Wednesday, May 11th at 6.30 pm
Manners of Dying (2004)

Based on a story by Yann Martel, the Booker Prize winning author of Life of Pi, this highly stylized, yet powerful, award-winning first feature premiered at the International Film Festival of India in Goa. The film depicts the final hours of a man on death row. The cinematic device is evocative of Nava Rasa from ancient India dramaturgy ; eight variations plus one on how a sentenced man reacts to his impending execution. Roy Dupuis, the easily recognizable star of Quebec cinema, gives an extraordinary multi-chromatic performance as Kevin Barlow, the condemned Everyman. Serge Houde is subtle and nuanced as Parlington, the prison warden with a conscience and a rule book. Reminiscent of some of the best writings of Becket, Pinter and Ionesco, the film is replete with Kafka-esque ironies and mordant humour. The cyclic, elliptical cinematic style takes us back to film classics like Rashoman.

Director: Jeremy Peter Allen
Running time: 100 minutes English

Thursday, May 12th at 6.30 pm
Dance Me Outside (1995)

An award-winning film from a maverick independent film director, produced by Canadian film icon, the veteran Norman Jewison (of Fiddler on the Roof) with great zest and sensitivity. In this feisty, slice of life drama, native Canadian Indian teens look for excitement on a reservation and find themselves cut off from their tradition-bound parents. Friends Silas and Blackie plot revenge against a white who murdered a native girl while Silas' sister Illianna comes to visit from Toronto, with her Yuppie lawyer husband, just as her ex-boyfriend returns from a prison stint. Replete with offbeat touches and charismatic performances, the film captures the sinuous strength of female sensitivity to overshadow brute male force.

Director: Bruce McDonald
Running time: 91 minutes English

Friday, May 13th at 6.30 pm
A Silent Love (2004)

A delicate love story set in Montreal and Mexico. This first feature premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2004 and later screened at the prestigious Museum of Modern Art in New York. It has won best screenplay and best acting awards. Norman, a shy middle-aged teacher from Montreal meets Gladys, a beautiful, impulsive Mexican woman through the services of an Internet agency. Full of hope he flies off to ask her to marry him and move to Montreal. She agrees, on one condition: that her widowed mother, Fernanda, come along. Norman readily agrees, unaware of the romantic sparks that are about to fly …unexpected feelings and desires between Norman, Gladys, and Fernanda heat up and culminate in an emotional showdown. A very contemporary cross-cultural statement !

Director: Frederico Hidalgo Running
time: 100 minutes English

Monday, May16th at 6.30 pm
Love, Sex and Eating Bones (2003)

A quirky, provocative first film from a Toronto filmmaker, which grabbed a Best Director honour. Michael is a talented photographer currently paying the bills as a security guard, but he really happens to be into porn. When he meets Jasmine, they fall hard for each other. Things get complicated when Jasmine, who is emerging from a two-year bout with celibacy, finds out that he can't get it on without his beloved porn videos. Love, Sex and Eating Bones is a hip, urban romantic comedy that's not afraid to examine society's last taboo and deliver laughs. The title is partly an African-Caribbean metaphor for taking the bitter with the sweet in life.

Director: Sudz Sutherland
Running time:100 minutes English

Tuesday, May 17th at 6.30 pm
Men with Brooms (2003)

A highly successful commercial feature-debut by a well known Canadian actor, produced by Robert Lantos (who has made films for Istvan Szabo, Denys Arcand, Atom Egoyan, David Cronenberg, etc). Nothing's been quite the same in the small town of Long Bay, Ontario. When Chris Cutter, the curling sports star left town 10 years ago, he did n't just throw away his team's chance to win the coveted Golden Broom, he threw away a chance at love, leaving his fiancée at the altar. Returning to town for the funeral of his former coach, he decides to put his old team together. He swallows his pride and calls on his estranged father, an ex-champion to act as coach, setting off a comedic, and moving, journey from frozen lakes to huge arenas, searching for perfect stones, lost loves and second chances. A fine, uplifting film with the sub-text of small towns done in by big box multi-nationals.

Director: Paul Gross
Running time:105 minutes English