Telefilm Canada funds eight English-language low-budget independent feature films
Montreal, December 17, 2012 − Telefilm Canada announces that it is supporting the production of eight English-language low-budget independent feature-film projects through the Canada Feature Film Fund (CFFF). The projects are from the Ontario-Nunavut, Quebec and Western regions.
“The selected films truly speak to the program’s strengths in that they are daring, high-quality productions that showcase our homegrown talent,” said Carolle Brabant, Executive Director of Telefilm Canada. “The majority of selected films are from emerging directors, while also highlighting renowned directors such as Gail Harvey, who will direct her daughter, Katie Boland, one of the 2011 TIFF Rising Stars participants. Wide genre diversity is featured, including Aboriginal content highlighted by the films Empire of Dirt and Path of Souls.”
Quebec Region
The White Buffalo
Director: Pat Kiely
Writer: Pat Kiely
Production: Banner House Productions
A young couple’s romantic weekend is turned upside down when the husband’s ex-girlfriend, a woman he’s secretly obsessed with, is running the ski lodge where they’re staying. The White Buffalo is a comedic drama/anti-date/romantic comedy about ‘the one that got away.’ The film explores how fantasy inspires and pollutes our lives. When Carl’s ultimate temptress presents herself, he questions the notion of true love and the power of sexual impulse.
Ontario and Nunavut Region
Deadweight
Director: Leah Walker
Writers: MacGregor Austin-Olsen, Jordan Walker and Leah Walker
Production: Neophyte Productions
Distribution: Boutique Films
Richard Hunter, a promising young lawyer at a prestigious law firm, has the perfect future mapped out. However, a costly mistake with a powerful client has put it all at risk. In a desperate attempt to save his job, Richard and his wife Tara spend Labour Day weekend at the cottage of senior partner Preston Westwood. The young couple is quickly seduced by the lavish lifestyle of their charismatic hosts but it’s clear something ominous lies just below the surface. After a devastating act of violence reveals that they have become unknowing pawns in a blood feud between the Westwood’s and a local family, Richard and Tara must decide what they are willing to sacrifice for success…their morals, their marriage or their lives.
Empire of Dirt
Director: Peter Stebbings
Writer: Shannon Masters
Production: Red Cloud Studios
Distribution: Mongrel Media
Empire of Dirt is about a single mom, struggling to make ends meet yet unable to escape the cycle of poverty. As a last ditch attempt to save her kid from the streets she returns home after 13 years and is forced to reconcile a lifelong legacy of hatred towards her own mother in an effort to give her own kid the roots she deserves.
It Was You Charlie
Director: Emmanuel Shirinian
Writer: Emmanuel Shirinian
Production: Spiral Entertainment
It Was You Charlie is a dark comedy-drama about a suicidal doorman named Abner, who blames himself for the death of a woman who died in a car crash he survived. One year has passed since the accident, and Abner’s life has come to a halt. He spends lonely nights working the graveyard shift, and haunting days trying to take his own life. After meeting Zoe, a free-spirited young taxi driver who helps him look at his present life with a new light, Abner finally begins a quest for redemption, and attempts to reconcile his conflicted past.
Looking Is the Original Sin
Director: Gail Harvey
Writer: Gail Harvey
Production: 1015728 Ontario
A daughter’s search to understand who her mother really is leads her to find the beauty and horror of her mother’s life and ultimately discover herself in the journey.
The Oxbow Cure
Directors: Yonah Lewis and Calvin Thomas
Writers: Yonah Lewis and Calvin Thomas
Production: C&Y Cinema
When rivers meander and are sometimes cut off from their course, they form an oxbow lake. The Oxbow Cure is a winter tale of Lena, a middle-aged woman who has recently been diagnosed with a life-altering disease. In an attempt to come to terms with her transforming body, she leaves her home in the city and her ailing father to begin a new life at a remote cottage in Northern Ontario.
Western Region
Path of Souls
Director: Jeremy Torrie
Writer: Jeremy Torrie
Production: High Definition Pictures
Grieving widow Grace Beardsley is tasked with completing husband Jon’s Beardsley’s thesis regarding traditional knowledge of Native elders and quantum theory. Grace travels with life-long friend of Jon’s to sacred sites throughout Native North America in a quest for knowledge and catharsis.
Stress Position
Director: A.J. Bond
Writer: A.J. Bond
Production: Sagebrush Ventures
Stress Position is a genre-bending, thought provoking feature film, following two close friends who make a bet to see which of them can withstand a week of psychological torture at the hands of the other. What begins as a brash and naive competition quickly evolves into a darkly philosophical examination of identity, control and the search for truth. The film exposes the unsettling connection between filmmaking and torture.
About Telefilm Canada
Telefilm is dedicated to the cultural, commercial and industrial success of Canada’s audiovisual industry. Through its various funding and promotion programs, Telefilm supports dynamic companies and creative talent here at home and around the world. Telefilm also administers the programs of the Canada Media Fund. Visit www.telefilm.gc.ca and follow us on Twitter at twitter.com/telefilm_canada and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/telefilmcanada.
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Media inquiries:
Douglas Chow, Manager, External Communications
Telefilm Canada
514-283-0838, ext. 2225, or 1-800-567-0890
douglas.chow@telefilm.ca