The Peanut Butter Falcon Dirs. Tyler Nilson & Michael Schwartz
USA 97 mins. Cast: Shia LaBeouf, Dakota Johnson, John Hawkes, Bruce Dern, Zack Gottsagen, Jon Bernthal
This modern Mark Twain style adventure story tells the story of Zak, a young man with Down syndrome, who runs away from a residential nursing home to follow his dream of attending the professional wrestling school of his idol. A strange turn of events pairs him on the road with Tyler who becomes Zak’s unlikely coach and ally. Together they wind through deltas, elude capture, drink whisky, find God, catch fish, and convince Eleanor, a kind nursing home employee charged with Zak’s return, to join them.
Parasite Dir: Bong Joon-ho
S. KOREA, 2019
Korean w/ subtitles 131 min
Cast: Song Kang-ho, Cho Yeo-jeong, Park So-dam, Chang Hyae-jin, Jung Hyeon-jun, Lee Sun-kyun, Choi Woo-shik
Bong Joon-ho’s 2019 Palme d'Or winner tells the story of two families: the Kims and the Parks. The Kims are an impoverished family living in squalor, but they are resourceful. When opportunity strikes, they seize it — and never let go. Each member of the Kim family finds their way into servitude to the Parks — without the Parks discovering who they really are. “Rich people are naive,” remarks the patriarch of the Kim family...
All shows are in room 1-306 at the College of New Caledonia Showtimes are 7 and 9:30 Passes for all 9 films are $54 and are available at Books and Co. and the CNC Bookstore. Single tickets are $8 regular, $7 student, senior, unemployed and are available at the door Tell your friends!
Maiden [documentary] Dir: Alex Holmes
UK, 2018
English 93 minutes
With: Tracy Edwards
Exhilarating, suspenseful, and emotionally charged, this film chronicles Tracy Edwards’ 1989–90 precedent-setting sea voyage around the world with an all-female crew. The Whitbread Round the World Race was considered an exclusively masculine endeavour when Edwards came along and, in the face of much sexist condescension, proved that skill, perseverance, and courage at sea know no gender. Weaving archival materials and new interviews in which Edwards and her crew members collectively narrate their experience.
All shows are in room 1-306 at the College of New Caledonia Showtimes are 7 and 9:30 Passes for all 9 films are $54 and are available at Books and Co. and the CNC Bookstore. Single tickets are $8 regular, $7 student, senior, unemployed and are available at the door Tell your friends!
Tel Aviv on Fire Dir: Sameh Zoabi
LUX/FR/ISR/BEL,
2018
Arabic, Hebrew w/subtitles 97 minutes
Cast: Lubna Azabal, Kais Nashef, Maisa Abd Elhadi, Yaniv Biton
One of the most irreverent cinematic spins on the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, this film follows a fledging soap-opera scenarist charged with concocting plot twists to suit viewers on both sides. Zoabi’s ingenious satire exudes a deadpan audacity that’s hard to resist, while Nashef ’s outwardly unflappable middleman grounds this battle of ideologies in comic pragmatism. Films like this might not bring peace to the Middle East, but making everyone laugh at the same thing feels like a step in the right direction.
All shows are in room 1-306 at the College of New Caledonia Showtimes are 7 and 9:30 Passes for all 9 films are $54 and are available at Books and Co. and the CNC Bookstore. Single tickets are $8 regular, $7 student, senior, unemployed and are available at the door Tell your friends!
Marianne & Leonard: Words of Love Dir: Nick Broomfield
USA, 2019
English, Norwegian, w/ subtitles 97 minutes
With: Marianne Ihlen, Leonard Cohen, Judy Collins
We know of Marianne Ihlen mostly through Cohen’s enigmatic “So Long, Marianne.” This film examines the love affair between Ihlen and Cohen that began on the island of Hydra in 1960. Through archival footage and interviews with friends and colleagues, a portrait emerges of the woman behind the lyrics and the long-lasting influence she had on Cohen. Famously, he wrote to her not long before her death: “Know that I am so close behind you that if you stretch out your hand, I think you can reach mine.”
