Our participation in this annual event is more than an occasion. This year, we will not only showcase our handpicked films but also explore what Canadian film is. Across two venues in Richmond and Nanaimo, activities will include screening, conversation, and a short introduction to the history of the Canadian cinema.
All events are FREE.
Event Schedule
Richmond | Richmond Cultural Centre – Performance Hall, 7700 Minoru Gate (map)
1:00 – 3:00pm – Antigone (2019) – Register Now
3:30 – 5:30pm – Window Horses (2016) – Register Now
Screening followed by Director’s Q & A. In partnership with Aban Art & Culture Society.
6:00 – 8:35pm – Ru (2023) – Register Now
Featuring a special presentation on the history and the changing characteristics of Canadian cinema by esteemed BC filmmaker and SFU Professor Emeritus, Colin Browne.
Nanaimo | Bayview Elementary School, 140 View Street (map)
6:00 – 8:00 pm – Totem: The Return of the G’psgolox Pole (2003) – Drop In
Screening will be followed by a conversation with Snuneymuxw Carver, Joel Good. Co-produced with Minah Lee of Art Action Earwig and Michael Geselbracht of Nanaimo Forest School, producers of the community eco-art project Pulling To Gather.
Program Details
Antigone
Director: Sophie Deraspe | 2019 | 109 min | Drama | French with English subtitles
1:00pm @ Richmond Cultural Centre.
By helping her brother escape from prison, Antigone confronts the authorities: the police, the judicial and penal system as well as the father of her friend Haemon. The brilliant teenage girl, on a spotless path so far, feels the noose tighten on her. But to man’s law, she substitutes her own sense of justice, dictated by love and solidarity.
Despite being based on a tragedy over 2,000 years old, Antigone is an urgent and extremely timely story. It was the official Canadian submission for International Feature Film at the Oscars in 2019.
For more information about the film, visit: https://canfilmday.ca/film/antigone/.
To save your spot, register here: https://canfilmday-antigone.eventbrite.ca.
Window Horses
Director: Ann Marie Fleming | 2016 | 88min | Animation, Drama, Family
3:30pm @ Richmond Cultural Centre.
Screening followed by Director’s Q & A.
This extraordinary animated feature tells the tale of Rosie, a young Canadian poet of Chinese and Persian descent. Rosie lives in Vancouver with her Chinese grandparents and dreams of travelling and seeing the world. Voiced by an all-star cast including Sandra Oh, Elliot Page and Don McKellar, Window Horses is a beautiful and poignant story about family, imagination, culture and finding your own voice.
Screening will be followed by a Director’s Q & A with Ann Marie Fleming.
For more information about the film, visit: https://canfilmday.ca/film/window-horses/.
To save your spot, register here: https://canfilmday-windowhorses.eventbrite.ca.
This event is presented in partnership with Aban Art and Culture Society.
Ru
Director: Charles-Olivier Michaud | 2023 | 120 min
6:00pm @ Richmond Cultural Centre
Featuring a special presentation on the history and the changing characteristics of Canadian cinema by esteemed BC filmmaker and SFU Professor Emeritus, Colin Browne.
After a perilous journey across the pacific, a family of Vietnamese refugees settles in Montreal, in the hopes of starting a new life. Brilliantly adapted from Kim Thúy’s Governor General Award-winning novel of the same name, this compassionate story of resilience in the face of adversity is stunningly captured and deeply moving. For more information about the film, visit: https://canfilmday.ca/film/ru/.
The event will open with a special presentation on the history and multiplicity of Canadian cinemas by Colin Browne.
Colin Browne is Professor Emeritus in the SFU School for the Contemporary Arts where he taught film production and film studies. He established the school’s first courses in Canadian film history. As a documentary filmmaker he wrote and directed films for the National Film Board of Canada and the CBC and produced his own independent films. With his colleague Harry Killas, he helped program the Pacific Cinémathèque’s long-running retrospective of film production in B.C.,The Image Before Us. He is also a writer, curator, and poet. His most recent book is Entering Time: The Fungus Man Platters of Charles Edenshaw. He is currently completing a new book about the visit of two Surrealist artists to the Northwest Coast in 1938 and 1939.
To save your spot, register here: https://canfilmday-ru.eventbrite.ca.
Nanaimo
Totem: The Return of the G’psgolox Pole
Director: Gil Gardinal | 2003 | 70 min | Documentary
6:00pm @ Bayview Elementary School
Screening will be followed by a conversation with Snuneymuxw Carver, Joel Good.
In 1929, the Haisla people of British Columbia returned from a fishing trip to find their tribe’s nine-metre mortuary pole — otherwise known as the G’psgolox — missing, severed at the base. The pole’s fate was a mystery for over 60 years until it surfaced in a Stockholm museum, where members of the Haisla Nation journeyed to in order to get it back in 1991.
Mixing interviews, location photography and awesome footage of Haisla carvers, this unique documentary takes an incredible story and weaves in important commentary on the issue of cultural appropriation and art history.
Screening will be attended by Snuneymuxw Carver, Joel Good.
Joel Good is a traditional Coast Salish Artist, from the Snuneymuxw First Nation. He has been carving in the Coast Salish style to engage his passion for this rare, traditional art form that is now gaining in popularity. He works in the original Coast Salish style, one that has been revitalized by his Father and Mentor, Master Carver and Historian, Dr. William Good. All of Joel’s designs are derived from the traditional legends taught to him and through extensive research into the original archived style. Another significant source of inspiration is his Mother, Artist and Painter, Sandra Moorhouse-Good, who herself had been trained as a classical painter by her Grandfather, Herbert Moorhouse.
For more information about the film, please visit: https://canfilmday.ca/film/totem-the-return-of-the-gpsgolox-pole/
No registration required. Just drop in!
This event is co-produced with Minah Lee of Art Action Earwig and Michael Geselbracht of Nanaimo Forest School, producers of the community eco-art project Pulling To Gather.
Venues
Nanaimo
Bayview Elementary School
140 View Street, Nanaimo, BC, V9R 4N6 (map)
Richmond
Richmond Cultural Centre – Performance Hall
7700 Minoru Gate, Richmond, BC, V6Y 1R9 (map)
Acknowledgements
CanFilmDay is presented by Reel Canada.
The Richmond events are presented in partnership with the City of Richmond.
The Nanaimo event is co-produced with Minah Lee of Art Action Earwig and Michael Geselbracht of Nanaimo Forest School, producers of the community eco-art project Pulling To Gather.