FILM FEST OPENING WITH ‘PARTY’
Indigenous music feature up first
A documentary film celebrating a new generation of Indigenous musicians will open the Calgary International Film Festival.
When They Awake — a film by P.J. Marcellino and Hermon Farahi and featuring artists such as Tanya Tagaq, A Tribe Called Red, Derek Miller and IsKwé — will be screened at the film festival’s opening gala on Sept. 20 at the Jack Singer Concert Hall.
“We were aiming for something a little more uplifting,” says Brenda Lieberman, director of programming for the festival. “Occasionally, we get really heavy, emotional films. We were looking for something that was different this year where we could really throw an incredible party ... and kick off the festival in a different spotlight. We decided to open our minds a little more and think outside the box in terms of genre and style of filmmaking. We were really considering all our Canadian films, including music and non-musical documentaries. With this film, everyone just fell in love with it when they saw it. It’s energetic and includes a bunch of well-known, inspirational bands that have come through Calgary.”
Marcellino and Farahi are both expected to be on the red carpet for the gala. IsKwé, a politically charged singer-songwriter from Winnipeg with Irish and Cree/ Dene roots, will perform at the after-party in the Jack Singer lobby. More than 20 Indigenous artists are featured in the film. The film takes its name from Metis leader Louis Riel, who in 1885 said, “My people will sleep for 100 years, but when they awake, it will be the artists who give them their spirits back.”
The film is being presented as part of Movie Nights Across Canada, a federal program designed to bring screenings of homegrown feature films to cities across Canada. Michelle Thrush, a Calgary actress and Cree activist who starred in Blackstone, and Melissa O’Neil, a Calgary-born actress and singer who took top place in Season 3 of Canadian Idol and currently stars in the sci-fi series Dark Matter, will host the evening in Calgary.
It’s the first time a documentary film has been chosen to open the festival. That is not the only change this year. Gone are the Black Carpet and Green Carpet galas, events that featured a horror or genre film and an environmental documentary, respectively. The Alberta Spirit gala, which set aside an evening to screen Alberta-made shorts, will also not happen this year, although homegrown shorts will be screened throughout the festival alongside submissions from around the world. There will be 11 Alberta shorts shown at the festival that will be in competition for a $2,500 prize for Best Alberta Short. On Oct. 1, the final night of the festival, an awards night will be held at Sub Rosa.
“We just wanted to change things up a little bit,” Lieberman says. “We wanted to re-envision some things and put different resources into different things.”
On Wednesday, the festival announced the remaining 65 films in its lineup, for a total of 166 films, including 97 features and 69 shorts from 54 countries.
That includes some high-profile films, including Indian Horse from director Stephen Campanelli and executive producer Clint Eastwood. The film is based on the novel by Richard Wagamese, a renowned novelist and former Calgary Herald columnist who died in March. Campanelli and cast members Sladen Peltier, Ajuawak Kapashesit, Forrest Goodluck and Edna Manitouwabe are expected to be at the Sept. 24 screening.
Other highlights include The Florida Project, a coming-of-age drama and followup to American filmmaker Sean Baker’s critically acclaimed 2015 film Tangerine; Haifaa al-Mansour’s Mary Shelley, starring Elle Fanning, a romantic biopic about the author of Frankenstein; David Gordon Green’s Stronger, starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Tatiana Maslany and chronicling the real-life tale of Jeff Bauman, who lost both his legs in the Boston Marathon bombing; Canadian director Jamie M. Dagg’s Sweet Virginia, an Alaskanset thriller starring Walking Dead alumnus Jon Bernthal; and German director Michael Haneke’s Happy End, a drama about the European refugee crisis set in Calais.