All shows are in room 1-306 at the College of New Caledonia Showtimes are 7 and 9:30 Passes for all 9 films are $54 and are available at Books and Co. and the CNC Bookstore. Single tickets are $8 regular, $7 student, senior, unemployed and are available at the door Tell your friends!
Village Rockstars Dir: Rima Das
INDIA, 2017
Assamese w/ English subtitles
87 mins
Cast: Bhanita Das, Basanti Das
Dhunu wants a rock band. It’s an admirable goal for a young girl, but out of reach when you live in a remote village in northeast India. And when your mother is a widow struggling to put food on the table, dreams of electric guitars can seem like madness. Yet a guitar is exactly what drives Dhunu’s ambition. At 10 years old, she is alive with a passion for music and a dazzling confidence in her own convictions. The director grew up in this village, and recruited a local, non-professional cast. This may have seemed daring, but the result is magical.
All shows are in room 1-306 at the College of New Caledonia Showtimes are 7 and 9:30 Passes for all 9 films are $54 and are available at Books and Co. and the CNC Bookstore. Single tickets are $8 regular, $7 student, senior, unemployed and are available at the door Tell your friends!
The Biggest Little Farm [documentary] Dir. John Chester USA, 2018
English 89 minutes With: John Chester, Molly Chester
Teeming with stunningly beautiful images of flora and fauna — including a pregnant hog that will melt your heart —this is a testament to idealism. For urban viewers, it’s a necessary confrontation with how our food is grown. It’s also a family adventure, full of suspense and emotion that will leave a lump in your throat. They face many obstacles: coyotes, insects, bad weather, and disease, like a re-enactment of Little House on the Prairie. Throughout, John and Molly remain steadfast in their commitment to working with nature and not against it.
All shows are in room 1-306 at the College of New Caledonia Showtimes are 7 and 9:30 Passes for all 9 films are $54 and are available at Books and Co. and the CNC Bookstore. Single tickets are $8 regular, $7 student, senior, unemployed and are available at the door Tell your friends!
The Last Black Man in San Francisco Dir: Joe Talbot USA, 2019
English 120 minutes Cast: Jimmie Fails, Jonathan Majors, Rob Morgan, Tichina Arnold, Danny Glover
Joe Talbot’s debut feature is an ode to the city of San Francisco, rooted in the real-life experiences of his friend, Jimmie Fails who he cast in the lead role the Last Black Man in San Francisco tells a story of the city through the eyes of a fictionalized version of Jimmie, who is obsessed by the idea of reclaiming the Victorian house in Fillmore that his grandfather built. This house is where he grew up, and was the last real home he had before his family broke apart.
All shows are in room 1-306 at the College of New Caledonia Showtimes are 7 and 9:30 Passes for all 9 films are $54 and are available at Books and Co. and the CNC Bookstore. Single tickets are $8 regular, $7 student, senior, unemployed and are available at the door Tell your friends!
This elegant film of courtly manners plays like a more wicked variation on Dangerous Liaisons. Beautifully shot, brilliantly written, and exquisitely acted, it delivers delightfully its witty insights into male and female folly as if engaged in an afternoon session of decorous fencing. Thrusts are made and parried, while the technique of the participants is admirable; their footwork is nimble and their ripostes artful. A refreshing take on an age-old story about a libertine pursuing a beautiful woman of virtue.
All shows are in room 1-306 at the College of New Caledonia Showtimes are 7 and 9:30 Passes for all 9 films are $54 and are available at Books and Co. and the CNC Bookstore. Single tickets are $8 regular, $7 student, senior, unemployed and are available at the door Tell your friends!
