A FILM A DAY IS THE CINÉFEST WAY!

Cinéfiles rejoice your favourite time of year is back! For a full 9 days the world is your silver screened oyster as Cinéfest International Film Festival takes over Silvercity. Serving up a veritable buffet of films ranging from chilling thrillers, thoughtful docs, goofball comedies and cerebral horrors – what are you in the mood for? It can be tough to narrow down what to watch so we took the liberty of breaking down a few of our top picks by day over the fest. Get your snacks ready and get set to go somewhere new!

Cinéfest runs September 16th-24th at Silvercity, gala presentation tickets, ticket books and festival passports are now available at the festival headquarters (40 Larch Street, Unit 103) by phone (705.688.1234) or online. Individual rush tickets are also available immediately before each screening.

September 16^th

 

A Long Time Running, 7PM 

Director: Jennifer Baichwal & Nicholas de Pencier

Long Time Running chronicles the emotional and epic lead up to iconic Canadian band The Tragically Hip’s now-legendary 2016 ‘Man Machine Poem’ tour a tour that captured the heart of the nation. Viewers are given a unique and exclusive perspective into The Tragically Hip’s world?the intimate moments, behind-the-scenes and on-stage footage, personal interviews with the band and close friends, and reactions from their devoted fans from across the country. Culminating in a highly charged and powerful concert in the band’s hometown of Kingston, Ontario, the documentary encourages viewers to stop and reflect on the shared experience and collective appreciation for this music that somehow embodies what it means to be Canadian.  Long Time Running is directed by the renowned Canadian documentary filmmaking team of Jennifer Baichwal and Nicholas de Pencier (Manufactured Landscapes, Act of God, Watermark), and produced by Scot McFadyen (Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage) and Sam Dunn (Metal: A Headbanger’s Journey).

 

September 17^th

 

Poor Agnes (Canada, 2017) – 9:30PM 

Director: Navin Ramaswaran

Starring: Lora Burke, Robert Notman, Will Conlon

Agnes Poelzl (Burke) is a vicious psychopath. She lives in a state of dreamy contemplation, her powerful mind twisted by insanity. Her talent, discipline and focus are impressive, but her desires have led her down a path of violence and murder. Mike Mercer (Notman) is a private investigator researching a cold case. When his investigation leads him to Agnes, he has no idea what he’s getting himself into. Agnes seduces, captures and locks Mike in her basement. She then begins a regimen of brutal psychological torture meant to brainwash him into a state of total compliance. When Agnes drags her new boyfriend, Chris (Conlon), into her nightmare, the three form a bizarre family, with Agnes as the twisted matriarch lording over her captives with regal authority. But as her crimes escalate, Agnes finds it increasingly difficult to avoid the police. Poor Agnes was filmed in Thunder Bay.

 

A Worthy Companion (Canada, 2017) – 1PM 

Director: Carlos Sanchez, Jason Sanchez

Starring: Evan Rachel Wood, Julia Sarah Stone, Denis O’Hare, Maxim Roy, Joe Cobden

Plagued by the abuse of her past and the turmoil of failed intimate encounters, Laura struggles to find a lover and a sense of normalcy. Her beacon of hope comes in sixteen year-old Eva, a talented pianist disillusioned by the life her mother imposes upon her. An unlikely relationship is formed between the two and Eva becomes an obsession to Laura. In light of Eva’s unhappiness, Laura convinces her to runaway to her house and they soon find themselves caught within an intense entanglement. Manipulation, denial and codependency fuel what ultimately becomes a fractured dynamic that can only sustain itself for so long.

