The Canadian Film Festival: Films by emerging Canadian filmmakers find a second-time-around pandemic home on Super Channel
By Liam Lacey
In the year of living weirdly, we are now reaching the first anniversary editions of film festivals that were forced to go online last year because of the theatre shutdown.
One of the first of the virtual festivals was the Toronto-based Canadian Film Festival, which focuses on new Canadian films by emerging filmmakers. The organizers saved the festival by hooking up with the pay-TV subscription service, Super Channel to offer a virtual version of the event across Canada.
Events Transpiring Before, During and After a High School Basketball Game, by Ted Stenson
Now they’re doing it again. The festival starts on April 1 and continues for the next three weekends on Super Channel, which can be watched either online or through your television provider.
As well as nine feature films, each of which will be shown once at 9 p.m., there are 30 short films which will be shown over the nine days, along with virtual versions of Q&A sessions with filmmakers, master classes, and an awards presentation.
The festival’s opener is director Wendy Morgan’s Sugar Daddy, starring writer-producer Kelly McCormack as a young musician who takes on sex work to finance her artistic goals.
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The film, which had its premiere last December at the Whistler Film Festival, opens commercially on April 6, at which time I’ll give it a full review.
Curiously, this is the second female-directed Canadian feature this month about the hardly new “sugar daddy” phenomenon, in which moneyed older men link up through an online agency with young women for paid “companionship.” The other film is Emma Seligman’s witty dramedy, Shiva Baby (see Linda Barnard’s review here) about an adrift college student who has an awkward encounter with her sugar daddy and his wife at a Jewish family funeral service.
Zaarin Bushra is an infatuated Scarborough schoolgirl in White Elephant.
Sugar Daddy focuses on the psychological meltdown and evolution of the young woman musician and the pitfalls of the patriarchy.
On the schedule:
Thursday, April 1
Sugar Daddy. Directed by Wendy Morgan. Starring: Kelly McCormack, Colm Feore, Amanda Brugel, Ishan Davé, Nicholas Campbell, Kaniehtiio Horn.
Friday, April 2
White Elephant. Directed by Andrew Chung.
Set in the multicultural Toronto suburb of Scarborough in 1996, White Elephant focuses on 16-year-old Indo-Canadian Pooja (Zaarin Bushra) who, to the dismay of her black and brown first-generation immigrant friends, has a crush on a cute white boy (Jesse Nasmith) who reminds her of Leonardo DiCaprio in Romeo + Juliet.
Busy montages and a constant pop-punk soundtrack set this up as a youthful frolic, until the film turns abruptly serious, with a racial school fight and the threat of worse violence.
Saturday, April 3
Woman in Car. Directed by Vanya Rose.
This Montreal-set film noir melodrama is shot in shallow focus with a prominent score, and features lots of tense conversations. Anne (Helene Joy of Murdoch Mysteries) is a wealthy young widow, with a young daughter, who is about to re-marry. Just when life is set to get back to wealthy normal, Anne’s brooding stepson, David (Anthony Lemke) shows up with his new Turkish girlfriend (Liane Balaban). Anne must do a great deal of driving around to keep the past from catching up to her, which gives us the film its odd title.
Thursday, April 8
Chained. Directed by Titus Heckel.
A B.C.-shot coming-of-age thriller, Chained stars Marlon Kazadi as Taylor, a 13-year-old teen-ager who finds a criminal (Aleks Paunovic) chained in a warehouse, who he sees as a means to escape his abusive life. The film premiered at the 2020 Vancouver International Film Festival, and was picked as best British Columbia film at the Vancouver Film Critics Circle awards.
Friday, April 9
Between Waves. Directed by Virginia Abramovich.
Another Whistler Film Festival film, this sci-fi thriller follows a photographer, Jamie (Fiona Graham) who is visited by her presumed dead lover, Isaac (Luke Robinson). He’s a quantum physicist, who wants her to join him on another plane. A series of clues leads her to the island of Sao Miguel in the Azores.
Saturday, April 10
The Last Villains: Mad Dog and the Butcher. Directed by Thomas Rinfret.
Thomas Rinfret’s documentary, shot over several years, follows the legacy of Quebec’s wrestling Vachon family, through its last survivor and compulsive story-spinner, Paul “The Butcher” Vachon. Now in his eighties, The Butcher and his wife travel in his trailer to carnivals and country fairs, selling his autobiography and memorabilia. Touching and funny, the film has won a number of awards at Francophone festivals.
Thursday, April 15
The Corruption of Divine Providence. Directed by Jeremy Torrie.
Described as a “darkly comic” religious parable, this Manitoba-set film stars Jeanne (Ali Skovbye) as a 16-year-old Métis girl who disappears from her small town and later reappears, bearing the signs of stigmata, the wounds of Christ at his crucifixion.
Her reappearance is also accompanied by other mysterious phenomena, including crop circles and salamanders. Her story sets off a competition among religious groups, including a TV evangelist who will pay for exclusive rights for her story.
Friday, April 16
Events Transpiring Before, During and After a High School Basketball Game. Directed by Ted Stenson.
Director Ted Stenson’s wry high-school comedy takes place in Calgary in 1999, as the Middleview Collegiate boys’ basketball squad faces off against a vastly more talented team. The coaches debate strategy, the players talk about The Matrix, and the alternative theatre group plans a protest.
Saturday, April 17
Range Roads. Directed Kyle Thomas.
A children’s show host, Frankie (Alana Hawley Purvis) returns to her Alberta home town, following the sudden death of her parents. There, she reconnects with her brother (Joe Perry), and an old flame (Chad Brownlee) and uncovers a family secret. The film is the director’s follow up to his well-received 2014 Alberta anthology film, The Valley Below.
CLICK HERE For the full lineup of the Canadian Film Festival. Subscriptions to Superchannel can be purchased through your television provider, Apple TV or Amazon Prime Video.