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Category: 2023

Worst Day Ever – Karl Franzen Kimmel, Nils Kimmel (BC)

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Nils and Karl are Canadian filmmaking brothers with a passion for both horror and comedy. They  have always been drawn to the art of storytelling, and have honed their skills through years of hard work and dedication. They have created several films that explore the intersection of horror and comedy, showcasing their unique perspectives and innovative approach to filmmaking spanning an array of DIY projects and funded budgets.

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A young man's mind reels as he attempts to make it through the last five minutes of a dreaded workday without his anxiety-inducing secret being discovered by his co-workers. As time ticks away and tension mounts, he begins to suspect betrayal.

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We love a good local comedy short and Worst Day Ever certainly delivers! Catch it in-person at our screening March 26th and streaming online March 27th-April 1st!

Get your tickets here!

Halves and Doubles – Adam Mbowe (QC)

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Adam Mbowe is a Gambian/Canadian, Montreal-based filmmaker. Recently a graduate from Concordia University, creating art through moving images has given her the means to describe experiences that may otherwise be forgotten or rarely explained. It has given her the power to illustrate blackness and queerness through film as reclamation. With her work, she is inspired by the inherent value of simple memories and how these tiny poignant moments almost escape description yet say so much. She hopes to continue to create entertaining films that resonate and keep viewers subtly reflecting.

Despite the close bond between Adam and her sibling Khadija there is trauma unspoken between them. In this short documentary, the two hold a conversation where they attempt to find mutual understanding through the winding road of expressing emotions.

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We're so pleased to have the opportunity to screen Adam's work at this year's festival. Halves and Doubles is a documentary that sits with its subjects and steps into the familiar intimacy of sibling relationships and the complexities of mental health.

Virtual and in-person tickets available here!

Forgotten – Mawrgan Shaw (ON)

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Mawrgan Shaw BA (Media&Comm), M (DigFilm), is a visual artist and animator based in Toronto, Canada, originally from Melbourne, Australia. Mawrgan’s art is inspired by our sense of self and the intersection with our physical reality, and how we move through and make meaning

in the world. Mawrgan creates 2D frame- by-frame animation traditionally using mixed media; ink, marker, charcoal and watercolour, and digitally to explore texture and feel. Recently, Mawrgan has had her animated work featured in festivals in Canada and the United States, and has upcoming programming in South Korea and China.

Website - Instagram

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Forgotten is an animated short film that offers a window into the isolation the elderly face when living alone. Drawn using traditional and digital media, the film presents and explores one person’s loneliness, sorrow, and deteriorating grip on reality.

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Forgotten marks Mawrgan's second time appearing in our festival program! In 2021 we had the pleasure of (virtually) screening another lovely, textural animated short Days Like These!

Tickets? You want 'em, we got 'em!

After the Rain – David K Greene, Nate Kelly, Parker Thompson (BC)

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Dealing with the weight of the world, a gardener takes solace in tending to his plot.

Nate Kelly and Parker Thompson are part of Gritzmore, the art collective and production company led by David K Greene. Together, over the years, these three and many more have produced comedy, music videos, and many experimental films. Production company for hire and arts collective for fun, Gritzmore is here to stay.

David K. Greene: Instagram - D. Greene's Egregious Guitar

Nate Kelly: Instagram

Parker James Thompson: Instagram

Gritzmore: Instagram

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If you're tapped into Vancouver's local film and comedy scene at all, you'll know Gritzmore! We're really excited to be able to include After the Rain in our program this year!

Grab your tickets while they're hot!

MARTY – Mike McKinlay (BC)

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During his 20 years as a Director of Photography Mike McKinlay has carved out a respectable niche as a multi award winning Cinematographer in the Canadian documentary scene - taking part in some of the top documentary stories spanning the west coast. Some of his most recent clients have included CBC, National Geographic, Netflix, National Film Board of Canada, Knowledge Network, and APTN.

Website - Instagram

This 7 minute documentary titled MARTY follows an 11 year old 80's obsessed skate punk - stuck in the past while struggling to navigate the present.

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This is the second time we've had the pleasure of presenting Mike's work at the festival. We showed a trailer for his short The Perfect State in 2016 at Cinema Spectacular 3! You an also peep more of his recent work as cinematographer with Part of the Pack, which has been doing great things in the festival circuit!

Get your tickets now!

