The Blood in the Snow (BITS) Film Festival returns to Toronto with six nights of the best horror fare in Canada. BITS has quickly become one of the best genre-featuring film festivals in the city. This year, the lineup includes feature films, shorts, web-series, and the newly added podcast category.
To start my coverage, I give you thoughts on festival opener Puppet Killer.
Fresh from the festival circuit and in time for Hallowe’en, Rob Grant‘s Harpoon is now available on Video on Demand (VOD).
This dark comedy is a post-modern adaptation of a story by Edgar Allan Poe in which three shipwrecked sailors draw lots to see who must sacrifice himself as a cannibalistic snack. In Grant’s version, three friends are stranded on a yacht in the middle of the ocean desperate for survival.
The 11th Annual Toronto Youth Shorts (TYS) returns this weekend offering us an excellent serving of local short films made by young Ontario-based filmmakers. The festival serves as a platform for young filmmakers to showcase their budding, cinematic talents.
This year festival will feature 40 short films divided into four programmes. All programmes offer a varied selection of films for all tastes. Below I give you a glimpse of what a few films premiering at TYS.
The Canadian Film Fest (CFF) began its 2019 edition this week. This weekend, CFF will present two incredible Homegrown Shorts programmes for the first time. Here, I share with you my thoughts on five of these shorts.
READ MORE
JAYU’s Human Rights Film Festival (HRFF) opens its 7th installment with the powerful documentary TransMilitary, directed by Gabriel Silverman and Fiona Dawson. The film is based on outdated and discriminatory medical policies dating back to World War II, transgender people were banned from serving in the US military until July 2016. READ MORE
TIFF Cinematheque is currently celebrating one of cinema’s most consequential names, Ingmar Bergman. This film retrospective, Bergman 100, offers the opportunity to (re)discover the works of a master so influential, that his impact can not only be seen in the works of auteurs like Andrei Tarkovsky, but also in parodies by SCTV, The Muppets and even The Simpsons.
TIFF Cinematheque programmer James Quandt answers 5 Questions… on Bergman. READ MORE
For the first time, 40 years after her death, the most famous opera singer ever tells her own story – in her own words. Maria by Callas features previously unknown footage, unseen photographs, personal Super 8 films, private live recordings, intimate letters and rare behind-the scenes archival footage for the first time in colour. READ MORE
Filmed during the last 9-10 years, Ontario’s Slater Jewell-Kemker has travelled the world on the front lines of climate change. At 15 years-old, Slater began documenting the rise of the global youth climate movement, which has taken her around the world to UN Climate Conferences and communities on the front lines of climate change. The result is the documentary Youth Unstoppable. READ MORE
When 12 year-old Henry (Luca Villacis) is brought to visit his isolated grandfather, he is not prepared for the harshness of winter in rural Alberta, and the tragedy that is to come. READ MORE
Northern France, 1918. World War One is reaching its bloody climax and the end can’t come soon enough for Canadian tunneller Berton (Rossif Sutherland). His superiors, however, need his expertise to get a team of British and American allies inside a secret underground German base. Trench 11 takes you along with Berton deep into the bowels of this underground base unbeknownst of the horrors that await. READ MORE
