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Film Fests & Special Screenings Movies & TV

>>> Try The Homegrown

CANADIAN FILM FESTIVAL at the Royal (608 College), from Wednesday (March 30) to April 2. canfilmfest.ca. Rating: NNNN


Celebrating a decade of spotlighting homegrown cinema talent, the Canadian Film Festival returns to the Royal with its strongest lineup in years.

It opens Wednesday (March 30) at 7 pm with the Toronto premiere of Jeremy Lalonde’s How To Plan An Orgy In A Small Town, an awkward sex comedy with a warm heart and a huge ensemble cast that includes Jewel Staite, Ennis Esmer, Katharine Isabelle and Jonas Chernick.

Chernick is back the next night as writer, producer and star of the more serious-minded Borealis (March 31, 7 pm), in which he plays a failed gambler determined to show his daughter (Joey King) the northern lights before she loses her vision completely. Directed by Chernick’s frequent collaborator, Sean Garrity, it’s a great showcase for Chernick and King, with fine supporting roles for Emily Hampshire and Kevin Pollak. 

The festival closes with Across The Line (April 2, 8:15 pm), an East Coast drama starring Stephan James (Race) as a small-town Nova Scotia teen whose dreams of NHL stardom are jeopardized by simmering racial tensions in his high school. It’s a surprisingly restrained character drama, given that it marks the feature debut of music video helmer Director X, and James is solid as the unassuming hero.  

Each feature screens with a short film, and there’s a full program of additional shorts on April 2 at 1 pm. Highlights there include Jackie English’s seriocomic Duty Calls, written by and starring Seán Cullen as a Toronto cop trying to deal with Debra McGrath’s over-served bar patron, and Christopher Warre Smets’s Flung, a subtle romance between Megan Heffern (who also scripted) and Steve Lund. It’s set in New York City, but it still feels very Cana-dian. That’s a good thing.

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