Don’t miss our 2019 – 2020 season opener!

Marianne & Leonard: Words of Love

A story of enduring love between Leonard Cohen and his Norwegian muse, Marianne Ihlen. Filmmaker Nick Broomfield chronicles their relationship, from the early days in Greece to how their love evolved when Leonard became a successful musician.

Marianne & Leonard: Words of Love
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Their love affair began on the Greek island of Hydra in 1960. Through never-before-seen archival footage and interviews with their friends and former colleagues, a portrait emerges of the woman behind the lyrics and the long-lasting influence she had on Cohen.

Broomfield himself was inspired by Ihlen. After a brief romantic dalliance with Broomfield in 1968, she encouraged him to make his first film. They remained friends until her death in 2016, three months prior to Cohen’s death. Much of Ihlen and Cohen’s story is made up of the time they spent apart, though Cohen continued to write to her after leaving Hydra to pursue his music career. “I was always escaping. I was always trying to get away,” Cohen expressed in an interview. The interviews in Words of Love are a tell-all of Cohen’s concerts and conquests, revealing the women in his life to be the source of many
of his songs.

But Ihlen was his longest-lasting influence. Famously, he wrote to her not long before her death: “Know that I am so close behind you that if you stretch out your hand, I think you can reach mine.” Marianne & Leonard: Words of Love is a remarkable and rare portrait of a love that lasted a lifetime, from its intoxicating beginning to its poetic end. While the proof of it will live on in Cohen’s songs, this documentary captures the time, place, and circumstance that ignited the heart of a soulful singer-songwriter.

97 minutes

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Anatomy of a Fall

Wednesday, December 13th, 2023 | Sponsored by Connor Ryan of RBC Wealth Management

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For the past year, Sandra (Sandra Hüller), a German writer, her French husband Samuel (Samuel Theis), and their eleven-year-old son Daniel (Milo Machado Graner) have lived a secluded life in a remote town in the French Alps. When Samuel is found dead in the snow below their chalet, the police question whether he committed suicide or was killed. Sandra is indicted, and we follow her trial which pulls the couple’s conflicted relationship apart. Daniel, who is partially sighted, is caught in the middle between the trial and their home life and his doubts take their toll on the mother-son relationship.

Official Selection, 2023 Toronto International Film Festival

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The Lesson

Wednesday, November 8th, 2023 | Sponsored by Muskoka Natural Food Market

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Liam (Daryl McCormack), an aspiring and ambitious young writer, eagerly accepts a tutoring position at the family estate of his idol, renowned author J.M. Sinclair (Academy Award nominee Richard E. Grant). But soon, Liam realizes that he is ensnared in a web of family secrets, resentment, and retribution. Sinclair, his wife Hélène (Academy Award nominee Julie Delpy), and their son Bertie (Stephen McMillan) all guard a dark past, one that threatens Liam’s future as well as their own. As the lines between master and protégé blur, class, ambition, and betrayal become a dangerous combination in this taut noir thriller.

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Jules

Wednesday, October 25th, 2023 | Sponsored by Dr. Howard Owens, ND

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Jules follows Milton (Ben Kingsley) who lives a quiet life of routine in a small western Pennsylvania town, but finds his day upended when a UFO and its extra-terrestrial passenger crash land in his backyard. Before long, Milton develops a close relationship with the extra-terrestrial he calls “Jules.” Things become complicated when two neighbours discover Jules and the government quickly closes in. What follows is a funny, wildly inventive ride as the three neighbours find meaning and connection later in life — thanks to this unlikely stranger.

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You Hurt My Feelings

Wednesday, October 11th, 2023 | Sponsored by Judy Watson, movie lover

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This American comedy-drama is written, directed and produced by acclaimed filmmaker Nicole Holofcener. It’s about a writer (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) who, completely by accident, overhears her husband (Tobias Menzies) confiding to his brother-in-law that he does not like her new book. He’s been assuring her that it’s great for so long that now he thinks it’s too late for him to say that he doesn’t really get it. A film about trust, lies, and the things we say to the people we love most.

