April 23, 2025
Kam Theatre Lab: The Old Same Story
Thunder Bay 2024
Location: SilverCity
Showtimes: 6:30 & 8:30 pm

Director: Paula Thiessen
Cast: Michael Sobota, John Books, William Roberts, Eleanor Albanese, Pierre Beaupre, Teresa Castonguay, Sandra Brown, Gloria Dowton, Terry MacLeod, Jan Henderson, Rodney Brown, John Taylor, Lila Cano, Monique Mojica, Denis Lacroix, Damon Dowbak, Barbara Kemeny, Estella Howard
Running Time: 94 minutes
Language: English            Season Finale

“Compelling and impactful, Kam Theatre Lab: The Old Same Story will resonate not only with NWO residents or those involved in theatre, but with a wider audience as well.”—Adrian Lysenko, the Walleye
 
This fascinating locally produced documentary charts the rise and fall of Kam Theatre Lab, an experimental touring collective that became a driving force on Thunder Bay’s theatre scene from 1974 to 1989. KTL combined clown and mask performance with social commentary embodied in the back-to-the-land movement.

First-time director Paula Thiessen, co-editor Sarah Furlotte and sound editor Zoe Gordon do a remarkable job of drawing together numerous candid interviews, hundreds of photos and archival footage to establish KTL’s origins and its rogue’s gallery of characters, while charting the group’s genesis. Many stories are amusing, while others reflect drama inherent with conflicting egos. 

The film’s tone is augmented by local musicians Rodney Brown, Lorrina Belluz, Robin Ranger, Damon Dowbak, Kim Erickson and Ken Hamm. 

For almost 15 years, KTL carved out a unique place in a town that also boasted at least three other established theatre groups including Magnus Theatre, Cambrian Players and Moonlight Melodrama. 

Kam Lab was committed to supporting and producing Canadian playwrights at a time when most theatres were performing American or British plays. Their experimental and edgy work—often filled with zany humour—challenged capitalism, consumerism, industrial pollution, homophobia, and social injustices, adding a critical voice that was all but absent in the Thunder Bay theatre world.   

Balancing the motivations of individual artists, the ideals of the collective, and the attempt to earn a living in a marginal town, led to schisms in the troupe. All the exhilaration and tension that come from close personal and creative relationships—while striving for uncompromising artistic and political vision—were manifest in KTL. It made for a combustible mix.

 “Kam Theatre Lab: The Old Same Story” reinvigorates the almost-forgotten history of a daring group of artists who, for a time, made its mark on the cultural scene in Thunder Bay. 

Wednesday, April 16 2025
There’s Still Tomorrow 2024  
Italy
Location: SilverCity
Showtimes: 6:30 & 8:45 pm


Director: Paola Cortellesi
Cast: Paola Cortellesi
Running Time: 118mins
Language: Italian with English subtitles 


Sydney Film Festival: Best Film; Rome Film Fest; Best Film; Golden Globes, Italy: Best Film; Aegean Film Festival: Audience Award; Italian National Syndicate of Film Journalists: Film of the Year; 18 other wins, 20 other nominations.

“This is storytelling with terrific confidence and panache.”--Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian

A black-and-white, neorealist-inspired tragicomic melodrama about a downtrodden wife in post-second world war Rome, “There’s Still Tomorrow” has won numerous Italian film awards. The film’s emotional heft, bittersweet comedy and tone of hard-bitten romance take centre stage.

A former sketch show comedian, director and star Cortellesi finds humour in tragedy: domestic tyranny, poverty, disappointment. This is a bold directorial gamble but Cortellesi’s charisma and the message of empowerment carry the film. Her approach recalls similarities to Roberto Benigni’s “Life is Beautiful.” 

Post-war Rome is grinding into recovery. There are still line-ups to shop for sparse food but outdoor markets are perking up. American GIs patrol the streets. Change is in the air.

However, there’s little change for Delia (Cortellesi herself) who lives with her boorish, controlling husband Ivano (Valerio Mastrandrea) and their three children. Delia cooks, cleans, raises the kids, and through odd jobs contributes to the household finances. Ivano takes every opportunity to disparage and belittle her. 

