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Lesley Marshall – “Time is a Car” by Partner (BC)

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Time Is A Car is a meta music video. A music video in a music video. It's what would have happened if Thelma and Louise escaped with all the money and drove happily ever after off into the sunset and had wonderful prosperous lives. Fueled by music video epics, pulp films, and ripe with sarcasm, Time Is A Car, has the parody quality of Beastie Boys' Sabotage and the vibrancy of Megan Thee Stalion's Thot Sh*t filmed in Victoria, BC.

An award-winning filmmaker with films appearing in 40 festivals nationally and internationally, music videos by Lesley have been featured on Rolling Stone, American Songwriter, Vice, Exclaim!, Brooklyn Vegan, Aux, Rookie Mag, Stereogum, ClashMag and UPROXX. Lesley’s cinematography and editing of the 2019 Inside Out selected webseries “Village Legacy Project” can be seen on OutTV. Lesley’s first documentary web series “Dollar Bin DJ” was shortlisted for Telefilm Talent To Watch and WIFTV IDM Accelerator in 2018. In 2022, Lesley received full funding for her current documentary, the Illegal Midwives of Vancouver Island from the BC Arts Council and is supported by CBC Gem for the short The Colour Orange. Lesley is the founder of MAVNetwork, a production company focused on inclusive crews working with Netflix, Vox Media, TD Bank, MLB and many more. Projection art by Lesley has been performed at the National Art Centre, Montreal Jazz Fest, CentrePHI and in galleries in NYC, Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa and the Netherlands.

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MAVNetwork: Instagram - Twitter - Facebook

Partner: Instagram

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We are excited to have Lesley Marshall and Partner back after screening Play the Field as part of our 2021 virtual program!

Tickets and virtual screening info available here!

Chris Lennox-Aasen – Magic Trick (BC)

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Chris is a filmmaker living in Vancouver BC. He grew up a foreign service brat, and studied film at SFU. As a storyteller, his interest is in archetypes, genres, and alternative subcultures as exciting reflecting pools for human experience, emotion, and growth.

 

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An enchanting meet-cute about encountering a beautiful stranger in the wild.

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Chris is a multitalented local filmmaker and musician and we are very excited to open our final Cinema Spectacular with his latest charming venture, Magic Trick!

Ticket information coming soon ♥

Tracey Lavigne – Picture Yourself (NB)

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Tracey Lavigne (she/they) is a queer writer, director, and producer based in Fredericton, New Brunswick. Tracey’s award-winning short films have screened at festivals across Canada and beyond. An alumnus of the Reykjavik International Film Festival Talent Lab, the FIN Atlantic Film Festival Script Development Program, and a past winner of the WIFT-Atlantic CBC Pitch Competition, she is producer of the upcoming feature length fantasy drama Further Than the Eye Can See.

An agoraphobic woman resists going with her partner to a family funeral, triggering a crisis point in their relationship. An exploration of the short but impossible distance between the threshold of the front door to the world outside, and between two people separated by a mental illness.

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Tracey first showed with Cinema Spectacular in 2018 with her directorial debut, Glitter! We are so excited to have this New Brunswick alumni back with Picture Yourself, which will be part of our in-person program on March 26th, 2023 as well as our virtual program, available Canada-wide, March 27th-April 1st, 2023.

Ticket information coming soon ♥

2023 Programming announcement

Folks, it’s here! Feast your eyes upon our positively electric 2023 Cinema Spectacular lineup. You’ll see some new friends and familiar faces listed here! In the coming weeks we’ll be plastering these filmmakers all over our social platforms with our #filmmakerfeature posts as well as announcing lots of ticketing and screening details! We’re so excited for this absolute barnburner of a program!

We’re a grassroots festival where word-of-mouth goes a long ways! Help us spread the word on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook; we’re chill, we promise. This is also where our up-to-the-minute news drops!

We’ve got news!

The time has come! We’ve been quiet for long enough. We’ve got some big news! 

Our submissions season has reopened – if you have submitted already, your film is still in the running! Submission fees will remain at $8 for the whole season, no matter what you submit! Final deadline is December 31, 2022.

