The Enlightened Screen: Ashley McKenzie
Wednesday April 18, 2018 from 07:00 PM to 09:00 PM
Ottawa, CA
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Event Details
The Canadian Film Institute’s ongoing guest artist series featuring Canada’s best contemporary filmmakers. On April 18 the CFI presents Werewolf, the extraordinary first feature from Ashley McKenzie.
The director, Ashley McKenzie, will be in attendance for a talk and Q&A following the screening.
WEREWOLF
The hardscrabble existence of two homeless addicts is portrayed with sensitivity and brutal honesty in acclaimed filmmaker Ashley McKenzie’s debut feature. Shot almost entirely in oblique close-ups to capture the disorientation and frustration of McKenzie’s characters, twentysomething junkies Blaise and Vanessa, Werewolfdoggedly and courageously refuses to romanticize its characters lives. (The style suggests an affinity for Toronto minimalists such as Kazik Radwanski, and Lodge Kerrigan’s Clean, Shaven.) Sleeping in tents, fighting with government bureaucrats, Blaise and Vanessa survive primarily through an underground economy. They harass people to let them cut their grass with a rusty old mower they haul over dirt roads and through rainstorms. Such scenes capture the futility, toil, and frustration in their lives with startling power, like some crack-addled version of the Stations of the Cross. It’s a testament to the skill of both McKenzie and the performers that they inspire empathy in us even as we find the characters’ actions perplexing and troubling. Werewolf confirms, boldly, the promise of McKenzie’s much-lauded earlier short films. – STEVE GRAVESTOCK (TIFF)
Ashley McKenzie is an emerging writer-director from Cape Breton Island, Canada. Her 2015 short 4 Quarters screened at TIFF, VIFF, Stockholm IFF, Festival du nouveau cinema, and won Best Short Film at the Atlantic Film Festival. With her previous work, Stray ('13), When You Sleep ('12), and Rhonda's Party (10), Ashley has earned a spot on Canada's Top Ten Shorts list by TIFF, been a three-time recipient of the Shaw Media Fearless Female Director Award from the National Screen Institute of Canada, and won CBC's Short Film Faceoff. She is an alumnus of the TIFF Talent Lab and co-owner of grassfire films. Werewolf is her first feature film.
Doors open at 6:30pm, with the event starting promptly at 7:00pm. Ticket (digital or printout) must be presented at the door for admission. You must also present valid ID if Discounted rate is used for purchase. If you have any questions, please contact the CFI offices at 613-232-6727 or info@cfi-icf.ca.
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Hosted By
Canadian Film Institute
Contact The Host
The Canadian Film Institute, incorporated over 82 years ago in 1935, organizes a number of popular and exciting film festivals and events in the Ottawa area, including the European Union Film Festival, the Ottawa International Animation Festival, and the Latin American Film Festival.
The Canadian Film Institute (CFI) was incorporated in 1935 as a federally-chartered, non-governmental, non-profit cultural organization. It is the oldest film institution in Canada and the second oldest film institute in the world.
Where and When
Arts Court Theatre
2 Daly Avenue
Ottawa, On
CANADA
K1N7B9
Start Date: 2018-04-18 19:00:00
End Date: 2018-04-18 21:00:00