Our screenings take place at 162 Mackenzie St. (unless otherwise noted.)
At heart, this is a story of filial devotions going above and beyond. Sylvie (Anouk Grinberg) is a lively middle-aged woman who teaches acting at a prison outside Paris. She’s fallen hard for a convicted thief, Michel (Roschdy Zem), the most talented student in her class. It never occurs to her that his acting skill might make him a good liar. Sylvie’s adult son Abel (Garrel) is very skeptical of this relationship but throws in his support when the newlyweds, with Michel now out on parole, open a flower shop together.
Colton (Marcel T. Jiménez) and Kyle (Jackson Sluiter) are best friends. They happily roam their small town and its environs, killing time doing ordinary, stupid, teenager stuff: destroying an old TV, spraypainting graffiti under a train bridge, skateboarding down a bumpy dirt slope. But their goofing also reveals glimmers of tenderness, such as in the scene where they find a dead cat, place it on a tiny raft with a bouquet of wildflowers, and set it adrift downriver.
When a terrible accident takes Kyle away, Colton is overwhelmed. He revisits the places he went with Kyle, as though hoping to hear an echo of his friend’s presence. People in the community try to reach out, but grief seems to have rendered Colton mute. Meanwhile, Colton’s classmate Whitney (Hayley Ness) experiences her own deeply internalized emotional crisis, prompting her to set out into the woods in search of some kind of peace.
In this inspiring, emotionally powerful documentary, the beautiful lens of director Lin Alluna journeys alongside an extraordinary human being as she plumbs through the social and personal wreckage of sanctioned white dominance to find the strength — within her abilities, her community, and her own vulnerabilities — to transform her hardships and painful experiences into something amazing that can inspire others who also struggle with the poisonous effects of colonialism.
Benjamin Millepied’s Carmen is a gritty modern day tale, with a majestic score by Nicholas Britell, and dream-like dance sequences that evoke magic realism. The story follows a young and fiercely independent woman who is forced to flee her home in the Mexican desert following the brutal murder of her mother, another strong and mysterious woman. Carmen survives a terrifying and dangerous illegal border crossing into the US, only to be confronted by a lawless volunteer border guard who cold-bloodedly murders two other immigrants in her group. When the border guard and his patrol partner, Aidan—a Marine with PTSD—become embroiled in a deadly standoff, Carmen and Aidan are forced to escape together.
The Eight Mountains is the story of a friendship. Of children becoming men who try to erase the footprints of their fathers, but who, through the twists and turns they take, always end up returning home. Pietro is a boy from the city, Bruno is the last child of a forgotten mountain village. Over the years Bruno remains faithful to his mountain, while Pietro is the one who comes and goes. Their encounters introduce them to love and loss, reminding them of their origins, letting their destinies unfold, as Pietro and Bruno discover what it means to be true friends for life.
Set during the early days of Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship, Chile ‘76 builds from quiet character study to gripping suspense thriller as it explores one woman’s precarious flirtation with political engagement. Carmen (Aline Kuppenheim) leads a sheltered upper middle class existence. She heads to her summer house in the off-season to supervise its renovation, while also performing local charitable works through her church. Her husband, children, and grandchildren come back and forth during the winter vacation, bringing reminders of the world beyond. When the family priest asks her to take care of an injured young man he has been sheltering in secret, Carmen is inadvertently drawn into the world of the Chilean political opposition and must face real-world threats she is unprepared to handle, with potentially disastrous consequences for her and her entire family.
Sooner or later, every police investigator comes across a case that remains unsolved and that haunts him. For Yohan, Clara’s murder is that case. What starts as a thorough investigation into the victim’s life soon turns into a nagging obsession. Then his assistant Marceau divorces, in full burn out.
An old man whose wife has just passed away uses his free local bus pass to travel to the other end of the UK, to where they originally moved from, using only local buses, on a nostalgic trip but also carrying his wife's ashes in a small suitcase, `taking her back' and in doing so he meets local people. By the end of his trip he's a celebrity.
A choir of creatures introduces a world delicately constructed by fantasy, mystery, and magical realism in Francisca Alegría’s poignant and stunning debut feature. It begins in a river in the south of Chile where fish are dying due to pollution from a nearby factory. Amid their floating bodies, long-deceased Magdalena (Mia Maestro) bubbles up to the surface gasping for air, bringing with her old wounds and a wave of family secrets. This shocking return sends her widowed husband into turmoil and prompts their daughter Cecilia (Leonor Varela) to return home to the family’s dairy farm with her own children. Magdalena’s presence reverberates among her family, instigating fits of laughter and despair in equal measure with all but Cecilia’s eldest child, who finds much-needed comfort in their grandmother’s love and unconditional understanding during a time of transition. A lyrical rumination on family, nature, renewal, and resurrection, The Cow Who Sang A Song Into The Future is an ambitious proposal for acceptance and healing, suggesting that the dead return when they are most needed.