Wish You Were Here – Shiun Okada, Yuko Masaki (BC)

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Shiun Okada graduated from the Film Production program at the University of British Columbia. He is an emerging filmmaker with an eye for cinematography. For over a decade, his goal is to be a Director of Photography with a small interest in Directing. His background, however, began from the technical side of film—learning the specifics of camera and lighting technologies, as well as visual effects. Through the creations in visual effects work, he continued to try and refine the art of visually capturing and creating an image to learn to be a better storyteller. Shiun is a 2nd-generation Japanese Canadian who now works to investigate the human psyche and its influences it has on our mental health while using this non-western lens in his body of works.

Instagram

Yuko Masaki graduated in Socio-Cultural Anthropology from the University of British Columbia. As a second-generation Japanese Canadian, she focuses her studies on aspects of Japanese culture in order to better understand herself and her heritage. Her interests specifically lie in food and how traditions around food are formed and maintained. “Wish You Were Here” is her directorial and screenwriting debut.

Instagram

Wish You Were Here: Facebook - Instagram

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After planning their trip to Japan, Miya and Haru discover that they are no longer able to go due to the pandemic. Miya decides to recreate the Japanese experience from the comfort of their home and drags Haru along with her.

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Wish You Were Here was produced as part of the Mighty Asian Movie Marathon and we're so happy to have the opportunity to screen it this year!

Get your tickets here!

BOSSBABE – Teresa Alfeld (BC)

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Nikki Newstead gets sucked into the slippery world of multi-level marketing, and is about to get more than she bargained for.

Teresa Alfeld (she/her) is an award-winning writer/director from Vancouver. She is a member of the Director’s Guild of Canada, and the Documentary Organization of Canada. 

Directing credits include the feature documentaries DOUG AND THE SLUGS AND ME (Closing Night Gala film at DOXA 2022, premiered on CBC January 2023), and THE RANKIN FILE: LEGACY OF A RADICAL (opening night film at DOXA 2018, broadcast premiere on Knowledge Network 2019), the short documentary JEAN SWANSON: WE NEED A NEW MAP (Hot Docs 2021, VIFF 2021) and short dramatic films ROADKILL (Canadian Film Fest 2013), CHARLIE GAUVIN (Female Eye Film Festival 2012), and BUNKY THE VAMPIRE KILLER (Toronto Independent Film Festival 2010). 

Teresa recently premiered the short comedy DAVID FOSTER’S EGGGPAA (NFB 2022) starring David Foster and Katharine McPhee at the Governor General Awards ceremony in Ottawa. 

Teresa holds a BFA in film production (SFU 2010), a Master’s in Dispute Resolution (UVic 2017), is fluent in French, and – as a teenager - once helped build a pirate TV tower, successfully knocking out the national broadcaster’s signal for nearly ten minutes to broadcast her and her colleagues’ content (Teresa’s program was a dirtbag dating show called Hookin’ It Up: East Van Style).

Website - Instagram - Twitter

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You may have seen Teresa's feature doc Doug and the Slugs and Me on CBC and CBC Gem recently, and it was recently nominated by the Vancouver Critics Circle for best BC film and best BC director! We're excited to be premiering BOSSBABE at our final festival!

Tickets are on sale now! In-person and virtual event details can be found here!

Romantics – Jamie Lam (BC)

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After a surprise date with her thoughtful boyfriend, Olivia goes on a quest to make her first-generation parents embrace their romantic instincts.

Hailing from Richmond, BC, Jamie Lam is an emerging director, writer, and filmmaker of Hong Kong descent. Her latest short film, "The Mess We're In" won awards at the 17th Mighty Asian Moviemaking Marathon, including Best Film. Her short films have played at various festivals, including the Vancouver Asian Film Festival and DisOrient Asian American Film Festival of Oregon. As a writer, Jamie is an alumni of the Arts Club’s LEAP Playwriting Intensive and Vancouver Asian Canadian Theatre's MSG Lab. Jamie's work aims to explore the nuances in how human connection is pursued, built, or undone. She strives to contribute to the landscape of media as a woman of colour focused on fostering empathy and understanding.

Jamie Lam: Instagram

Jackie Wong: Instagram

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Romantics is an incredibly charming story and we're so excited to have it in our 2023 program! You don't want to miss it!

In-person and virtual tickets are now on sale! Get them while they're hot!

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.

Instagram - Twitter

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.

 

Instagram

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 ♥