tea party movement or politics entwined with religious rhetoric provoke incredulous disbelief, or even just plain mocking. But this is no sensationalist, hate-mongering portrayal of those “crazy Americans over the ocean”, the merit of this film comes from the family itself. The Wilsons are generally likeable, (perhaps with exception to the father, a tad creepily overzealous when talking about the responsibility to protect his daughter’s purity), the children are loving, caring, incisive, mature and extremely intelligent. "Purity brings joy" The focus is on the third daughter Jordan, a beautiful, poised and extremely bright 20 year old, waiting to follow her older sister’s footsteps in to marriage. Jordan is clearly full of contradictions. She speaks confidently about how “purity brings joy”, but looks positively bored to tears waiting for her “wonderful husband to arrive” and to move her in to the next chapter of her life. She talks about how she looks forward to being a mother and a wife most of all, and asks “why would I spend thousands of dollars on an education that I’m not going to use?”. As time goes by however and the wait gets longer, she starts a course in etiquette for young ladies, which by the end of the documentary blossoms, proving that she has quite the talent for business that an education may have boosted. One of the most interesting things about the community that was highlighted in the film was the use of symbolism to encourage purity in teenager years. Young daughters wear long white dresses to the purity balls and dance around a cross. Sons have coming of age or manhood ceremonies in which they are presented with a sword and even armour, so that they can fight their enemies (such as inappropriate thoughts and desires). A scene at the purity ball shows a father slipping a ring on his daughter’s engagement finger, telling her that the ring was a symbol of purity, and that she would never regret saving herself for her wedding day. The young girl looked about twelve years old, and one cant help but wonder if there would be a moment in her life when she wasn’t under the “protection” of a man, be it her father or husband. Although it's a subject that has been documented many times, this film offers an interesting and balanced insight in to not only the politics and ceremonies, but the thoughts and emotions of one of America’s most important religious groups today. For ticket sales, programming and all information on the film documentary festival click here for website  (in English)