Principal Cast: Camille Sullivan, Jeff Gladstone, Gabrielle Rose, Colleen Rennison, Paul Skrudland, Jillian Fargey, Jennifer Mclean, Agam Darshi, Kevin McNulty
A Cinema CNC favourite, and always a keen analyst of modern neuroses, BC-based director Bruce Sweeney (Last Wedding, Live Bait) reaches new heights with his latest comedy-drama-romance, Kingsway. Sweeney’s ostensible hero is Matt (Jeff Gladstone, Drawing Home), an academic prone to crippling bouts of self-doubt and ennui. Matt has just spotted his wife Lori’s car parked at an infamous Vancouver motel on the Kingsway, a strip well known for prostitution and extramarital assignations.
Matt’s bossy sister, Jess (Camille Sullivan, Sisters & Brothers), who has always hated Lori’s treatment of Matt, demands he finally leave her. His mother, Mary (Gabrielle Rose, Maudie, The Sweet Hereafter), and omnipresent best friend Sean (Paul Skrudland, Excited) would rather maintain the status quo, but anxiety is contagious. An exasperated Lori leaves Matt, only to realize she’s pregnant — though she’s not exactly sure who the father is. As Matt descends into depression, those around him are forced to confront the lack of romance in their lives.
A paean to family (who better to understand your hang-ups?) and the unpredictable vicissitudes of the heart, Kingsway adroitly walks the razor’s edge between painful distress and comic excess — no surprise if you’ve seen any of Sweeney’s other movies. The film, Sweeney’s most assured since the absurdly underrated Excited (2009), confirms Sweeney as one of Canada’s most unique indie artists.
Content Advisory: This film contains crude language and explicit sexual content.
“(An) engaging comedy about a dysfunctional family spiraling into romantic chaos.” —Norman Wilner, NOW Magazine
March 3rd: 7 pm: You Are Here: A Come From Away Story
Canada 2018 English 84 minutes. Documentary written and directed by Moze Mossanen
When U.S. airspace was completely shut down in the hours following the terrorist attacks on 9/11, and all civilian airliners within reach of the U.S. were ordered to land at the nearest airport, 38 planes landed at the Gander airport. With no warning and with no time to prepare, a city of only 9,000 residents played host to more than 6,500 frightened, exhausted, and hungry passengers who “came from away” around the world.
The remarkable story of how Gander supported the ‘Come From Aways’ was brought to life as the original Canadian musical Come From Away in 2013. The musical, which became one of the most talked-about openings on Broadway in 2017 and was nominated for seven Tony Awards, has generated discussion on the need for compassion and unity. Come From Away is currently on stage in Toronto at the Royal Alexandra Theatre.
YOU ARE HERE: A COME FROM AWAY STORY travels deep within this unique tale to shine a light on the actual Newfoundlanders and passengers whose lives have inspired the musical. This includes the mayors of Gander and Appleton, Newfoundland, community workers, police officers, TV reporters, and more – all real-life people who worked tirelessly alongside countless others to comfort and care for their unexpected guests.
The documentary also highlights the real-life passengers who were looked after during those five unforgettable days, including a couple who met, fell in love, and ultimately honeymooned in Gander, the pilot of an American Airlines jet whose life was turned upside down, and a U.S. businessman who was so touched by his hosts’ generosity that he went on to create Good Samaritan initiatives in cities such as Austin, Texas.
Winner of the Canada Goose Award for Best Canadian Feature Film at TIFF 2018, The Fireflies Are Gone revels in exquisite close-ups and dreamy musical flourishes that harken back to classic melodramas; Pilote creates an evocative pop fantasy amidst the customary political tensions in a small Quebec town.
“This is a satisfying, slightly mournful seriocomedy that’s equal parts cynical, hopeful, and ambivalent.... The film’s secret weapon is Brillant ... who brings a sly, centered heart to a figure too content with his humble lot to be the sad sack one initially expects.” —Dennis Harvey,Variety
Principal Cast: Tantoo Cardinal, Tina Keeper, Gail Maurice, Johnny Issaluk, Rob Stewart, J.D. Nicholsen, Hope McGregor
Mary is a renowned Anishinaabe musician who comes home to Atikameksheng Anishnawbek First Nation in northern Ontario, exhausted by many years on the road touring internationally with her band. She returns to the land to restore herself, but her past success makes her a commodity to some, and it can be tricky to hide from the demands of the outside world.