Submit via Filmfreeway

This is because our 8th festival year has been pushed forward to 2023 – and will be our last festival for the foreseeable future. It is a bittersweet development for us, as the festival has been an absolute project of passion and community for our small team. We’ve met so many great filmmakers and film enthusiasts, learned so much, and gained a tremendous amount of appreciation for all of the different kinds of storytelling coming from every corner of this country. We’re going to miss it a lot!

But before we say goodbye, our final year is going to be a bright, shining star! We’re going to be throwing a gigantic celebration – for our filmmakers, our audience, our supporters – to celebrate all the blood, sweat, and tears that is poured into making independent cinema in Canada. There’s going to be movies, music, panels, lovely faces – it’s going to be a wonderful gathering of creativity and support!

Since the beginning, we’ve been a festival run by filmmakers for filmmakers – we know what it takes to get movies made! Our goal has always been to get more eyes on independent projects. We’ll be throwing a hybrid in-person and virtual event for 2023, to be enjoyed no matter where you are in Canada – coast to coast to coast.

Interested in sponsoring or helping out? Get in touch! This festival runs on wonderful volunteers and generous contributions from local businesses, and this year we’ll be pulling out all of the stops.

I am tremendously thankful for the support we have received since the inception of this festival in 2014. I have loved putting on this event and seeing it grow in weird and wonderful ways. It has always been an immensely important and personal project to me, and has been a vessel to express my love of the craft and those who make it happen. Thank you for sharing your films, sharing your stories, and we will continue to carry the spirit of love local cinema forward in any way we can.

If you have any questions or comments, please send them our way!

Laurel K Brown
hello@cinemaspectacular.com
Founder – Director
Cinema Spectacular

Alayna Silverberg – B-Side (BC)


Alayna pulls from her own experiences to create heartfelt, personally driven stories. She began her career in the top 3 of Elle Canada’s Fashion Film competition, then took home a $10k Telus Storyhive grant for their Female Directors edition. Alayna competed in a live pitch contest and won the 2018 MPPIA short film award at the prestigious Whistler Film Festival. The award allowed her the support and sponsorship to create ‘B-Side’ the short film. Since it’s completion ‘B-Side’ was nominated for Best Short Drama and Best Musical Score Short Drama at the 2020 Leo Awards. The film also screened at Vancouver Short Film Festival, Whistler Film Festival and most recently the Vancouver Queer Film Festival 2020, where Alayna was the proud recipient of the Gerry Brunet award in recognition of a BC short filmmaker.
 

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B-Side is the Coming of Age story of 17-year old Mal, who when invited into a group of female skateboarders, is challenged to face her longtime, repressed fear of getting back on the board. She ends up falling for Britt, a skater, who tries to help her overcome her affliction. Forced to confront the grief of the loss of her father, a once legendary Pro Skateboarder, Mal must decide if she is ready to move on from her mourning or remain stuck in her heartache.

B-Side will be showing as part of our PURPLE program exhibiting July 15-19th, 2021!

An all-access pass gets you on demand access to all three programs all weekend long!

Farnaz Ohadi – Hesar (Gate) (BC)


While growing up in her native land of Iran, Farnaz sang at every available opportunity but longed to find her authentic artist’s voice. Upon her move to Canada, she studied Operatic vocal training, Persian folk singing, then Flamenco cante through the instruction of Oscar Nieto, Vicente Griego, Naike Ponce and Lucas Ortega among others. Farnaz’s love of music and performance art inspired her to create the collaborative project “Mashregh Ensemble” in 2012, which combine’s Persian poetry with Flamenco music.
Throughout her artistic and musical career Farnaz has been passionate about giving voice to the unique view point of Iranian female singers whose voices are denied in Iran, being forbidden to record or perform in public to mix audiences. Her songs always have a social message, be it delving into challenges of immigration, love in a new country or finding the artist path in uncharted waters. She remains deeply grateful to her second home, Canada for providing her the wings by which she flies as high as the sky is the limit and a voice by which to express herself fully.

