The Olympics may be done, but the Celebrate Canada theme will continue with the 18th annual Kamloops Film Festival, which opens at the Paramount Theatre on Thursday, March 6.
Among the Canadian works the festival society has opted for this year are:
• Oil Sands Karaoke, filmed in Fort McMurray, focuses on some of the people who work in the Athabasca tar sands as they prepare for a karaoke contest at Bailey’s Pub, a popular gathering place in the Stonebridge Hotel.
The 83-minute film looks at five oil-patch workers, why they work there, what they think of the controversy — and why they want to win the karaoke contest.
• Sex After Kids, starring Paul Amos and Shannon Beckner as newlyweds trying to adjust to a new baby, with various other parents weighing in with their own advice.
• Cas & Dylan, directed by Jason Priestley, is a comedy/drama about a dying doctor (Richard Dreyfuss) who somehow ends up on the run with a 22-year-old (Tatiana Maslany). The movie won the Audience Award at the Whistler Film Festival.
• If I Had Wings was shot in Langley and stars Richard Harmon as a teen who dreams of joining his school’s cross-country track team and of flying. Neither seem likely because he has been blind since he was two years old. With the help of a First Nations youth, the teen faces his challenges.
• Whitewash stars Thomas Haden Church as a snowplow operator who accidentally kills a man during a drunken joyride. He hides the body and goes on the run from authorities — and his own conscience.
• The Husband is about Henry (Maxwell McCabe-Lokos), who must look after his infant son after his wife (Sarah Allen) is sent to prison for cheating on him with a 14-year-old. Henry accidentally meets the youth and it sends him spiralling into disaster.
• No Clue stars Brent Butt as a detective trying to help a femme fatale (Amy Smart) find her missing brother.
• Siddharth is the story of a man who sends his young son out for work, but learns the boy has been kidnapped by child traffickers. He sets out across India to rescue his child.
• That Burning Feeling is a comedy about a real-estate hotshot coming to terms with a social disease he somehow acquired during one of his one-night stands. The movie shared the Best Canadian Feature award at the Vancouver International Film Festival with Rhymes for Young Ghouls.
Other films on the schedule include:
• The Broken Circle Breakdown, a Belgium/Netherlands production about a couple who love each other despite their many differences. Their daughter becomes seriously ill and their love is challenged.
• Le Week-End, a British comedy/drama, stars Jim Broadbent and Lindsay Duncan as a couple trying to put the spark back in their marriage by a trip to Paris on their 30th wedding anniversary — where they run into an old friend (Jeff Goldblum).
• The Past, a France/Italy production of an Iranian man who leaves his French wife and their children to return to his homeland. He returns when his wife, who has begun dating an Arab, files for divorce.
The film was nominated for one of the top prizes at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival and was nominated for best foreign-language film in this year’s Golden Globe Awards.
• Gloria, a Spain/Chile production, is about a free-spirited, but lonely, woman who meets a man at a dance club. It has been nominated in the foreign-language category in this year’s Academy Awards.
• Finding Vivian Maier, directed by John Maloof and Charlie Siskel, is the story of a street photographer whose work, more than 100,000 photographs, was not discovered until her death in 2009.
Tickets are at Bookland (685 Tranquille Rd.), Moviemart (520 Seymour St.) and the student-union desk in the Campus Activity Centre at Thompson Rivers University.
The Paramount Theatre, 503 Victoria St., will screen all films.