Her sister Betty (Tina Keeper, Through Black Spruce, television’s North of 60) senses there may be more to Mary’s need for isolation and urges her to reconnect with family and old friends. As Mary gets out more and even starts dating, it seems as though new possibilities are on the horizon. However, the past has a way of catching up, and when Mary starts to hear disturbing noises around her cabin, she becomes paranoid that someone may be after her.
Grizzlies, Wind River) embodies both strength and vulnerability in the leading role as Mary, a self-sufficient woman who knows that gut instincts should be trusted.
In spite of the trauma in Mary’s past, Naponse refuses a narrative of victimhood, and instead explores the multiple facets of resilience. Mary knows how to survive, but she also deserves to thrive. And that means gathering the ability to be open to the healing that comes from love, self-expression, family, community, and, especially, the land.
Directors: Jennifer Baichwal, Nicholas de Pencier, Edward Burtynsky
CANADA, 2018
English, Russian, Mandarin, Cantonese, Italian, German w/ English subtitles
87 minutes With: Alicia Vikander
ANTHROPOCENE: The Human Epoch is the third collaboration between award-winning photographer Edward Burtynsky and acclaimed filmmakers Jennifer Baichwal and Nicholas de Pencier following Manufactured Landscapes and Watermark. In breathtaking tableaus, their latest documentary continues their exploration of industrialization and extraction in astonishing scale and perspective.
In recent years, some scientists have argued that the Holocene Epoch — the nearly 12,000-year period since the last Ice Age — has ended, and we have now entered into the Anthropocene Epoch. The new label reflects the dominance of humans on the planet, causing mass extinction and climate change and altering the Earth more than all natural processes combined.
Spanning numerous countries, the film reveals in stunning images how our mania for conquest defines our relationship to the Earth — and how we have created a global epidemic. In Kenya, mounds of elephant tusks burn in a devastating display of the impact of
poaching (chillingly reminiscent of the bison skulls that were piled high in the clearing of the Canadian plains for settlement). In Russia and Germany, mining operations transform terrains into otherworldly industrial waste- lands as hypnotic, colossal, lifelike machines endlessly extract on an unfathomable scale.
ANTHROPOCENE: The Human Epoch is a mesmerizing and disturbing rumination on what drives us as a species, and a call to wake up to the destruction caused by our domi- nance. These startling dystopian visions are not future projections; they reflect a reality that is already here, and if we are to change course, the first step will be a revolutionary shift in consciousness.
“To say that there are no easy answers to planetary woes is to state the obvious. But the film seeks to reveal rather than lecture, in the hope that our eyes will convince our brains to act before it’s too late.” —Peter Howell,Toronto Star
CANADA/URUGUAY, 2018 Spanish w/ English subtitles 82 minutes
Principal Cast: Arlen Aguayo Stewart, Gloria Demassi
Winner of the 2018 City of Toronto Award for Best Canadian First Feature Film at the Toronto International Film Festival, Roads in February follows a young woman’s journey back to her roots.
Mourning the recent death of her father, Sarah (Arlen Aguayo Stewart) leaves her adoptive home of Montreal to visit her paternal grandmother, Magda (Gloria Demassi), in a sleepy village in rural Uruguay. Sarah and her parents left Uruguay over a decade ago and never returned. Driven by childhood memories, she hopes to renew her relation- ship with Magda and with her birthplace. But as soon as Sarah arrives, a quiet unease forms. Magda doesn’t understand why her son never returned to see her and must now live with the fact that he never will. The tension comes as a surprise to Sarah, who must come to terms with both her grief over her father and the distance she feels between herself, her family, and her Uruguayan homeland.