 

September 18^th

 

Mary Goes Round (Canada, 2017) – 2PM 

Director: Molly McGlynn

Starring: Aya Cash, John Ralston, Melanie Nichols-King, Sara Waisglass

Mary Goes Round is a redemptive drama with darkly comedic undertones about Mary (Cash), a substance abuse counsellor who gets a DUI and retreats to her hometown of Niagara Falls to face her broken relationship with her family and get sober. When Mary arrives, she finds out that her estranged father, Walt (Ralston), has terminal cancer. He wants Mary’s help in delivering the news to her overachieving half-sister, Robin (Waisglass), who has no idea who Mary is. Or at least pretends not to. When Walt’s illness takes a turn for the worse, Robin starts to self-destruct and Mary must step up to the plate for someone other than herself for once.

 

Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked the World (Canada, 2017) – 8:30PM 

Director: Catherine Bainbridge, Alfonso Maiorana

Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked the World is a feature documentary about the role of Native Americans in popular music history. The film tells the story of a profound, essential, and, until now, missing chapter in the history of American music: the Indigenous influence. Featuring music icons Charley Patton, Mildred Bailey, Link Wray, Jimi Hendrix, Jesse Ed Davis, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Robbie Robertson, Randy Castillo and others, it shows how these talented Native musicians helped shape the soundtracks of our lives.

* This is a Cinema 9 Prime Time Special $6.00 Ticket Event. Seating is limited and subject to availability. Call or visit the Cinefest Sudbury Office, visit cinefest.com to purchase tickets in advance. Visit the Festival Box Office to redeem a ticket with your Festival Passport.

 

September 19^th

 

The Graduate (USA, 1967) – 8:30PM 

Director: Mike Nichols

Starring: Anne Bancroft, Dustin Hoffman, Katharine Ross, William Daniels, Murray Hamilton, Elizabeth Wilson

A 50th anniversary restored version of Mike Nichols’s classic film that won an Oscar for Best Director, a Grammy for Best Original Score, and 5 Golden Globes, including Best Motion Picture. Benjamin Braddock (Hoffman) has just finished college and, back at his parents’ house, he’s trying to avoid the one question everyone keeps asking: What does he want to do with his life? An unexpected diversion crops up when he is seduced by Mrs. Robinson (Bancroft), a bored housewife and friend of his parents. But what begins as a fun tryst turns complicated when Benjamin falls for the one woman Mrs. Robinson demanded he stay away from, her daughter, Elaine (Ross).

* This is a Cinema 9 Prime Time Special $6.00 Ticket Event. Seating is limited and subject to availability. Call or visit the Cinefest Sudbury Office, visit cinefest.com to purchase tickets in advance. Visit the Festival Box Office to redeem a ticket with your Festival Passport.

 

A Swingers Weekend (Canada, 2017) – 9:30PM 

Director: Jon E. Cohen

Starring: Mia Kirshner, Erin Karpluk, Erin Agostino, Michael Xavier, Jonas Chernick, Randal Edwards

Lisa (Karpluk) and Dan Brown (Edwards) have the perfect jobs, the perfect kids, the perfect home, and the perfect marriage. With a successful business and rock solid marriage, they believe their love to be invincible. So when they embark on a well-planned swingers weekend to celebrate their birthdays, they’re in it for the thrill, fun and nothing more. It’s all perfectly planned: they’ve rented a magnificent lakefront property, stocked the fridge with great food and wine, and drafted up a list of rules and regulations to ensure everything goes as it should. They’ve also invited the youngest, coolest and hottest couple they know. But when a third unexpected couple shows up, everyone’s well laid plans go awry. Three different couples, six individually motivated people. What could possibly go wrong?

 

September 20^th

 

Beautiful Accidents (Canada, 2017) – 8:30PM 

Director: B.P. Paquette

Starring: Greg Carere, Dave DeBorde, Mary-Alice Farina, Trish Rainone, Ilan Ben-Yehuda

With its unique blend of romance, satire, and playful blurring of fact and fiction, Beautiful Accidents is about a madcap indie film crew shooting a cheesy rom-com. The film-within-a-film concerns Henry, a young man who invites his girlfriend Charlotte to his family cottage for the winter holidays. As a surprise for Charlotte, Henry also invites his eccentric mother Sally and Charlotte’s overbearing father Gordon. The surprise, however, is the truth about Sally and Gordon. Hilarity, the occasional tender moment, and the promises and pitfalls of filmmaking ensue as all try to keep their various secrets from being spilled

* This is a Cinema 9 Prime Time Special $6.00 Ticket Event. Seating is limited and subject to availability. Call or visit the Cinefest Sudbury Office, visit cinefest.com to purchase tickets in advance. Visit the Festival Box Office to redeem a ticket with your Festival Passport.

