Latest news with #CBCArts
CBC
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- CBC
The wrestling saga at the heart of The Halluci Nation's new EP
In a Q interview, the Canadian electronic music duo discusses their new record Path of The Baby Face CBC Arts · Social Sharing
CBC
26-04-2025
- Entertainment
- CBC
How a CCR cover landed July Talk's Peter Dreimanis a role in Sinners
In a Q interview, the Canadian musician discusses his big screen debut as a singing vampire CBC Arts · July Talk's Peter Dreimanis just made his big screen debut playing a singing vampire in Ryan Coogler's Sinners — and it all happened because of a Creedence Clearwater Revival cover song he released. Dreimanis sits down with Tom Power to tell us the story behind his first major film role, plus, a little bit about his debut solo album under the name Peter Dreams, which he wrote while waiting for his newborn baby to arrive. WATCH | Official trailer for Sinners:
Hamilton Spectator
25-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Hamilton Spectator
Lights, camera, action in Jackson Square food court
What do they do in a mall food court at night? Sometimes they make movies. Jackson Square opened its food court this month to the psychological drama 'Pocket Mirror.' The film follows the story of Maisie, who believes her cat has been replaced with a doppelganger. She hires a detective to determine the truth and finds out more about her life than she bargained for. Near Burger King in the empty food court at about midnight on April 9, Sofia Banzhaf acts in a scene where she talks to her private investigator, actor Dylan Roberts, who is off camera. The crew of 'Pocket Mirror' during a night shoot at Jackson Square this month. From left: writer-director Adrian Murray, producers Sennah Yee and Priscilla Galvez and first assistant director Matt Moreland. The film is a psychological drama about a woman who gets more than she bargained for when she hires a detective to investigate whether her cat was replaced with a doppelganger. Banzhaf was in Nicolas Cage's 2023 film 'Dream Scenario,' which shot in Burlington and was also in the TV show 'Bitten.' Roberts had a role in the Robin Williams' comedy 'Death to Smoochy' (2002), which was shot in Hamilton. About a dozen crew members mill around under the watchful eyes of two mall security guards. One crew member, first assistant director Matt Moreland, from Hamilton, stands out because he is wearing cow-print pants. Another scene is shot of Roberts talking to Banzhaf, who is off camera. During filming, producers Priscilla Galvez and Sennah Yee hear a sound that is not supposed to be there. They call one of the guards over and he says it is probably coming from a machine being used by a cleaner in a nearby hallway. The problem is solved and shooting continues. A break is called for, but all will be back at work at 1 a.m. Producer Sennah Yee looks through a monitor during the filming of 'Pocket Mirror.' Film scenes were shot in the deserted food court of Jackson Square around midnight on April 9. 'Pocket Mirror' is the brainchild of writer and director Adrian Murray, who won best director for his film 'Retrograde' at the 2023 Canadian Film Festival. That film was about a neurotic woman who persistently fights a traffic ticket she received while helping her new roommate move in. CBC Arts named Murray one of the 17 great Canadian directors to watch in 2017 after his first feature, a crime drama called 'Withdrawn.' Murray said 'Pocket Mirror' evolved from his thoughts about a man going to the police to tell them his dog wasn't his dog anymore. It morphed into the idea of a cat and he spent about eight months writing it. It is also based on feelings felt during the pandemic, his father losing his hearing and having memories of songs. 'I'm emphasizing what it's like to live in a world that's changing before our eyes and changing faster than we can keep up with,' Murray said. 'What's it like to be afraid of this new artificial world while simultaneously being comforted by it.' 'Pocket Mirror' is produced by Fantom Ogi Films, run by Galvez and Yee. Producers in their own right, their joint company is named for Galvez's pet dog and Yee's cat. The budget is $1.1 million and the production received funding from Telefilm last year. Vortex Media is the Canadian distributor, but the plan is to put the movie in film festivals to find an international distributor. The movie also features Maziyar Khatam as Maisie's boyfriend, Nima. The production spent two days shooting at Jackson Square during an 18-day shooting schedule and wrapped up April 14. Other locations included the Pearle Hotel and Spa in Burlington. This is the third feature for Murray and Yee (they are partners in film and life) and the second that involves Galvez. She was a producer on 'Retrograde.' 'That was really a great partnership, so we said 'Let's do it again,'' Galvez said. They were already feeling the pangs of postproduction blues. This was Moreland's first time working with this production team, though he had worked with Galvez. He has worked on more than 20 holiday movies and the Oscar-winning 'Women Talking.' Murray has garnered a reputation as a minimalist director — lots of long takes — and Moreland said that has been a first for him in filmmaking. He said the experience was 'really fun' and 'really interesting.'
