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FILMS

PROMENADES NOCTURNES (2022)

FEATURE FILM | 63 MINUTES | 2K | COLOUR | 16:9 | 5.1 SURROUND 

 

SYNOPSIS: After the death of her husband, Ethel retreats inward, doubting her loved ones, trying to make sense of the fabric of her reality. She has also begun wandering at night, each walk a more surreal and abstract adventure.

FESTIVALS: Montreal’s Festival du Nouveau Cinema **** JUST RELEASED ****

AWARDS: Montreal’s Festival du Nouveau Cinema Prix de la diffusion québecor - awarded to an outstanding film of the competition

 

REVIEWS: Promenades nocturnes is above all the quintessence of independent cinema, in that the creativity invested in each of the departments — in the photography, sound work, visual design and the use of particularly evocative natural settings — guarantees an efficiency that money can never buy.     -Olivier Thibodeau, Panorama cinema

 

One of Quebec’s greatest working actors, Marie Brassard, stars in Ryan McKenna’s Promenades nocturnes… Despite a runtime of just over an hour, the film is dense with ideas and emotions.    

 -Justine Smith, CULT MTL

CRANKS (2019)

FEATURE FILM | 94 MINUTES | 4K | B&W | 16:9 | 5.1 SURROUND 

 

SYNOPSIS: Cranks is a city symphony focused on several different characters living in the sleepy isolated town of Winnipeg. Formally, the film emulates the aesthetic of a photo album – each new scene a black & white tableau vivant of a new character and setting. Connecting the various characters is the letters they all wrote – very odd ones – to Peter Warren, the radio host of the infamous Action Line program, which was broadcast throughout Western Canada from 1971-1998.

FESTIVALS: Montreal’s Festival du Nouveau Cinema, Vancouver International Film Festival, WNDX opening night film 

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VOICES OF KIDNAPPING (2015)

DOCUMENTARY SHORT | 14 MINUTES | 16MM | COLOUR | 4:3 | 5.1 SURROUND 

SYNOPSIS: For twenty years, the program 'Voices of Kidnapping' has allowed family members to send radio messages that they hope will reach their loved ones kidnapped in the Amazon jungle. This is an experimental documentary that pairs these radio messages with abstract portraits of the Colombian landscape.

FESTIVALS: Edinburgh International Film Festival,  Montreal’s Festival du Nouveau Cinema, Vancouver International Film Festival 

AWARDS: Best Short Documentary Award - Les Rendez-vous du Québec Cinéma, Jury Prize (Oscar Qualification) - VIS: Vienna Shorts, Nomination for Best Documentary Short Subject - Canadian Screen Awards

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LE COEUR DE MADAME SABALI (2015)

FEATURE FILM | 80 MINUTES | 2K | COLOUR | 16:9 | 5.1 SURROUND 

 

SYNOPSIS: After a woman receives a heart transplant, the donor's teenage son tracks her down thinking she is the reincarnation of his mother.

FESTIVALS: Vancouver International Film Festival, Thessaloniki International Film Festival, Palm Springs International Film Festival, Göteborg Film Festival

AWARDS: Grand Prize Focus (Awarded to Best Canadian Film) - Montreal’s Festival du Nouveau Cinema, Special Jury Prize - Geo Saizescu International Film Festival, Nomination for Best Canadian Actress (Marie Brassard) - Vancouver Film Critics Circle

PRESS

"Bursting with visual humor, “Sabali” is a gorgeously stylized, wryly comic drama about a train station ticket seller with heart and relationship problems." -Variety

 

"Sabali is a remarkable film that manages to overrun with opulent visual accomplishments, unique and indelible characters, brilliant casting, and an innovative script that gleefully smashes taboos with speed and solace." -Taste of Cinema

 

"Amazing and Refreshing" -Huffington Post

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CONTROVERSIES (2014)

DOCUMENTARY SHORT | 17 MINUTES | HD | COLOUR | 2.35 | STEREO 

 

SYNOPSIS: Using archival audio from the popular Action Line talk show, when it was a cultural phenomena in Winnipeg in the 1980s, the moderator – Peter Warren – has been edited out, focusing instead on the colourful characters that would call-in.

FESTIVALS: MoMA's Documentary Fortnight, Hot Docs Film Festival, RIDM: Montreal International Documentary Festival, DMZ Docs – Korean Int'l Documentary Festival

AWARDS: Golden Sheaf Award for Best Experimental film - Yorkton FIlm Festival,  Manitoba Day Award for creative use of archives, Global Panorama - Seoul International NewMedia Festival 

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THE FIRST WINTER (2012)

FEATURE FILM | 72 MINUTES | HD | COLOUR | 16:9 | STEREO 

 

SYNOPSIS: The First Winter is the story of Portuguese man’s first winter in Winnipeg.

FESTIVALS: Montreal’s Festival du Nouveau Cinema, IndieLisboa - International Independent Film Festival, Moscow International Film Festival, Raindance Film Festival

WINNIPEG BRUTALISM

This is a seven-point Manifesto outlining the dictates of what can only be termed Winnipeg Brutalism in cinema. 

 

1. Winnipeg Brutalism is a new cinema of Winnipeg. Stark and austere, it is like a Québec cinema, but with jokes.

2. Winnipeg Brutalism is a cinema of winter and of darkness. Exterior shots are to be filmed only between the Winter Solstice and the Vernal Equinox, and only at night.

3. Winnipeg Brutalism is very strict. Each Brutalist film must contain at least one (unfaked) blizzard.

4. Winnipeg Brutalism is an urban nightmare. The Brutalist film allows no beauty upon the Winnipeg landscape. The streets are empty, the buildings are abandoned, human drama is devoid of any warmth or compassion.

5. Winnipeg Brutalism is an outsider cinema. It must be pulled out of your own blood, uncontaminated by the neutering dogma of any Canadian “Institutes” or “Film Centres” or any other forced sterilization campaigns.

6. Winnipeg Brutalism becomes more brutal still if the director is kept in a perpetual state of discouragement. Living in squalour, avoiding sunlight, and eating only processed foods will only heighten the success of a Brutalist film production.

7. Winnipeg Brutalism is stark and it is real. The viewer must be Brutally exposed to the elements – there can be no reassuring lambs wool of artifice, formalism or phantasmagoria.

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HOKY TONK BEN (2011)

DOCUMENTARY SHORT | 15 MINUTES | HD, SUPER 8 | COLOUR, B&W | 16:9 | STEREO 

 

SYNOPSIS: Honky Tonk Ben was a yodelling cowboy with a talent for creating extravagant pianos.

FESTIVALS: San Francisco Independent Film Festival, London Short Film Festival, DOXA Documentary Film Festival, Flatpack Film Festival

 

AWARDS: Shortlisted for Music Doc Award - BBC

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                             Pacific Avenue Films

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