
The 14th annual Halifax Independent Filmmakers Festival (HIFF) is free and online starting today and running to Nov. 15.
Produced by the Atlantic Filmmakers Cooperative, it includes a 14-hour film shown in three parts, Atlantic Canadian shorts, a Centre for Art Tapes digital art tour and 10 Canadian and international feature films. (To view the full program and select tickets go to: https://watch.eventive.org.)
United Kingdom director Mark Jenkin’s BAFTA-nominated film Bait is shot entirely in black and white and on 16mm film and hand-processed. It’s about a Cornwall fishing village where the local citizens are crowded out by tourists.
Other feature films are: Belonging (Turkey), Burak Çevik’s story of family murder told from different sides; The Giverny Document (Single Channel) (USA), Ja’Tovia Gary’s “incendiary” work exploring a history of racism, violence and the objectification of Black women’s bodies while also celebrating Black women’s strength, and La Flor (Mariano Llinás) (Argentina), a 14-hour film shown in three parts and premiering tonight, 11.59 p.m., to run throughout the festival.

Also created for the big screen are: L.A. Tea Time (Canada) Sophie Bédard Marcotte’s road movie starring herself as a filmmaker driving to Los Angeles to meet Miranda July; Tapeworm (Canada), a black comedy from Milos Mitrovic and Fabian Velasco about “a man in an unhappy marriage, a failed stand-up comedian, a stoner couple, and a loner;” according to a press release; So Pretty (USA), about four queer and trans youths in New York, with director and co-star Jessica Dunn Rovinelli; and This Is Not a Burial…It’s A Resurrection (Lesotho/South Africa/Italy), the story of a widow finding the passion to get her community to fight against forced resettlement. This film, directed by Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese, won the Special Jury Award at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival.

L.A. Tea Time (Canada) is Sophie Bédard Marcotte’s road movie starring herself as a filmmaker driving to Los Angeles with the hope of meeting Miranda July.
HIFF also features the Emerging Lens 10th Anniversary Retrospective, the Atlantic Auteurs program of short films including The Irving Tower by Olivia King, Bedtime by James MacSwain and Slip: A Prelude by Jenna Marks and, in association with the Centre For Art Tapes and ARt@LARGE, The Unseen, an app-based augmented reality project.
In their work artists Carrie Allison, Israel Ekanem, Annik Gaudet, Merle Harley and Wren Morris look at connection, community, identity and intimacy. All the works can be located and accessed using the LARGE app (available from the Apple app store or Google Play store) from within a 10-kilometre radius. People may visit sites in Halifax and Dartmouth where artists have planted their work or look at the work remotely.
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