“I am happy to share my latest campaign for Xiaomi: Together. This is the first film I’ve done using AI for the visual effects and it was an interesting and seamless experience. Definitely the future,” says Brent Bonacorso.
Category: News
Turbo Kid The Game: First Quebec Film to Video Game Adaptation
“A nostalgic metroidvania adventure with insane weapons, skills, and pixel gore. Ride your BMX and blast your enemies as you discover the secrets of the Wasteland.”
ALL REVIEWS:
Very Positive
RELEASE DATE:
10 Apr, 2024
DEVELOPER/PUBLISHER:
Radio-Canada article: Turbo Kid, le premier film québécois adapté en jeu vidéo.
RKSS’s We are Zombies On Cineverse’s Screambox For Fall
image by Julie Delisle
Cineverse has acquired the horror-comedy comic book adaptation We Are Zombies.
The company has said it plans to release the pic this fall across all platforms, including its genre streaming platform Screambox, with a premiere date to be announced soon.
The deal was negotiated out of this year’s Berlin Film Festival by Brandon Hill, Director of Acquisitions, on behalf of Cineverse and Gregoire Melin at Paris-based Kinology on behalf of the filmmakers.
Director Sophia Bierend Joins Woolf+Lapin
Sophia Bierend won for her writing the Degeto Impulse Award and was simultaneously working as an assistant director on the Netflix series Unorthodox and the film I’m Your Man. Both projects were realized by Maria Schrader, for whom she also works privately as an assistant. Inspired by this collaboration, Sophia applied for the talent lab at the War On Screen Film Festival in France. She won and got funding for her short film script The Taster. She wrote and directed the movie, which won the Student BAFTA in 2023 and is now successfully screening at various festivals all over the world. As a screenwriter she is part of various Writers Rooms, wrote among others several episodes for the youth series ECHT (KiKA, ZDF).
Here’s a quick synopsis for the Taster: In a near-future Romania, young Ozana (Silvana Mihai) is chosen to work as a food taster for the leader of forces occupying her country. The sole rule she must follow is that she must never look this man in the eye. Writer/director Sophia Bierend has made a captivating master class in slow-burn tension and world-building, phenomenally well-executed and performed according to Fantasia Film Festival’s Mitch Davis.
Stay Online: Happy to be Behind 1st Feature Film Shot Since the Beginning of the War
Fantasia Review: STAY ONLINE, the feature-film debut of Ukrainian filmmaker Eva Strelnikova, follows Katya (Liza Zaitseva), a volunteer from Kyiv who is fighting against the Russian invasion of Ukraine. While using a laptop donated to the resistance, she comes into contact with the original owner’s superhero-obsessed son, who is looking for his lost parents. In an effort to make a positive change in this boy’s life and pull herself out of a destructive cycle, Katya risks all that she holds dear to locate his parents.
As the first Ukrainian feature film to have been shot since the beginning of the ongoing Russian invasion, STAY ONLINE is a necessary piece of protest art that commands and deserves your attention. The focus on seeking and dispersing information through the internet is as pertinent as it has ever been. Considering the invasion has essentially lost its time in the limelight on North American news outlets, people have had to shift to alternative sources, such as TikTok, to procure information. Using the screenlife format to full effect, Strelnikova crafts a somber but honest story that will leave your heart in your throat and your eyes on the screen. Evoking the likes of Aneesh Chaganty’s SEARCHING and Mick Jackson’s THREADS, STAY ONLINE twists and turns through the war-torn streets of Ukraine, giving its audience a harrowing glimpse into life during wartime.
RKSS’S “Wake Up” Will Get World Premiere at Fantastic Fest
The good news keeps coming for Montreal cult collective RKSS.
Fresh from their successful closing of Fantasia Film Festival 2023 with “We Are Zombies” which won Gold Audience Award and Best Quebec feature, they will be premiering “Wake Up” at this year’s Fantastic Fest.
