Films for all at the Knowlton Film Festival

Film lovers take note, the Theatre Lac Brome will be host to the first Knowlton Film Festival from August 16 to 19. Screenings in both English and French get started Thursday night with “Three Thousand,” a 14minute animated film by Isabella Rose Weetaluktuk about 3000 years of First Nations culture, and continue throughout the weekend before coming to a close Sunday afternoon.

The festival is the invention of Michèle Bazin, a veteran of the film industry; Theatre Lac Brome’s manager Nicholas Pynes; and John Griffin, who served as a film critic for the Montreal Gazette for 23 years.

“Pynes had a small vacancy in the 2018 summer theatre program, and a four-day film fest fit in neatly,” Griffin said, noting that even if the idea behind the event started in a simple way, the organizers have high hopes for the success of this first edition. The

programming, he pointed out, has been planned with an eye to reach a broad demographic, despite the fact that the festival has no established reputation, and the various screenings and events will rely on volunteer support to help keep costs low.

If the event makes a profit, he added, there is talk of putting the money aside to host a festival for a second year.

Although the full festival schedule includes twenty different long and short films to choose from, Griffin said that one screening that is already gathering attention is that of local documentary filmmaker Albert Nerenberg. “You Are What You Act”, explores the “fake it till you make it,“phenomenon and the veteran film reviewer called, “a quirky and vastly entertaining” film. The “avant-premiere” will be on Friday night at 7 p.m.

On Saturday the 18th and Sunday the 19th, there will be free matinees of animated short movies for children five to ten years old and their guardians.

At 9 p.m. on Saturday the festival will host a night of the living dead around the Quebec Zombie film “Les Affamés” where theatre-goers are encouraged to dress as the hungry dead to add to the terrifying experience.

Tickets are $5 during the day and $10 at night, or $50 for a VIP pass that gives viewers access to all shows and a designated seat throughout the film festival, as well as access to opening cocktail on Thursday evening.

For more information please contact: 450-242-2270, or visit: