Canadian talent ready to shine in Hollywood at the AFI FEST
Montreal, November 7, 2016 – Canada will be well-represented at the 30th AFI FEST (American Film Institute Festival), from November 10 to November 17, 2016 in Hollywood. This year, the prestigious foreign film section, World Cinema, will feature four Canadian films: It’s Only the End of the World (Xavier Dolan), The Demons (Philippe Lesage), Boris Without Beatrice (Denis Côté), and Old Stone (Johnny Ma).
The US premiere of It’s Only the End of the World, a Canada-France coproduction comes on the heels of an important milestone for the film: over a million viewers in France and counting. Director Xavier Dolan will join actors Gaspard Ulliel and Marion Cotillard, as well as producers Nancy Grant and Sylvain Corbeil, in Los Angeles for the film’s Awards Campaign – including Canada’s entry for Best Foreign Language Film. It’s Only the End of the World (Sons of Manual, MK2 films) world premiered at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival where it won the Grand Prix and the Jury’s Ecumenical Award.
Boris Without Béatrice (Metafilms) by Denis Côté, which has screened around the globe since its world premiere in Official Competition at the Berlinale, will be represented by its actor James Hyndman and producers Nancy Grant and Sylvain Corbeil.
Philippe Lesage will be presenting his debut feature, The Demons (Les Films de L’Autre, Unité Centrale). Since its world premiere at the San Sebastian Film Festival in 2015, the film has been featured in more than 40 international film festivals including the 59th San Francisco International Film Festival where Lesage won the Golden Gate New Directors Award.
The World Cinema line-up will also present Old Stone to be released in the U.S on November 30(Zeitgeist Films), a Canada-China coventure directed by Johnny Ma. In September 2016, Ma’s film won the Best Canadian First Film Award at the Toronto International Film Festival Film (TIFF).
Two Canadian VR projects, Ka by Cirque du Soleil and Through the Ages: President Obama by Felix & Paul Studios, will be included in the AFI’s Technology Showcase.
The AFI FEST Canadian delegation
In addition to the film teams, the delegation will include TIFF artistic director, Cameron Bailey who will participate in the festival’s inaugural World Cinema Masters in Conversation initiative. Bailey will sit down with director Raoul Peck to discuss his documentary, I Am Not Your Negro that world premiered at TIFF 2016.
The Canadian delegates will join the international community at the Festival’s Francophone Reception, organized in partnership with UniFrance, TV5MONDE, the Quebec Delegation in Los Angeles, Wallonie Bruzelles Images, the French, Swiss and Belgian Consulates in Los Angeles, European Languages and Movies in America (ELMA) and Lacoste.