Author: Jon W.

February 17, 2023 / Documentary

THE SKIN HORSE is an outspoken consideration of a subject not readily discussed on television: the emotional and sexual life of disabled people. This unusual program makes that subject real to viewers by allowing them into the lives of several severely disabled individuals. As we watch, many of our conceptions — and misconceptions — about disability are stripped away.

February 17, 2023 / Animation

Irene’s mother is a seamstress who has been chosen to make a dress for the Duchess to wear to the big ball. When her mother gets sick, Irene decides to take the dress to the duchess herself. On the way there it begins to snow, but Irene is determined to reach the palace before the ball. Based on the book by William Steig.

February 17, 2023 / Erotic

In this offbeat thriller, Halley Fischer is a schoolteacher at an elementary school in Winnipeg where children have been disappearing under mysterious circumstances. Francis is a single father and classical pianist who supplements his income playing in cocktail lounges. Francis and Halley meet when his daughter is enrolled in her class, and Halley finds herself strongly attracted to the musician, even after learning of his unusual sexual tastes. But the more Halley finds out about Francis, the more she begins to wonder about both him and his highly domineering mother.

February 16, 2023 / Drama

Rose Hindmarsh finds herself at the centre of a controversy when she meets author Sarah Maloney as she investigates the life of Mary Swann, an obscure poet who was brutally murdered in a small town in rural Ontario.

February 16, 2023 / Short

This anti-drug film uses common childhood habits and activities, such as building a machine out of Lego blocks, to metaphorically illustrate the effects and dangers of drug abuse.

February 16, 2023 / Drama

Ivan’s best friend, Kamen, is in an American hospital, in coma after an accident. Since he’s denied a visa to the USA and can’t stay by his side in his last moments, Ivan decides to set off for Bulgaria countryside, taking the camera Kamen has given him. There’s a legend in Kamen’s place of birth – a small mountain village – that one song could bring people back to life. Ivan starts a journey to find it and record it, collecting a myriad of stories along the way. Will he succeed?

February 16, 2023 / War

Tunis, 1943. Battle-weary troops of Company C have orders to occupy a derelict Tunisian farmhouse. They are to establish an artillery observation post, reporting on enemy movements before the imminent offensive to liberate Tunis. However German infantrymen discover their operations. The ensuing battle for control of this small piece of land will decide who controls Tunis but more critically, the victors in the battle of democracy versus fascism.

February 16, 2023 / Experimental

Wavelength is anything but simple, however, as Snow’s statement of intention suggests. He describes the film as “a summation of my nervous system, religious inklings and aesthetic ideas.” The spine of the film is its famous zoom from a fixed camera position facing a wall with four tall sash windows. Over the course of the film, the angle of view narrows until the frame is filled with a black and white photograph of waves pinned up between the middle two windows. Other features of the room, in which four events involving people take place, are sloughed off. The spectator is led to concentrate on this central element, the photograph—it has been there all along—until the image is washed out and the film comes to an end.