Archive for May, 2010

ZOOEY & ADAM continues Canadian theatrical run

// May 6th, 2010 // No Comments » // News

After successfully conquering all of Canada in a triumphant theatrical run, Bedbugs Films’ latest feature, ZOOEY & ADAM, continues its commercial rampage across the country with an anticipated March 2011 DVD release.

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If your local video store doesn’t have it this spring – register a formal complaint, or perhaps you could organize a protest.

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Zooey & Adam

// May 4th, 2010 // No Comments » // Our Films

Adam and Zooey have been unsuccessfully trying to get pregnant for 7 months, then end up pregnant after a rape. Unsure of the parentage of their child, they decide to have him anyway.

Pendant plus de 7 mois sans succès, Adam et Zooey ont essayé de rendre Zooey enceinte, mais ce n’est qu’après un viol que la grossesse a lieu. Bien qu’ils soient incertains de l’origine parentale de leur enfant, ils décident de lui donner vie quand même.

ZOOEY & ADAM is a one-man film. One step beyond microcinema, this is an example of something the filmmaker calls “Solo Cinema.”  The crew is one person, the actors have no idea what the script is, and are surprised on-camera with events, to which they react with absolute authenticity. Solo Cinema explores the grey area between fiction and documentary, by crafting a series of chronological situations, putting actors in those situations, and documenting what they do.

For FULL WEBSITE click here.

Watch it here.

Lucid

// May 4th, 2010 // No Comments » // Our Films

Joel Rothman (Jonas Chernick of “The Border” and “7x Lucky”), a thirty-two-year-old psychotherapist, is having trouble sleeping. His wife has left him after an adulterous incident at the cottage. He fills the hours of insomnia obsessively listening to her final angry voicemail message and drawing sheep on the wall. He finds it tough to work and, worse, can no longer communicate with his distressed daughter – not to mention the notable decline of his driving skills.

Joel’s newest patients are suffering from various symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder and, under his compromised care, are getting increasingly worse. Victor (Callum Keith Rennie of “Memento”, “The Butterfly Effect” and “Falling Angels”), an unpredictably volcanic well of anger and frustration, believes that he is the subject of a secret government experiment. Chandra (Michelle Nolden of “Show Me”, “Men with Brooms” and “Ghost Whisperer”), soft-spoken and suffering from low self-esteem, is convinced that the city is mysteriously shrinking around her. Sophie (Lindy Booth of “Cry Wolf”, “Dawn of the Dead” and “Rub and Tug”), a beautiful young woman with a consuming addiction to prescription medication, believes that she is immortal.

Hitting rock bottom, Joel’s life has completely unravelled and he is in serious danger of losing his job. He even begins to hear profanities erupting from a children’s cartoon show. Although Joel persists in trying to understand what is happening to him and his charges, he has become as unstable as they are and the line between doctor and patient is starting to blur.

The black humour of Lucid’s script, a collaboration between Garrity and Chernick, plays to the actor’s gift for clever repartee and to his natural vulnerability. Strong performances from the entire cast lend a precise realism to Garrity’s strange, illusory world, in which Joel must confront, decipher and conquer the puzzle-like realm of his psyche.

Sean Garrity’s Inertia won the award for Best First Feature at the 2001 Toronto International Film Festival. His inventive visual style and strong sense of character announced a significant new talent on the Canadian scene. Lucid, which is full of Garrity’s keen sense of atmosphere and complex personal interactions, sees him venture into darker, more unpredictable dramatic territory.

For FULL WEBSITE click here.

Inertia

// May 4th, 2010 // No Comments » // Our Films

Restlessness, doubt, desire, and regret are the main characters in writer-director  Sean Garrity’s “Inertia”. This confident debut feature examines the complicated romantic inter-relations of four urban 20-somethings as they stumble into awkward infidelity and unrequited love in search of something more.

Taking a cue from the work of English director Mike Leigh, and Vancouver director Bruce Sweeney, INERTIA started as an improvisation project, with the director and actors working together to improvise scenes and characters. This process lasted six months and generated almost 30 hours of video footage, which was studied to create the first draft of the script. The result is natural dialogue, real characters, and performances that make you believe you’re watching scenes from your own life.

In INERTIA, the vision of award-winning director Sean Garrity is stunningly rendered by combining the talents of critically acclaimed composer Richard Moody, cinematographer Michael Marshall (Twilight of the Ice Nymphs, Careful) and Genie-award winning production designer Kim Forrest. Shot on 35mm, with a miniscule budget, INERTIA looks and sounds better than most films made with ten times the money.