“Wake Up” comes from the team who gave us the “Rec” franchise. And RKSS were fortunate to be brought in to helm the new film.
“We Are Zombies” will also be presented at Fantastic Fest.
This means RKSS will have two films in the official selection of the world renowned genre festival.
Martin Girard’s Horror Picture “Nervures” is part of Telefilm Canada’s production funding for 7 French-language feature films
Congratulations to Productions 1976’s Nicolas Comeau, director-writer Raymond St-Jean and Woolf+ Lapin’s Martin Girard!
Telefilm Canada announces production funding for seven French-language feature films
09 August 2023
Telefilm Canada announces seven French-language feature film titles receiving funding under the Production Program (second round of decisions in the big budget stream), for a total of $3.8 million.
Deux femmes en or (comedy)
Director: Chloé Robichaud
Screenwriter: Catherine Léger
Production: Vieille Amérique Inc.
Distribution: Maison4tiers
*coproduction Canada/France
Kaboul Montréal (drama)
Director: Bachir Bensaddek
Screenwriter: Marie Vien
Production: Caramel Film Inc.
Distribution: Maison4tiers
Le train (drama)
Director and screenwriter: Marie Brassard
Production: Microclimat Films Inc.
Distribution: Axia Films
Nervures (horror)
Director: Raymond St-Jean
Screenwriters: Martin Girard and Raymond St-Jean
Production: 1976 Productions Inc.
Distribution: Axia Films
Cap Farewell (drama)
Director and screenwriter: Vanja d’Alcantara
Production: Corporation de développement et de production ACPAV Inc.
Distribution: Maison4tiers
*coproduction Belgium/Canada/Netherlands
L’héritier des secrets (drama)
Director: Mohamed Nadif
Screenwriters: Mohamed Nadif and Olivier Coussemacq
Production: Objectif 9 Inc.
Distribution: Filmoption International
*coproduction Morocco/Canada
Ma mère, Dieu et Sylvie Vartan (drama)
Director and screenwriter: Ken Scott
Production: 9492-2663 Québec Inc (Christal Films Productions Inc.)
Distribution: Opale Films
*coproduction France/Canada
Cult Canadian Collective RKSS Closes Fantasia Film Festival: We Are Zombies
The stars at Fantasia are its genre auteurs, such as this year cult Canadian collective RKSS which closes the festival with “We Are Zombies,” starring Megan Peta Hill, Alexandre Nachi and Derek Johns.
They are also conducting a masterclass at the festival.
Congrats RKSS!
Fantasia Film Festival runs July 20 to Aug. 9.
Also unspooling from July 26-29 within the Fantasia International Film Festival is the large Frontières industry forum, packed with the presentation of genre projects, led by their directors and producers with little cast attached.
Robert Hloz’s Restore Point Opens to Rave Reviews in Karlovy Vary
Congrats to Robert on his first feature, which had a very successful premiere at Karlovy in early July 2023, where the Czeck director was awestruck by the two standing ovations.
Variety’s Guy Lodge opines “director Robert Hloz’s whopper of a calling-card debut may offer a more credibly subdued, budget-constrained visual of the mid-21st century than the lavishly built “Blade Runner 2049” — unless we’re in for a drastic design (r)evolution over the course of the 2040s — but its ideas are sky-high in concept. Robert Hloz shows Hollywood-level chops in a resourceful, niftily plotted vision of a near future where human life can’t always be saved, but it can be rebooted.”
Screen Daily calls it a “stylish, high-concept self-contained piece of storytelling.”
Following its home premiere in Karlovy Vary’s Special Screenings section, it will make its North American debut at the genre-specific Fantasia Festival.
Meredith Hambrock: Writer in Residence
Meredith Hambrock’s latest novel, Other People’s Secrets, got her nominated for this Las Vegas writing residency during which she will be working on her next literary mystery novel, Woman Found Floating, about the crew on a superyacht and all that unfolds when they rescue a mysterious woman they find floating in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.