However, there’s a glimmer of comfort and hope. Her daughter has a promising marriage proposal. A GI expresses concern for her welfare. Wistfulness surrounds her encounters with mechanic Nino (Vinicio Marchioni) who might be the true love that got away. The film starts to build momentum as Delia finally plots to take charge of her own destiny.

Delia harbours a concealed document that may have a bearing on her future. Director Cortellesi plays on our curiosity for a suspenseful conclusion, adding impact to the film’s themes of empowerment on multiple levels.  

Wednesday, March 19, 2025
Flow 2023 
Latvia, France, Belgium
Location: SilverCity
Showtimes: 6:30 & 8:30 pm


Director: Gints Zilbalodis
Running Time; 85 minutes


Academy Award Nominations: Best Animated Film; Best International Feature; Boston Society of Film Critics Awards: Best Animated Feature; Golden Globes: Best Animated Motion Picture; National Board of Review: Best Animated Feature; Toronto Film Critics Association Awards: Best Animated Feature 34 other wins, 71 other nominations.

“Flow is dreamy, epic, perilous and very beautiful.”—Ty Burr, Washington Post

For anyone who ever considered their ultimate dream cast to be a cat, a dog, a lemur, a secretary bird, and a capybara, those hopes will be finally fulfilled in “Flow.” Thrown together by circumstance in an eerily depopulated world, now submerged in ever-rising waters, the furry and feathered characters in Gints Zilbalodis’ imaginative, astonishing, and thoroughly engaging animated feature must find common ground if they hope to survive an unforgettable journey.

One of the many reasons “Flow” and its cast are so memorable is that the animals here remain animals. In place of the quippy banter and zany antics of the anthropomorphized critters family-film viewers may be used to comes a more naturalistic-minded approach that allows for more authentic forms of behaviour, movement, and communication. (That last matter is especially important for the characters who’d rather not get eaten.) 

And thanks to the level of nuance and detail that Zilbalodis and his team create, the individual personalities of these unlikely traveling companions still shine through, especially in the case of the ever-intrepid feline protagonist.

That emphasis on naturalism also adds great richness and wonder to Zilbalodis’ film, a richly visual blend of adventure tale and ecological parable that will enchant and enthrall viewers no matter what their age or animal preference.

Wednesday, March 5, 2025
I'm Still Here 2024 aka Ainda Estou Aqui
Brazil, France 
Location: SilverCity
Showtimes: 6:30 & 8:45 pm


Director: Walter Salles
Cast: Fernanda Torres, Fernanda Montenegro, Selton Mello
Running Time; 136 minutes
Language: Portuguese 


Academy Award Nominations: Best Picture, Best International Feature, Best Actress (Fernanda Torres); Golden Globe Best Actress (winner): Fernanda Torres; National Board of Review: Top Five International Films; Palm Springs International Film Festival: Best Foreign Language Film. Vancouver International Film Festival: Audience Award. 39 other wins, 59 other nominations.

“Torres's deeply internalized performance exerts a magnetic appeal, pulling us into her character's unimaginable grief and loss as she fights to remain strong for her family.”—Peter Howell, Toronto Star

Based on Marcelo Rubens Paiva’s memoir, “I’m Still Here” transports us to Rio de Janeiro in the early 1970s when Brazil’s dictatorship sought to exert its authority through detentions and disappearances. Salles, who also directed the Oscar-nominated “Central Station” (TIFF ’98), focuses on real life Eunice Paiva, whose terrifying experiences transformed her into an activist, lawyer, and hero.

When “I’m Still Here“ begins, life in the merrily crowded Paiva household is warm and jovial, despite the threat of spot checks and arrests that loom over every outing. All this changes when patriarch Rubens (Selton Mello), a former congressman forced to live in exile during the previous decade, is ushered away to provide a mysterious deposition to military interrogators. 

Soon after, officers come for Eunice (a superb Fernanda Torres), holding her 12 days in a windowless prison as they try to persuade her to incriminate friends and associates accused of leftwing activities. Eunice emerges from prison transformed, embarking on a journey to expose the government’s illegal activities and refusals to acknowledge their role in the disappearances of thousands of innocent citizens.

Part of what gives “I’m Still Here” its tremendous power is the way Salles and his collaborators give equal weight to the personal and the political. Eunice remains a loving and fiercely protective mother to her children, even as she pursues the courageous campaign against the dictatorship that will consume several decades of her life. This is an engrossing, deeply moving film about ordinary people who refuse to hide when the tempests of history come calling.

