THUNDER BAY – In a one-cinema town, it’s not always easy for non-mainstream films to squeeze their way onto the silver screen and compete with Hollywood blockbusters.
Critically acclaimed titles like If Beale Street Could Talk, Free Solo, Stan and Ollie and Can You Ever Forgive Me often pass Thunder Bay, depriving the city’s thriving film-buff community of the chance to see them as they were meant to be shown, in the darkness of a movie theatre.
Thankfully, Thunder Bay is home to the North of Superior Film Association, a group of film-loving volunteers who work tirelessly to showcase the best that cinema from around the world has to offer, culminating with the annual Northwest Film Fest.
This year’s event, scheduled for April 7 and April 14 at Silver City, offers up 28 titles.
In addition to the four mentioned above, the lineup includes blistering satire, The Death of Stalin, comedy Juliet, Naked, and the return of Colette, presented during NOSFA's bi-weekly film screenings earlier this year.
Foreign-language titles, including Cold War, from Poland, Shopflifters, from Japan, and Lebanese-produced Capernaum will also be on the bill. And locally produced The Discarded directed and produced by Piotr and Miolsz Skowonski, also gets a prime spot in Week 2.
Organizer Marty Mascarin said the festival is a chance for movie fans to see a wide variety of titles that normally never play in Thunder Bay.
“You have different themes, different time frames and you’re dealing with different subject matter,” Mascarin said. “It’s the excitement of having this huge menu of cinema that wouldn’t be available otherwise for the big screen.
“And that’s really what we’re all about. We’re about the shared, big-screen experience.”
It’s not an easy event to curate.
It’s one thing to pick a wish list of titles, but it’s another thing for that list to be available to festival bookers.
Mascarin said it starts by scouting out the Toronto International Film Festival and Cinefest in Sudbury and other films seen by various board members of the course of the year.
“We look at what may be available and what’s not available and then try to look at the kind of subject matter, the kind of titles that may have a certain buzz about them that our audience is going to be interested in seeing.”
It’s a lengthy process that relies on the whims of movie distributors.
“Sometimes award-season plays into what becomes available and not available. We don’t always get the titles we want, but that’s kind of an age-old challenge.”
This year’s event will feature two double-bill preludes. The first, on Thursday, April 4, will showcase Wild Rose and The Sisters Brother. The second, on Wednesday, April 10 includes Can You Ever Forgive Me, starring Melissa McCarthy and Richard E. Grant, and The Bookshop, set in England in 1959.
Tickets for the festival, entering its 26th year, are available starting on Thursday to NOSFA members. Six-packs are $40 and festival passes, good for 12 showings, are $70. They’re available at Wojo’s Mojo on South Algoma Street and Upshot at on South May Street. A $15 membership is required in order to purchase passes in advance.
“We’re really hoping to encourage people to get out early and make the most of our two festival Sundays. We have three theatres and there will be films playing opposite each other, so you have to map out what you want to see,” said NOSFA’s Catherine Powell.
Cash-only single tickets are also available immediately ahead of screenings at the theatre, the cost $7 for members and $10 for non-members.
This year’s schedule will be unveiled on April 4 on the NOSFA website.
Thursday, April 4
- Wild Rose
- The Sisters Brothers
Sunday, April 7
- First Reformed
- Juliet, Naked
- If Beale Street Could Talk
- The Children Act
- Transit
- Sir
- The Silent Revolution
- The Rider
- Free Solo
- Mademoiselle de Joncquieres
- Atnropocene: The Human Epoch
- Cold War
Wednesday, April 10
- Can You Ever Forgive Me
- The Bookshop
Sunday, April 14
- Through Black Spruce
- The Death of Stalin
- Lean on Pete
- What They Had
- Colette
- Stan and Ollie
- Sorry to Bother You
- Shoplifters
- RBG
- Capernaum
- The Guilty
- The Discarded