CBC
24-04-2025
- Entertainment
- CBC
What's worth watching at Hot Docs 2025?
Between financial woes and staff upheaval, the Hot Docs Film Festival has been through the wringer of late, but organizers are ready to raise the curtain on another year. The event, which is considered the largest of its kind in North America, will open its 2025 edition in Toronto on April 24. True, the program is leaner than last year, down by more than 50 titles, but there remains an overwhelming number of stories to discover: 113 films from 47 countries, many of which champion marginalized narratives and voices. The CBC Arts staff has combed through the listings, and these are the docs we're most excited to see. Parade: Queer Acts of Love & Resistance What better way to kick off a festival than with a parade — or a documentary about one. LGBTQ folks have been proudly utilizing parades to fight for their rights over the last 60 years, and Noam Gonick's Parade: Queer Acts of Love & Resistance offers a uniquely Canadian history of this movement, showing how this country's queer activists and elders fought for the rights we have today. The film will open the festival on April 24, and through rarely seen archival footage and first-person accounts, audiences will have an opportunity to be inspired (and at times, enraged) by the complex history of Canada's LGBTQ rights movement. –Peter Knegt The Dating Game Few narratives are as inherently packed with emotion as the search for love and companionship, and in the post-Tinder era, the stakes have never been stranger or more desperate. That's especially the case in China, where the One Child policy (which ended in 2015) has produced a nation of lonely bros. Men outnumber women by the tens of millions, and in The Dating Game, director Violet Du Feng introduces three lovelorn bachelors who are ready to leave their rural towns for the bright lights of Chongqing. They arrive in the city for a week-long crash course in landing a wife, and their teacher, Hao, claims he can deliver them results. Under Hao's supervision, the boys will surrender themselves to a professional glow up. They'll get new wardrobes, new haircuts — and, crucially, new glamour shots for their dating profiles. But will they buy into Hao's fake-it-till-you-make-it philosophy, which may be more than a little inspired by pick-up artist techniques? The doc was reportedly an audience favourite at this year's Sundance Film Festival, where it played to " overflow crowds." Early reviews suggest the story is imbued with humour and heart. Plus, who doesn't love a good makeover sequence? –Leah Collins Spreadsheet Champions As plenty of docs have already gone to show, you can make a sport out of just about anything. Old-school arcade games (The King of Kong), spelling (Spellbound), hobbyhorse dressage (Hobbyhorse Revolution). So why not Microsoft Excel? For 20 years, the Microsoft Office Specialist World Championship has been the premiere battleground for international youngsters with a genius-level knowledge of proprietary software. The event's crown jewel is its Excel competition, described by Microsoft as a " true test of analytical and problem-solving skills." And in Spreadsheet Champions, a new feature from Australian filmmaker Kristina Kraskov, we go inside the scene, following six kids to the main event in Orlando, Florida. The young all-stars of the tournament, who range in age from 13-22, are already winners in their home countries, but this is their one and only shot at international glory. Per the championship's rules, there are no repeat visits, and the stakes are higher than you might imagine. Past competitors have seen their reality change with a keystroke, going on to secure plumb jobs and academic opportunities. The film premiered at SXSW last month, where it was on several critics' must-see lists, and according to early reviews, the cast of data wizards is a fascinating bunch, exactly the sort of characters you'd hope to meet in a picture like this one. That's compelling enough to sell me on the quirky premise. –Leah Collins Ultras If you've ever watched a soccer match and noticed the people in the stands chanting, waving flags, letting off road flares, jumping up and down and unveiling tremendous artworks, you've probably asked yourself a few questions. Who are they? Why are they doing that? Who cares that much about soccer? Who, frankly, cares that much about anything? Those football fiends are the ultras, and their love of the game goes beyond fandom. Theirs is an all-encompassing subculture, and in the documentary Ultras, filmmaker Ragnhild Ekner explores what motivates them and how they interact with the broader world. While making the doc, Ekner spent time in eight countries: Argentina, Egypt, Italy, Morocco, Poland, Sweden, Indonesia, and the U.K. While there, she immersed herself in the world of these misunderstood megafans. The film will have its North American premiere at Hot Docs. –Chris Dart Endless Cookie Seth and Peter Scriver are half brothers who were born 16 years apart. Seth is white and was raised in Toronto. Peter is Indigenous and grew up