Eve and the Fire Horse

In the Chinese calendar, years are named for animals. The Eve in the title of this first feature from Vancouver-based director Julia Kwan was born in 1966, the year of the Fire Horse. This is a special year as the Fire Horse only turns up every 60 years and since it has a reputation for producing troublesome children, the worst is expected of Eve almost from birth. Eve and the Fire Horse explores the religious awakening of two Chinese-Canadian girls living with their parents in 1970s Vancouver. Eve and her older sister, Karena, aged 11, are being raised by Buddhist parents who have never been particularly devout. Karena moves toward and embraces Catholicism with all the passion of a newly annointed saint while Eve, being younger and, of course, born in the year of the Fire Horse, approaches religion more like a world of wonder. To help the family through a spate of bad luck, Eve starts attending Sunday School. Caught between her sister`s fantasies of sainthood and her own sense of right and wrong, Eve faces the challenges of childhood with fanciful humour and wide-eyed wonder. As they say on the official website, “Sometimes the most troublesome children are the ones that touch our hearts most deeply.” Eve and the Fire Horse was the only Canadian feature at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival which resulted in its director being given a Special Jury Prize.