Wednesday, February 26, 2025
Small Things Like These 2024
Location: SilverCity
Showtimes: 6:30 & 8:30 pm


Director: Tm Mielants
Cast: Cillian Murphy, Eileen Walsh, Emily Watson
Running Time: 98 minutes
Language: English


Berlin International Film Festival: Best Supporting Performance: Emily Watson.  5 other nominations. 


“[Murphy's] is a marvel of a performance, extremely expressive and yet deeply inward-looking.” Sheila O’Malley, rogerebert.com


Based on Claire Keegan’s novella, “Small Things Like These,” is an intimate character study, set in Ireland, 1985. (NOSFA audiences will recall Keegan as the author of “Foster,” which inspired last season’s “The Quiet Girl.”)


Cillian Murphy is Bill Furlong, a local coal and wood fuel distributor. He and his wife (Eileen Walsh) are raising five daughters. As Christmas approaches, while making a delivery to the Good Shepherd Convent, Bill witnesses a chilling sight: a distraught, screaming young woman forcibly dragged into the church by her mother and several nuns. Bill suspects she is an unwed mother.


The scene forces Bill to recall his own troubled past where he was bullied for being the son of an unwed mother. When he was young, Bill and his single mother lived on her employer’s farm. This explains his inclination towards solitude. Murphy wordlessly conveys s variety of emotions. 


However, given the influence wielded by the Catholic Church in his community, Bill is uncertain how he should react to what he saw at the convent. His conscience is further torn when he happens upon the same young woman, Sarah, freezing in a coal shed adjacent to the church.


Aware of what Bill may have witnessed, Mother Superior Sister Mary (Emily Watson) invites him for tea. A superficial cordial air is undercut by the subtle intimidation Sister Mary wields. Bill is soberly aware that she will do whatever in her power to run the convent---suspected to be one of the infamous Magdalene Laundries--and preserve her stature.  


Director Mielants and his cinematographer Frank van den Eeden do an impressive job of illustrating the dynamics of the town through detailed, authentic visual language.  


The film is further indictment of the Magdalene Laundries which unbelievably operated as late as 1996, where many unwed mothers were forced into unpaid labour, giving up their babies for adoption. ​

Wednesday, February 12, 2025
Blitz 2023
Location: SilverCity
Showtimes: 6:30 & 8:40 pm


Director: Steve McQueen
Cast: Saoirse Ronan, Elliott Heffernan, Harris Dickinson, Benjamin Clémentine
Running Time: 120 minutes
Language: English


Washington DC Area Film Critics Association Awards, Best Youth Performance: Elliott Hefferman. Middleburg Film Festival: Director Visionary Award: Steve McQueen; Critics Choice Awards Celebration of Cinema and Television: Director Award for Film. 21 other nominations. 


“…it works as a fine McQueen war drama that shows how the racially diverse Londoners endured the 1940 Nazi Blitz.” Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews 


Blitz is a powerful film about the German bombing of London in 1940. It’s told through the eyes of George, a 9-year-old boy. Young Elliott Heffernan does a remarkable job of carrying the emotional impact of many key sequences.


Even through the eyes of an innocent, writer-director Steve McQueen provides heightened realism in terms of the continuous numbing aerial attacks upon London. 


Hefferman is matched by Saoirse Ronan as Rita, who suddenly finds herself a single mother as her lover and the lad’s Grenadian father is deported. She has to raise her mixed-race son at a particularly tricky time. 


A factory worker like so many young women of that period, she has done the responsible thing and sent the youngster away from London but he stubbornly refuses to stay on the rescue train and jumps off at his first opportunity, determined to make his way home. His many and varied misadventures make up the rest of the narrative.


London citizens were renowned for their bravery, resilience and “stiff-upper-lip” attitude towards the Nazi onslaught. But McQueen inserts another reality reserved for those fellow citizens and neighbours who represent a different ethnicity.  Blitz exposes some of lesser known social and racial chasms found beneath the surface of stalwart unified resistance.


The movie is certain to pull at the heart strings as George resolutely attempts to be reunited with his mother and grandfather (Peter Weller).  