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This video is the backdrop for the song “Hesar” from Farnaz Ohadi’s Persian Flamenco debut album. It focuses on themes of Iranian women’s struggles, immigration, mental health and the artist’s journey when she arrived in Canada in 1990. The movie traces the journey of the artist from her home land, Iran to Canada, the angst and confusion and pain of immigration and finally choosing to put down roots in a new land.

Translation of the chorus:

What is it I am saying, behind this iron gate?
What am I seeking among these hazy nights?
What is it I hunt for in this strange city?
Behind these impure walls?
One night, the breath will say, no more
and the breath will stop beating
A blind bird will open its wings
and will take my life with it as it flies away

Hesar will be showing as part of our TEAL program exhibiting July 15-19th, 2021!

Tickets? You want tickets? We’ve got them right here!

Krista Davis – Exercises in Being Close to You: A story for the Arctic Refuge (YK)


Krista Davis is a visual artist and filmmaker based in Yukon, Canada. She has ties to Nova Scotia and Arizona as well, that keep her making work between these very different landscapes. Writer Donna Haraway’s call for strategies to “live and die better together on this damaged earth” has become the guiding principal of her work. Through video, animation, performance and multi-media installation, Davis seeks creative, sometimes fantastical strategies to shift perspectives on human and non-human relationships towards a more ecologically just world.  Davis’ work has been presented in galleries and festivals across North America, and Europe. She received her BFA from Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, and MFA from Arizona State University. 

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Exercises for Being Close to You: A Story for the Arctic Refuge is an experimental documentary that follows a group of hikers through Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. They hope to meet up with the Porcupine Caribou herd to collect stories that could help push back on oil exploration and drilling on the caribou’s birthing grounds. The narrator, admitting to a perverse desire to be close to everything, wants nothing more than to spoon a caribou.

As the film culminates in anticipation of the “money shot”, the audience must evaluate their expectations of nature films. Meanwhile, the expedition team is left to weigh intention with strategy when environmental filmmaking mirrors tactics of the extraction economy they are fighting against.

The film uses documentary footage of the two-week expedition intercut with experimental vignettes — exercises to rethink our relationship to the land and animals we hope to protect.

This project was made as part of the multi-platform storytelling project “Stories for the Arctic Refuge”. More contributions to this project can be found on instagram through #arcticrefugestories

Exercises in Being Close to You: A Story for the Arctic Refuge will be showing as part of our BLUE program exhibiting July 15-19th, 2021!

You can get an all-access pass to the festival here!

Sammy Mohamed – Pierre St. Denis (ON)


Sammy Mohamed is a black writer/director from Ottawa, Ontario. He and his parents immigrated  from Somalia in the early 90’s. His parents, who were also writers, cultivated his love for the arts at an  early age. They watched all sorts of movies and read all sorts of books together and with their help he  learned to love stories in all their forms. As he grew older, he fell even more in love with cinema and  decided to attend Algonquin College in the Scriptwriting Program. Since then he has written two  screenplays, directed a short film and written three short films.

A man suffering from a gunshot wound is being treated in the ER, when he is visited by a  mysterious man who shares some uncomfortable news with him.

Pierre St. Denis will be showing as part of our TEAL program exhibiting July 15-19th, 2021!

Tickets? You want tickets? We’ve got them right here!

Corby Martin – Skipping Stones (BC)


Corby Martin is an accomplished cinematographer and camera operator as well as an inventor and innovator of optical and mechanical products for the film industry. He has lenses award winning short films, documentaries, commercials, music videos and feature films, as well as developed unique lenses and accessories for TV and feature films including the Effigy Lens system and Ethereal Lens for Sim International. Corby is also a well recognized and respected expert on cinema lenses and has been invited to speak in panel discussions and technical workshops at event such as NAB and Cinegear and for brands such as Fujifilm USA and Sim International. Corby lives in the mountains of British Columbia and is available for cinematography and optical/mechanical design consultation.
 

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A portrait of a boy growing to a man, expressing his struggles and frustrations through the simple act of skipping a stone.

Skipping Stones will be showing as part of our PURPLE program exhibiting July 15-19th, 2021!

Tickets are on sale now through til July 19th!