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Daliland

Wednesday, September 27th | Sponsored by Shamrock Lodge

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DALÍLAND stars Sir Ben Kingsley as the titular Salvador Dalí, one of the most world-renowned artists of the 20th century and focuses on the later years of the strange and fascinating marriage between Dalí and his wife, as their seemingly unshakable bond begins to stress and fracture. Set in New York and Spain in 1974, the film is told through the eyes of James, a young assistant keen to make his name in the art world, who helps the eccentric and mercurial Dalí prepare for a big gallery show.

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The Miracle Club

Wednesday, September 13th | Sponsored by Claudette Wheeler – in honour of Ted and Eleanor Phillips, the original founders of Spinning Reels

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Set in 1967, THE MIRACLE CLUB is a heartwarming film that follows the story of three generations of close friends, Lily (Maggie Smith), Eileen (Kathy Bates), and Dolly (Agnes O’Casey) of Ballygar, a hard-knocks community in Dublin. They have one tantalizing dream: to win a pilgrimage to the sacred French town of Lourdes, that place of miracles that draws millions of visitors each year. When the chance to win presents itself, the women seize it. However, just before their trip, their old friend Chrissie (Laura Linney) arrives for her mother’s funeral, dampening their good mood and well-laid plans. The women secure tickets and set out on the journey that they hope will change their lives, with Chrissie, a skeptical traveler, joining in place of her mother. The glamor and sophistication of Chrissie, who has just returned from a nearly 40-year exile in the United States, are not her only distancing traits: Old wounds are reopened along the way, forcing the women to confront their pasts even as they travel in search of a miracle.

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Driving Madeleine

Wednesday, May 3rd, 2023 | Sponsored by The Norwood Theatre

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Madeleine, 92 years old, calls a taxi to take her to the retirement home where she will be living. Charles, a disillusioned driver with a tender heart, agrees to drive by the places that affected Madeleine’s life. Through the streets of Paris, her extraordinary past is revealed. They don’t know it yet, but they will forge a friendship during this drive that will change their lives forever.

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A Bunch of Amateurs

Wednesday, April 26th, 2023 | Sponsored by Rena Leventhal-Liebster

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A bunch of British working class amateur filmmakers with nothing left to lose tackle one of Hollywood’s greatest musicals in order to save their beloved Club. Britain’s oldest amateur filmmaking club struggles to survive, as its members grow old amid flickering memories and hardships. In the northern industrial town of Bradford, England, a handful of diehard amateur filmmakers desperately cling to their dreams, and to each other, in this warm and funny look at shared artistic folly that speaks to the delusional dreamer in us all.

“Kim Hopkins’s lovely documentary portrait of an amateur cineastes’ club founded in 1932 and now on its uppers is a little gem” ~ The Guardian

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Emily

Wednesday, May 10th | Sponsored by Brackenrig Nursery

EMILY imagines the transformative, exhilarating, and uplifting journey to womanhood of a rebel and a misfit, one of the world’s most famous, enigmatic, and provocative writers who died too soon at the age of 30.

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Haunted by the death of her mother, Emily struggles within the confines of her family life and yearns for artistic and personal freedom.  She channels her creative potential into the writing of one of the greatest novels of all time, Wuthering Heights.

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Aftersun

Wednesday, April 12th, 2023 | Sponsored by Hiram St Market

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At a fading vacation resort, 11-year-old Sophie treasures rare time together with her loving and idealistic father, Calum (Paul Mescal). As a world of adolescence creeps into view, beyond her eye Calum struggles under the weight of life outside of fatherhood. Twenty years later, Sophie’s tender recollections of their last holiday become a powerful and heartrending portrait of their relationship, as she tries to reconcile the father she knew with the man she didn’t, in Charlotte Wells’ superb and searingly emotional debut film.

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