Director Katherine Jerkovic skilfully infuses each scene with an intimate yet powerful tone as Sarah struggles to reconcile the gulf between past and present, ideals and reality. The stifling heat and torpid pace of rural life in Uruguay heightens her growing sense
of alienation. Aguayo Stewart and Demassi deliver beautifully subtle performances, where the gravity lies in what remains unsaid between them. An evocative slice of life with an assured visual style, Roads in February is an enthralling debut that firmly establishes Jerkovic as one of Canada’s bright new talents.
“Jerkovic is a gifted, intuitive storyteller who doesn’t need to oversell her story’s emotional undercurrents; she trusts her audience to understand what’s going on simply by paying attention to her actors’ faces.” —Norman Wilner, NOW Magazine
Principal Cast: Josh Wiggins, Maria Bello, Darren Mann,Kyle MacLachlan, Taylor Hickson, Niamh Wilson, Peter Outerbridge
Adolescents face enormous pressure to make life-defining decisions every day and they want to lock in their identities sooner than later. All of this pressure is exacerbated by physical and social changes.
Franky (Josh Wiggins, Mean Dreams), the hero of Keith Behrman’s exquisite and gener- ous Giant Little Ones, is under more pressure than most. His life was altered when his father (Kyle MacLachlan, television’s Twin Peaks) left his mother (Maria Bello, A History of Violence, Prisoners) for a man. Franky is left confused, feeling like he has to figure out his sexuality right away to avoid the disruption he blames his father for.
Determined to hide his uncertainty from his best friend and his girlfriend, Franky doesn’t realize he’s not the only one who doesn’t know where he stands. When a wild party ends up in a way none of them could have expected, Franky and his friends are forced to decide what kind of people they want to be.
Giant Little Ones is a sensitive and touching look at that point in adolescence when free- dom is both intoxicating and terrifying — and feelings are both elegiac and erotic. It’s driven by extraordinary young talents, along with
great work from veterans MacLachlan, Bello, and Peter Outerbridge (television’s Orphan Black) and the subtle, evocative directorial touch of Behrman, whose Flower & Garnet won the 2002 Canadian Screen Award for Best First Feature.
“The film belongs to [Josh] Wiggins, who brings an openness and sincerity to Franky’s struggles that help suggest to what extent his character’s specific story has elements that everybody will be able to relate to.”
March 1st: 7 pm: Edge of the Knife – Sgaaway K'uuna
Directors: Gwaai Edenshaw, Helen Haig-Brown
CANADA, 2018 Content Advisory: This film contains explicit violent content.
Haida w/ English subtitles 100 minutes Principal Cast: Tyler York, William Russ, Adeana Young
The first feature film made entirely in the Haida language — a critically endangered language spoken fluently by fewer than 20 people — Edge of the Knife is a stunning cinematic achievement and a spellbinding tale of pride, tragedy, and remorse set in Haida Gwaii in the 1800s.
Two extended families meet at their annual fishing camp one summer on the shores of Haida Gwaii, in Canada’s Pacific Northwest. Charming Adiits’ii is close to the family of his best friend Kwa and an ardent teacher to Kwa’s young son. The boy looks up to him, but Kwa’s wife, Hlaaya, is concerned that Adiits’ii’s appetite for challenges may lead to reckless choices. Tragedy strikes when a storm hits the small encampment and Adiits’ii becomes estranged from the group. Presuming him dead, they return to their winter home without him. Adiits’ii creeps deep into the forest and begins his ominous transforma- tion into a Gaagiid/ Gaagiixiid — the legendary Haida Wildman.
In this spectacular rendering of a classic Haida story, life on the land is shaped by the power of the elements, where natural and supernatural forces co-exist. Co-directed by Haida filmmaker Gwaai Edenshaw and Tsilhqot’in filmmaker Helen Haig-Brown, this ambitious project was a collaboration with Isuma, the team behind the landmark film Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner. Made with a Haida cast and in collaboration with the Haida Council, Edge of the Knife proves that cinema can be at once a powerful vessel for riveting storytelling and a vital act of Indigenous lan- guage and culture revitalization.