 

Mobile Homes (Canada/France, 2017) – 9:30PM 

Director: Vladimir de Fontenay

Starring: Imogen Poots, Frank Oulton, Callum Keith Rennie, Callum Turner, Deragh Campbell

In forgotten towns along the American border, a young mother (Poots) drifts from one motel to the next with her toxic boyfriend (Turner) and her eight-year-old-son (Oulton). The makeshift family survives by living one hustle at a time, until the discovery of a mobile home community offers an alternative life. Mobile Homes was filmed in Sudbury, Ontario.

 

September 21^st

 

Great Great Great (Canada, 2016) – 11:30AM 

Director: Adam Garnet Jones

Starring: Sarah Kolasky, Daniel Beirne, Richard Clarkin

Great Great Great is a dark comedy about a young couple whose wedding engagement threatens to break them apart. In the span of Lauren (Kolasky) and Tom’s (Beirne) five-year relationship, they’ve never had a fight. Their sex life is fine. They get along fine. Everything points to marriage, until Lauren suddenly sees a lifetime of “just fine” yawning ahead of her, and it immediately makes her hungry for a better, fuller future. She just has to decide what “better” really means. Great Great Great is a deeply relatable portrait of a woman who makes us squirm with discomfort while asking us to love some of the most unlovable parts of ourselves.

 

Sudbury Double Feature: The Savage Tales of Frank MacGuffin (Canada, 2017) and Buckout Road (USA/Canada, 2017) – 9:30PM

The Savage Tales of Frank MacGuffin

Director: John Alden Milne

Starring: Clayton Drake, Samantha Collard, Mark Fraser, Laura Willet, Mickey O’Brien, Amber Mackereth

Cab driver Frank MacGuffin (Drake) is haunted and trying to wash his hands of the past. Indifferent to his father’s legacy and disdainful of his mother’s bullying ways, he unravels a sinister plot that has been afoot all along. The Savage Tales of Franc MacGuffin is a nail-biting journey through the twisted and bizarre underpinnings behind Fallingbrook’s sleepy town façade.

 

Buckout Road

Director: Matthew Currie Holmes

Starring: Dominique Provost-Chalkey, Danny Glover, Evan Ross, Henry Czerny

Considered by some to be the most haunted road in America, the small rural stretch known as Buckout Road is home to over a dozen terrifying urban legends. When soldier-in-training Aaron Powell (Ross) returns home after a two-year absence, his emotionally distant, but brilliant psychiatrist grandfather, Dr. Powell (Glover), is preoccupied by the mysterious recent suicide of one of his patients. At the same time, a group of college students are trying to debunk the Buckout Road urban legends as part of a class project on the creation and destruction of modern myths. Both investigations turn terrifying as it becomes apparent that many of the evil legends may in fact be real. Buckout Road is a terrifying new supernatural horror film that harkens back to the high concept ‘midnight movie’ of the late 80s.

 

September 22^nd

 

Perspective (Canada, 2017) – 2PM 

Director: B.P. Paquette

Starring Stef Paquette, Patricia Tedford, Pandora Topp

Perspective is a compelling drama that concerns a love triangle involving three characters named “Alex.” Divided into nine chapters that span nine years, Perspective examines the interwoven lives of these characters with insight, heart and intelligence. Perspective features an excellent cast, impressive images, and an affecting soundtrack. Annually since 2012, a new chapter of Perspective has been produced and presented exclusively at Cinéfest, and the sixth chapter, titled The Saddest Lines, will premiere this year following the preceding five chapters.