Also worthy of acknowledgement is Adam Stockhausen’s (“The Grand Budapest Hotel,” “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny”) production design which is impressive, brimming with gritty authenticity. 

Wednesday, January 29, 2025
The Outrun 2024
Location: SilverCity
Showtimes: 6:30 & 8:40 pm


Director: Nora Fingscheidt
Cast: Saoirse Ronan, Saskia Reeves, Stephen Dillane
Running Time: 118 minutes
Language: English


Telluride Film Festival: Silver Medallion Award, Saoirse Ronan; Mallorca International Film Festival: Best Actress, Saoirse Ronan; 20 other nominations


“Saoirse Ronan is the luminous north star of every scene of this moving drama about addiction which is also a powerful character study.” –Liz Braun, original.cin 


German director and writer Nora Fingscheidt (“System Crasher”/”The Unforgiveable”) and co-writers Amy Liptrot and Daisy Lewis, base their highly personal film on Liptrot’s memoir (2016). It presents a powerful, sensitive and exhausting survival recovery film on being an alcoholic. It takes shape as a non-linear and unconventional telling of a familiar movie story that is told without the usual clichés.

Saoirse Ronan, in an Oscar winning performance, plays Rona, an alcoholic. Paapa Essiedu plays Daynin, her caring boyfriend who leaves her when he no longer can handle her outbursts.

Rona was raised on her bipolar suffering Englishman father’s (Stephen Dillane) farm in Scotland’s Orkney Islands, in the northeast north, where she playfully rebuffed her mom’s (Saskia Reeves) Christianity.  As a young woman she lived a troubled wild party life in London. With her life eventually screwed up over her alcohol addiction, she returns at age 30 to the beautiful and quiet Orkney Islands to recover.

The film smoothly veers back and forth between her drunken club life in swinging London and her sober life in Scotland.

At a latter point in her recovery, Rona seeks more solitude and moves farther north to the remote island of Papa Westray, whose population is around 70. Her internet and the warmth of the accepting locals, help in her realistic strides to recover.

The electronic music she listens to on her headphones mixed with the pounding surf at Orkney, is compared to the tumultuous nightlife scenes in London.

The road to recovery is no picnic, and that Ronan is so convincing in trying to gain her sobriety, elevates this humanistic drama of dealing with personal pain and shame into a first-rate pic on a troubled young woman’s self-discovery.

Wednesday, January 22, 2025
The Great Escaper:  UK 2023
Location: SilverCity
Showtimes: 6:30 & 8:30 pm


Director: Oliver Parker
Cast: Michael Caine, Glenda Jackson
Running Time: 96 minutes
Language: English


Barcelona Film Festival, Best Actor: Michael Caine


“The Great Escaper has all the hallmarks of a British stiff-upper-lip drama, but transcends the “cheeky chappie” stereotypes with the performances of the late, great Glenda Jackson and eternal favourite Michael Caine.”—Richard Crouse, CTV


Michael Caine and the late Glenda Jackson bring their A games to this true-life story about the 89-year-old WW II Royal Navy veteran Bernard Jordan who in 2014 jauntily sneaked out of his seaside care home (where he lived with his wife Irene) on a secret mission to get aboard a cross-channel ferry and attend the 70th anniversary celebrations of the D-day landings in Normandy — having failed to get included on an official group excursion. He was dubbed “the great escaper” in the press. 


Caine is Jordan, bringing plenty of droll and lugubrious spark to the role, shuffling up and down the seafront, grumpily denouncing the trendy cyclists almost running him over on the pavement as “tossers” and letting the air out of their tires. 


Caine is arguably upstaged by Jackson as Irene, or Rene, who is snarky and sardonic to everyone, including her care worker Adele (an excellent performance from Danielle Vitalis). Rene has to cover up for Bernard; she is, after all, in on his plan, and tells the nurses and managers that her absent husband is just out on a long early walk, giving Bernard enough time to get on the ferry before the alarm is raised.


There’s a huge amount to enjoy from these legendary performers: Caine and Jackson are a great double-act, despite being apart for much of the film, and the film imagines an interesting and poignant rapport between Bernard and an elderly ex-RAF officer on the ferry, sympathetically played by John Standing, who is heading for Normandy while crucified by a secret guilt. Caine has a bold flash of rage by the official graves at all the criminal waste of lives created by war.