For FULL WEBSITE click here.

The Masturbators

// May 3rd, 2010 // No Comments » // Development

The Masturbators is a dramatic comedy in development with Creative Engine Pictures.

MONTY, ARCHIE, SHALINI and PIPER are chronic masturbators. Their masturbation leads them to ruin, to epiphanies, and to one another, but ultimately, they must learn to really love themselves.

Development Partners: Telefilm Canada, Manitoba Film and Music, The Canadian Family Action Coalition

My Awkward Sexual Adventure

// May 3rd, 2010 // No Comments » // Our Films

To win back his ex-girlfriend, a conservative accountant enlists the help of an exotic dancer to guide him on a quest for sexual experience, leading him into a world of strip clubs, sensual massage parlors, cross-dressing and S & M.

My Awkward Sexual Adventure premiered at the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival, where it was selected as one of the TIFF Top Ten, it won the Public Choice Award at the 2012 Calgary International Film Festival, and the Audience Award at the 2012 Whistler Film Festival, as well as being selected at festivals from Taiwan and Mar Del Plata to Santa Barbara and New York. It was nominated Best Feature Film by the Director’s Guild of Canada, and dominated the Canadian Comedy Award nominations for 2013, getting a nod in almost every category. It is being distributed in 24 counties, translated into 15 different languages, and there are official remakes slated for France, Lithuania and South Korea.It premiered in the top ten downloads on American VOD.

For FULL WEBSITE click here

Shed Devil

// May 2nd, 2010 // No Comments » // Development

Shed Devil is a supernatural comedy, in development with Inferno Pictures.

A rural man who has vowed never to ignore the pleas of people in need, goes to his shed one day and stumbles across Satan, who asks him for shelter.

Diabolical hijinx, shenanigans and buffoonery ensue.

Development Partners: The Movie Network, Manitoba Film and Music, Telefilm Canada

Blood Pressure

// May 2nd, 2010 // No Comments » // Our Films

A quietly frustrated woman finds her life changed by a secret admirer, sending letters bearing lavish gifts and increasingly strange instructions.

Blood Pressure, one of only six Canadian films selected for the prestigious Busan International Film Festival, where it was singled out as one of Screen International’s 10 Hot Films, was also nominated for the coveted Borsos Award at the 2012 Whistler Film Festival, and was an official selection at Beijing, Champs Elysées, and Shanghai.  It was tremendously well reviewed, and stayed in theatres in Canada for over four months, playing 25 cinemas in 22 cities.

Watch Blood Pressure here

For FULL WEBSITE click here

Snap

// May 1st, 2010 // No Comments » // Development

A psychological thriller with a minor in horror.

Marcelo Ravese is an agent for an anti-organized-crime branch of CSIS, following members of a Russian crime syndicate who are trafficking children’s dismembered body parts. They have abducted a provincial government bureaucrat, who Marcelo has to locate before it’s too late. But the crime syndicate is more pervasive than originally thought, and Marcelo gradually discovers that they have managed to infiltrate the police, and even the highest levels of CSIS itself. More terrifying still, Marcelo uncovers that the provincial government bureaucrat he’s looking for isn’t who he thought he was, and neither is Marcelo.

This film asks ‘ultimately, how responsible are we for the horrible things we do?’

Development Partners: Telefilm Canada

Photograph at Full Moon Point

// May 1st, 2010 // No Comments » // Development

A NORTH KOREAN WOMAN appears in a small hippie-hangout beach town in Brazil. She is there looking for her Canadian husband, who has disappeared a few weeks before. As she gets closer to discovering his whereabouts, it becomes apparent to everyone that she intends to kill him.

Development Partners: Telefilm Canada, Movie Central, Manitoba Film and Music, The Canada Council for the Arts, Winnipeg Arts Council

After The Ball

// May 1st, 2010 // No Comments » // Our Films

Kate’s dream is to design for couturier houses, but she can’t get a job. No one trusts the daughter of Lee Kassell, a retail guru who markets clothes “inspired” by the very designers Kate wants to work for. Who wants a spy among the sequins and stilettos? Reluctantly, Kate joins the family business where she must navigate around her duplicitous stepmother and two wicked stepsisters. But with the help of a prince of a guy in the shoe department, her godmother’s vintage clothes, and a shocking switch of identities, Kate fights to embrace her destiny.

This film is being released theatrically in the spring of 2015.

For FULL WEBSITE click here.