on Shamattawa First Nation in northern Manitoba. One is a renowned cartoonist and visual artist whose animated movie Asphalt Watches won the award for best Canadian first feature film at the Toronto International Film Festival. The other is a respected storyteller, carver and trapper, who once served as chief of his First Nation. Nine years in the making, Endless Cookie is a full-length animated documentary co-directed by the siblings, and it untangles the memories and misadventures that colour their complicated relationship. Told in the younger Scriver's outlandish and psychedelic trademark style, the oddball flick premiered at Sundance earlier this year. The goal was to "make something funny, beautiful, spiritual, political, complex, simple and true," Seth says in the trailer. Together, they've sketched a family portrait that appears to be heartfelt and more than just a little offbeat. But what's weirder than family, right? The Conscience Files Petrified Forest National Park in northeastern Arizona is known for the abundance of fossilized trees that litter its badlands. If you're caught removing one of the specimens, you'll face a fine. But according to accounts stretching back nearly a century, you could also bring home something much worse: it's said that thieves are cursed with bad luck. People have ascribed all manners of tragedy and ruin to pinching even just a tiny rock from the park: divorce, legal trouble, unemployment, poor health and death. A longstanding display at the visitor centre exhibits some of the letters the park has received over the decades. They're penned by remorseful pilferers who would like to return what they've taken. Director Brian Bolster's documentary The Conscience Files will see its international premiere at Hot Docs. The short film explores these tales of woe and repentance, which form a bizarre, exceedingly human archive of regret and restitution collected by the national park. This 14-minute collage of stories is, admittedly, a bit of a wild card as far as recommendations go. But its incredible premise is just too tempting not to pick — much like the petrified wood, apparently. It screens as part of a triple bill alongside Life Invisible and Lichens Are the Way, fellow shorts that look similarly unusual, abstract and environmentally minded. The Nest In my opinion, Chase Joynt is one of the most exciting Canadian voices in documentary film (No Ordinary Man, Framing Agnes), and for The Nest, he's teamed up with decolonial writer and academic Julietta Singh. Joynt and Singh co-direct the picture — a collaboration which seems poised to be a very powerful union — and the narrative follows Singh to her grand childhood home on the Assiniboine River in Manitoba. There, she listens to stories about the women who formerly lived in the house: Japanese women, Deaf women, Métis women, Indigenous women, Irish women. The film guides us through their tales — tracing 140 years of history — while reflecting on Singh's own difficult upbringing. Saints and Warriors On its face, Saints and Warriors is a sports doc about the Skidegate Saints (a basketball team from the Skidegate First Nation on Haida Gwaii) and their quest to maintain dominance at the All Native Basketball Tournament. The event is the biggest basketball competition in B.C., and it doubles as the largest Indigenous cultural event in Canada. So as the Saints fight to keep their crown, they'll face stiff competition. The Saints are up against hungry young upstart squads as well as every athlete's arch nemesis: Father Time But there's another story which takes place off the hardwood: the Haida people's fight to regain control of their traditional lands and waterways. Many of the key players in that struggle are also on the team — because the Saints aren't just hoopers, they're leaders in the community. Ultimately, this is a film about how basketball is more than a sport. It's also an act of resistance. Directed by Patrick Shannon, it will have its Canadian premiere at Hot Docs.
CBC
17-04-2025
- Entertainment
- CBC
Watch the artist Cruz use water, light and chemistry to make a photograph without a camera
"Creating cyanotypes can be a slow process," says Toronto lens-based artist Cruz. "Light, water and chemistry do the work. You just have to wait." An early photographic technique, the cyanotype can create an image without a camera, using paper specially treated with iron salts then exposed to UV light, like the sun. Named after the Greek word for "dark blue," the technique is known for the distinctive colour it produces. In this video for CBC Arts, titled Not everything drifts apart, Cruz turns a series of cyanotypes into a poetic animation exploring "the space between touch and distance." "I think about how images, like memories, can emerge slowly … revealing what was always there but not yet seen," the artist says. "As a cyanotype develops, it shifts. Shapes form, details settle in. What we create isn't always permanent, but it can leave an impression. That's kind of what this piece is about." Watch the behind-the-scenes video below to see how Cruz makes her artwork:
