Kerrie Long Moving On After 17 Years as EIFF Producer
The 2021 edition of the Edmonton International Film Festival is a wrap – after showcasing dozens of films from around the world, some of them Oscar contenders – and now producer Kerrie Long has decided to give up the job. She’ll be stepping back to focus on working with the business community of Edmonton, while […]
REVIEW: EIFF Closer Holy Frit! Explores Art of Christianity
The art of stained glass goes back to ancient Egypt when artisans wound molten glass around a clay core. Traditionally bits of different coloured glass are assembled into a whole and the result in the churches of the world is art. In this century leaded glass windows in churches have gone through a fall from […]
EIFF REVIEW: Dogsville a Touching Doc on Good Dogs
It’s all spelled out in the opening frame: Dogs are perfect. Always perfect. Screening Saturday as part of the Edmonton International Film Festival, Dogsville is an hour-long documentary about competitive dog training – leading to the IFCS World Agility Championship in the Netherlands. It’s also a probing look at the trainers behind the competitions, and […]
EIFF REVIEW: Edmonton-Made Ditched a Gory Love Letter to B-Movie Horror
After watching the nearly hour and a half thrill ride that is Ditched (2021), it is hard not to smile and feel some local patriotism when the credits rolled. For a film that involves a diverse cast of Canadian actors, crew members, all while being shot in Edmonton, it’s obvious why Edmonton International Film Festival […]
EIFF REVIEW: Intense First Nations drama opens local film festival
The 35th annual Edmonton International Film Festival welcomes the best world cinema has to offer and presents them on the big screen in the Landmark Cinemas 9 City Centre – or, if you prefer, in many cases in the comfort of your own home. Some of the films have been showcased in film festivals literally […]
EIFF REVIEW: Balikbayan an uplifting documentary with heart
Edmontonian Jon Jon Rivero made a promise at his father’s deathbed – that he would discover his roots in the Philippines. Jon Jon’s trip was an epic journey of meaningful service that has consumed much of his life, and led to the eloquent documentary film seeing its world premiere at the Edmonton International Film Festival: […]
EIFF REVIEW: Happy Place an Emotionally Draining Film
The closing feature at the Edmonton International Film Festival is based on the personal experience of writer-actor Pamela Mala Sinha – who was violently raped after she moved to Montreal to begin theatre school. Her attacker not only physically violated her but stole her subsequent life. “I don’t fit anywhere in the world,” is one […]
EIFF REVIEW: Vegreville-filmed Drama Probes Old Ukrainian Wounds
It is Ukraine – the year is 1943 and the German army has broken through the lines and is systematically slaughtering everyone in a local village. The first images we see in Troy Ruptash’s film They Who Surround Us are fragmented and disconnected. They will come together in the mind of the film’s central character […]
EIFF REVIEW: Banksy Most Wanted Digs Deep Into Picasso of Street Art
The elusive graffiti artist Banksy may be the most famous artist in the world. His simple but affecting works have appeared mysteriously on walls, also in galleries, on trains, cars and wherever an inviting surface appears. He’s parlayed his shadowy persona and artistic genius into a fortune guessed at $50 million. His stencil of a […]
EIFF REVIEW: Jasmine Road a tear-jerker with a message: ‘They’re just like us.’
A redneck rancher unwittingly becomes the host of a family of Syrian refugees. What could possibly go wrong? Better yet: What could go right? Jasmine Road, the opening night feature at the Edmonton International Film festival, looks on the positive side of the immigration issue that has touched nearly every Canadian. Writer-director Warren Sulatycky takes […]
EIFF: Rabbit so good it needs to be proud to be Canadian
Films like Rabbit make it easy on reviewers. When the material and performances are as nearly flawless as they are here, the only thing that needs to be decided is how much to gush – so get ready. This film could easily be the best dramatic feature at this year’s Edmonton International Film Festival. It […]
EIFF: Bel Canto serves palatable pablum
Bel Canto, starring Julianne Moore and Christopher Lambert, is a historically revisionist melodrama so loosely based on the 1996 Peruvian Japanese Embassy Hostage Crisis that actual Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori was renamed President Masuda in the film. That should tell you how close this one sticks to the facts. To be honest, it’s more directly […]