Radius (Canada, 2017) – 10:30PM 

Director: Caroline Labrèche, Steve Léonard

Starring: Charlotte Sullivan, Diego Klattenhoff

Liam (Klattenhoff) wakes from a car crash at the bottom of a ditch with no memory of who he is. As he makes his way into town to look for help, he finds only dead bodies, all with strange pale eyes. Liam’s first assessment is that a virus is present in the air, but he soon discovers the horrible truth: anyone who comes within a 50-foot radius of him dies instantly. As Liam hides out at home, Jane (Sullivan), who was also in the crash and has lost her memories, comes to visit him, but miraculously doesn’t die. Together they embark on a journey to uncover the truth.

 

September 23rd

 

Don’t Talk to Irene (Canada, 2017) – 7PM 

Director: Pat Mills

Starring: Michelle McLeod, Scott Thompson, Bruce Gray, Anastasia Philips, Geena Davis

Irene (McLeod) is 16, fat, friendless and tired of being a loser. She’s determined that this year is going to be different—Irene is going to become a cheerleader. But when a cruel prank results in her getting suspended on her first day back at school, Irene, along with her cruelest bullies, Robbie and Sarah, must endure two weeks of community service at the local retirement home. Instead of letting her bullies get the best of her, she assembles a misfit group of seniors and hatches a brilliant plan. If she can’t be a cheerleader, she’ll be the next best thing: a choreographer. She signs the seniors up to audition for her favourite reality show, and transforms the retirement home from a lifeless community into something surprising, fearless and alive. But what she doesn’t know is that jealous Robbie and Sarah secretly plot their revenge—and they will stop at nothing to kill Irene’s dreams.

 

Pyewacket (Canada, 2017) – 10:30PM 

Director: Adam MacDonald

Starring: Laurie Holden, Nicole Munoz, Chloe Rose, Eric Osborne, James McGowan

A frustrated girl (Munoz) attempts an occult ritual in order to kill her mother (Holden), but awakens something sinister in the woods instead, in the latest from director Adam MacDonald (Backcountry).

 

September 24^th

 

Suck It Up (Canada, 2017) – 2:30PM 

Director: Jordan Canning

Starring: Erin Carter, Grace Glowicki, Daniel Beirne, Toby Marks, Nancy Kerr, Michael Rowe

It’s two months after the death of Ronnie’s brother, and Faye’s first love, Garrett. Ronnie’s on an epic bender; Faye has taken up crafting. Though life-long best friends, Ronnie and Faye lost touch when Garrett got sick. But when Ronnie’s drinking hits a dangerous high, Faye returns home to get her back on track. She kidnaps Ronnie and takes off for the family cottage in picturesque Invermere, British Columbia. Waking up halfway to nowhere is not the hangover Ronnie was expecting, but Faye is determined to air her out. So begins a summer of lake-town antics, trysts with townies, and a lot of button pushing. As Faye attempts to rein Ronnie in, Ronnie attempts to shatter Faye’s comfort zone–pressuring her to pursue Granville, a local space enthusiast and weed salesman. The change of location seems to be what the two friends need, until they encounter Alex, a friend of Garrett’s with a secret from his past that pits Ronnie and Faye against each other. In a violent face off, both women realize they’re grieving for more than just Garrett. They’re grieving their friendship.

 

Mary Shelley (USA, 2017) – 7PM 

Director: Haifaa Al-Mansour

Starring: Maisie Williams, Elle Fanning, Joanne Froggatt, Stephen Dillane, Douglas Booth, Bel Powley

Passionate and rebellious teenager Mary Wollstonecraft (Fanning) finds a kindred spirit in poet Percy Shelley (Booth). Their whirlwind love affair scandalizes polite society, as the young couple gorge on literature and a bohemian life. When tragedy strikes and the couple lose their baby daughter, Mary strikes back, finding the courage and bravery to transform her pain into the world’s first science fiction novel, Frankenstein—all by the age of 18.