Caine and Jackson and their ineffable class give this film some real grit: it’s a wonderful last hurrah for Jackson and there is something moving and even awe-inspiring in seeing these two British icons together.


Whether his ‘retirement’ holds or not, this may be the last opportunity to the great Michael Caine on the big screen. 

Wednesday, November 20, 2024​

Location: SilverCity
Showtimes: 6:30 &  8:20 pm

Director: Erica Tremblay
Cast: Lily Gladstone, Isabel DeRoy-Olson, Shea Whigham
Running Time:   91 minutes
Language: English, Cayugaa

Hamptons International Film Festival: Excellence in Narrative Filmmaking; Austin Film Critics Association; Breakthrough Artist: Lily Gladstone; Oklahoma Film Critics Circle Awards: Excellence in Independent Filmmaking. Tacoma Film Festival; Best Narrative Feature. Eight other wins, four other nominations. 

“A potent, layered and beautiful heartache of a movie grappling with traumas but finding hope and even joy in the bond between these women.”—Radheyan Simonpillai, CTV’s Your Morning

“Fancy Dance” focuses on white intervention in Native communities and the challenge of keeping families together no matter what. 

Lily Gladstone ( “Killers of the Flower Moon”) plays Jax, a queer Cayuga woman living with her niece Roki (Isabel Deroy-Olson) on a reservation in Oklahoma. Jax’s sister Wadatawi has been missing for two weeks, and Jax fears the worst. Tribal police and the FBI have turned up nothing. . 

Roki’s forcibly placed in the care of her estranged grandfather (Shea Whipham). Acting on pure instinct, Jax “kidnaps” Roki and the pair try to make their way to the tribal Powwow in Oklahoma City where Roki’s hoping that her missing mother would miraculously show up at the Pow Wow as planned for the mother/daughter fancy dance. Originally a war dance, this contemporary version survives as a symbol of expression of native pride and the gathering of tribal members.

“Fancy Dance” excels at showing the authentic lives led by Jax and other women, making the most of the few options for their life on the reservations: minor drug dealing, stripping. Gladstone and Deroy-Olson work well off each other, betraying no judgement. 

Roki and Jax’s journey together is a dangerous one, with white men posing a threat to them at every turn.  

Despite some sentimentality, “Fancy Dance” is a film about resistance against a careless, racist government that thrives on assimilation and cultural amnesia. The same FBI that made its good name off of the murders of Osage people now cares little about  the harm caused by racism and greed. “Fancy Dance” reminds us of how communities care for each other, regardless of the risk involved. Director Erica Tremblay’s narrative debut is impressive, heralding a promising talent. 

Wednesday, November 6, 2024​

Location: SilverCity
Showtimes: 6:30 & 8:30 pm

Director: Greg Kwedar
Cast: Colman Domingo
Running Time: 105 m  
Language: English

Based on the real-life arts rehabilitation programme founded at Sing Sing Correctional Facility, Greg Kwedar’s new film follows a troupe of incarcerated actors who work on a play as part of a theatre workshop at the prison.

Every six months, the men gather in a circle of chairs, often looking to Divine G (Colman Domingo) to help decide their next play. When he recruits a new member called Divine Eye, he gets more than he bargained for. The group’s dynamic begins to shift as Divine Eye suggests they do a comedy for the first time, prompting the men to throw out a jumble of wild ideas — from pirate ships to Roman gladiators to Old West gunfights. 

Flustered at first, Divine G quickly starts to see Divine Eye’s discomfort with the vulnerability required for what seems like a silly pursuit. While planning for his own clemency hearing, he tries to forge a connection with Eye, as the men collectively unpack the pain of their experience while undergoing the joy and escape of creativity.

Domingo gives one of the most memorable and affecting performances of his career, bolstered by a cast made up almost entirely of formerly incarcerated actors and alumni of the Rehabilitation Through the Arts programme. Their participation brings an authenticity to the group’s founding principle that human dignity must be a part of the justice system. 

Directed with a dynamism that matches the charm, mischief, and compassion of the men themselves, “Sing Sing” recognizes the value of a place we can gather in which to discuss, debate, and create, wherever that may be. It’s an ode to art as a process, much the same as life, through which we can strive to better understand ourselves and each other.