The third annual Bloody Mary Film Festival runs November 8th – 9th, 2018 at the Imagine Carlton Cinemas in Toronto. The festival will showcase short and feature-length genre films directed by Canadian female filmmakers over the course of two nights.
Highlights include the feature films Darken (2017) and Brown Girl Begins (2018) by Toronto-based filmmakers Audrey Cummings and Sharon Lewis, respectively. Two programmes of short films will close out both festival days, featuring the quirky black comedy Glitter’s Wild Women (2018), the colonialist vampire fable Tick (2018), the weird puppet opera The View From Here (2017), the fantastical Quebecois period piece Wild (2018), among many others.
The Bloody Mary Film Festival is also showcasing films that depict the ways in which genre filmmaking can be used to interpret real-life horrors. From the unsettling exploration of Mexico City’s housing crisis in Dulce Hogar (2018) to They Will Know You By Your Fruit (2018), which illustrates anti-blackness through an experimental lens, the festival continues its committment to being a platform for diverse voices in genre film — which is very relevant to someone like myself and to the city of Toronto also.
All films will be eligible for the Audience Choice Award sponsored by Dazmo Camera. The winning director will receive a $5000 donation of camera rentals towards their next project.
This year also marks the launch of the Creator’s Coven: Genre Film Generator. This incubator program is intended to give emerging female directors from Canada the opportunity to develop their next project with experienced producers. One winning project will receive a one-year development deal with producers from ZED.film and Ultra 8 Pictures, as well as mentorship and in-kind donations from industry professionals.
Be sure to support Bloody Mary Film Festival this week. A reminder that screenings of both features and shorts will be followed by Q&A sessions with filmmakers. For full listings and tickets, please go to bloodymaryfilmfest.com.
THE BLOODY MARY FILM FESTIVAL – 2018 Festival Trailer from krista dzialoszynski on Vimeo.
