Spinning Reels

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

Click on the image to view the Official Trailer

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

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.

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.

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

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.

Wednesday, March 22nd, 2023 | Sponsored by Robertson Financial Services

Charlotte Rampling at 75 with 134 screen credits to date commands the screen with her subtle but engrossing performance.

Ruth (Oscar nominee, Rampling) is a worldly former war correspondent now bored in retirement with a drinking problem and a newly fractured leg. Sam (George Ferrier) is her unruly grandson, recently kicked out of boarding school and grieving the death of his mother. When the two are brought together under the same roof, they form an unexpected bond.

Wednesday, March 8th, 2023 | Sponsored by Roy DeHaan Carpentry

In this exquisitely realized remake of Akira Kurosawa’s 1952 film Ikiru, director Oliver Hermanus teams with Nobel- and Booker Prize–winning author Kazuo Ishiguro to renew a classic. His adaption is nominated for on Oscar for Best Screenplay.

The post-World War II London drama “Living” puts Academy Award nominated Bill Nighy at the centre of the story. He plays Williams, the head of the Public Works Department, reduced by years of an oppressive office routine. When he receives a terminal health diagnosis, he decides at the eleventh hour to take stock in his life and begins trying to be a better person.

Wednesday, February 22nd, 2033 | Sponsored by Lilibird

Ha Sang-hyeon is the owner of a hand laundry and volunteers at the nearby church, where his friend Dong-soo works. The two run an illegal business together: Sang-hyeon occasionally steals babies from the church’s baby box with Dong-soo, who deletes the church’s surveillance footage that shows a baby was left there. They sell the babies on the adoption black market. But when a young mother So-young comes back after having abandoned her baby, she discovers them and decides to go with them on a road trip to interview the baby’s potential parents. The three embark on a journey to find the right couple, building an unlikely family of their own. While larger plot machinations come into play including a criminal investigation run by detectives Soo-jin and Lee, the movie’s main focus is each character’s relationship with their past — and the fight to become more than it.

Wednesday, February 8th, 2023 | Sponsored by Chestnut Realty, Baysville

Sigourney Weaver delivers a stellar performance as Hildy Good, a realtor in an idyllic New England town, whose wickedly funny tongue and seeming success mask her life’s one dark truth: She enjoys her wine a bit too much. But Hildy’s good at keeping it together — until, that is, a rekindled romance with high school flame Frank Getchell (Kevin Kline) sets in motion a chain of events that forces a decades-in-the-making confrontation with Hildy’s buried past. Based on the best-selling novel, The Good House is a multifaceted portrait of a proud, resilient woman who wouldn’t think of asking for help…and whose life won’t change until she does.

Wednesday, January 25th, 2023 | 7:00 p.m. at the Norwood Theatre

The film, which follows the travels of a nomadic grey donkey named EO,  premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2022, where it won the Jury Prize. It is Poland’s submission for Best International Feature at the 2023 Oscars.

After being removed from the traveling circus, which is the only life he’s ever known, EO begins a trek across the Polish and Italian countryside, experiencing cruelty and kindness in equal measure, all the while observing the follies and triumphs of humankind. During his travels, EO is both helped and hindered by a cast of characters including a young Italian priest, a Countess, and a rowdy Polish soccer team. The film puts the viewer in the perspective of its four-legged protagonist. EO’s journey speaks to the world around us, an equine hero boldly pointing out societal ills, and serving as warning to the dangers of neglect and inaction, all while on a quest for freedom.

THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSOR

Wednesday, January 11th, 2023 | Sponsored by Dr. Stuart Robson

After the bombing of his family’s chocolate factory, Tareq Hadhad, a charming young Syrian refugee, struggles to settle into small-town life in Antigonish, Nova Scotia. Despite moving to a new country, he’s intent on pursuing his dream to become a doctor. But when his father, Issam, insists that he must focus on survival, Tareq and his family move towards a different, but familiar path: Rebuilding Issam’s chocolate business.

When what seemed like a nostalgic attempt to cling onto remnants of an old life past becomes an overnight sensation, Tareq is shocked. Put in the role of business manager, he must choose between the demands of an exponentially growing business and an offer to go back to medical school. New challenges arise between a rival chocolatier while the heartbreak of Tareq’s sister left behind in Syria weighs heavily on the family.

Nevertheless, Tareq remains set on his goals, buoyed by a supportive community of eclectics. As father and son both struggle to find common ground and navigate the complexities of family duty, the heightening tension between them threatens to tear the family apart.

Based on the internationally recognized true story.

Wednesday, November 9th | Sponsored by Muskoka Natural Food Market

A bundle of good humour and nervous energy, Ali (Adeel Akhtar) is a British Pakistani working-class landlord. Ava (Claire Rushbrook), is an Irish-born teacher and single mother of five. They bond almost instantly through their love of music. Despite their divergent backgrounds, differences in their stages of life, and despite the fact of Ali’s failing marriage and Ava’s fraught relationship with her adult and adolescent children, they find themselves irresistibly drawn to each other. But can their mutual desire transcend a barrage of personal obstacles?

Official Trailer for Ali & Ava

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RY9rkqQTJI