REEL CANADA Blog : Tags : film

Students in a film class at Stonewall Collegiate Institute in Stonewall, MB will be treated to a special screening of the short documentary MEMERE METISSE on today with filmmaker (and documentary subject!) Janelle Wookey in attendance to answer their questions. The film is a heartwarming family tale of Janelle's journey to try to get her grandmother to acknowledge her Metis heritage. Students will get the opportunity to discuss Canadian and Aboriginal identity as well as the craft of filmmaking with the talented young filmmaker.  

This event will be our first in the province of Manitoba, and while we're coming back next week for a 400+ student event in Winnipeg, we're still pretty pumped about getting our feet wet in Manitoba with Stonewall Collegiate - all thanks to the efforts of our teacher contact there, Cathy Redman-Chalmers, who contacted us about bringing a filmmaker into her classroom, and made it all happen. 

REEL CANADA's 'Manitoba maven', Terri Cherniack, will be running this event (it's her first time, too). Janelle is a veteran of the program - she came to Sudbury with us for a screening of MÉMÉRE MÉTISSE in 2010.

Our third annual Cineplex day with the Peel District School Board will be taking place on today at the SilverCity Brampton. Over 650 secondary school students from across the Peel DSB will participate, selecting from three feature film screenings in the morning and three in the afternoon. AM films include THE ROCKET (with NHL publisher and hockey mega-expert Dan Diamond in attendance), ONE WEEK, preceded by some comedy shorts by Adam Brodie and Dave Derewlany (with the always hilarious Adam & Dave in attendance) and SHARKWATER (with eco-warrior and filmmaker Emily Hunter in attendance, who's been setting students on fire with her enthusiasm and passion throughout REEL CANADA's seventh season, making stops on our national tour in Montague PEI, Montreal QC, and soon, Winnipeg MB).

In the afternoon, students will watch the zombie comedy FIDO, preceded by the short film EVELYN: THE CUTEST EVIL DEAD GIRL (with star Nadia Litz in attendance), the documentary PROM NIGHT IN MISSISSIPPI (with producer Patricia Aquino in attendance), and IRON ROAD. 

This event kicks off the "Ontario leg" of our national tour, which will include one more large Cineplex Day in Toronto on the 18th, and six other Do-It-Yourself festivals between now and mid-May.