ACTRA Toronto members are in the spotlight again at the 2023 Cinéfest Sudbury!
From September 16 to 24, Cinéfest Sudbury will showcase 13 ACTRA Toronto feature films and two short films across various genres.
Below you’ll find a round-up of ACTRA Toronto productions at this year’s festival and the talented casts of ACTRA Toronto Members who bring these stories to life.
BACKSPOT
Riley (Jacobs), a mid-level cheerleader, is given an opportunity to cheer with the All-Star team Thunderhawks. With a competition looming, Riley must navigate her crippling anxiety, her relationship with her girlfriend, and her desperate need for approval from her new coach, Eileen (Wood). Backspot stars lead actress Devery Jacobs, best known for her work on the FX television series Reservation Dogs.
Featuring: Devery Jacobs, Kudakwashe Rutendo, Noa DiBerto, Emmerly Tinglin, Thomas Anthony Olajide, Don Stickford, Adrianna Di Liello, Wendy Crewson and Olunike Adeliyi.
Premieres Wednesday, September 20 at 12:30 p.m.
BANG BANG
Two romantics tangled up in a torrid relationship plot murder against each other. Bang Bang was partially shot in North Bay, Ontario.
Featuring: Alino Giraldi and Zara Jestadt.
Part of Short Circuit III: Style and Substance. Premieres Friday, September 22 at 12:30 p.m.
BETTER DAYS
After Kate’s (Smits) husband of over thirty years dies, she withdraws into a world of vodka and grief—and Halloween costumes. Her husband loved Halloween, and Kate takes comfort in wearing his old costumes. When she befriends three lonely teenagers who share her enthusiasm for dressing up, her friends and family are appalled. Alarmed by her increasing recklessness, they insist she go back to the woman she was—just as she is discovering the woman she might become. Better Days was filmed in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario.
Featuring: Greg Calderone, Sara Hinding, Alix Sideris, Sonja Smits, Sugenja Sri and Robert Blair Williams.
Premieres Tuesday, September 19 at 1:30 p.m.
BOAT PEOPLE
As a child in Vietnam, Thao’s mother often rescued ants from bowls of sugar water. Years later they would return the favour. Boat People is an animated documentary that uses a striking metaphor to trace one family’s flight across the turbulent waters of history.
Part of Short Circuit IV: Animation and Imagination. Premieres Tuesday, September 19 at 10 a.m.
THE BOY IN THE WOODS
Based on the remarkable true-life survival story, The Boy in the Woods follows Max (Klyne), a Jewish boy hiding in the forests of Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe during WWII. Max is an aspiring artist who escapes death when his selfless mother tells him to run away from the Nazi trucks which they are about to board. He befriends a farmer, Jasko (Armitage), and his family, who take him in. But with mounting pressure from the police and fear for his own family’s life, Jasko is forced to turn Max away. The Boy in the Woods is based on the memoir of the same name by Maxwell Smart.
Featuring: Alex Appel, Brendan Beiser, Paul K. Braunstein, Jonathan Eliot, David Ferry, Katherine Fogler, Sochi Fried, David Gale, David Kohlsmith, Masa Lizdek, Ari Millen, Tara Nicodemo, Josh Peace, Shaina Silver-Baird, Berkley Silverman, Johnathan Sousa, Theresa Tova, Jonathan Watton, Eric Weinthal, David Winnett Lewis (stunt coordinator) and Don Stockford (stunt coordinator).
Premieres Friday, September 22 at 7 p.m.
CAFÉ DAUGHTER
Inspired by true events, Café Daughter tells the story of a nine year old half-Chinese half-Cree girl, Yvette Wong (McArthur). On top of struggling to find her place in a small Saskatchewan community in the 1960s, she is also faced with the passing of her mother, who always told her children not to let anyone know they were Native Indian, as she believed they would have a better life if this information was kept hidden. Yvette confronts racism on the prairies in the classroom, with teachers and fellow students letting her know she is different from them. Despite wanting to be a doctor, her teacher tells states that girls can’t be doctors, and that maybe she would be better suited as a nurse. Yvette begins to explore and embrace her Cree identity when she befriends Maggie Wolf (Walker), a part Mi’kmaq girl who encourages Yvette to be proud of her ancestry. When her Cree ancestry is revealed at school, Yvette confronts discrimination, but perseveres to pursue her dream of going to medical school. Café Daughter was filmed in Sudbury, Ontario.
Featuring: Joanne Boland, Blair Lamora, Evan Lau, Sera-Lys McArthur, Billy Merasty, Star Slade and Tommy Chang (stunt coordinator).
Premieres Friday, September 22 at 2 p.m.
FITTING IN
A coming-of-age “traumedy” that follows 16-year-old Lindy (Ziegler) who is unexpectedly diagnosed with a reproductive condition known as MRKH syndrome. The diagnosis upends her plans to have sex, her presumptions about womanhood and sexuality, her relationship with her mother (Emily Hampshire), and most importantly, herself. Writer/director Molly McGlynn’s previous film Mary Goes Round screened at Cinéfest in 2017. Fitting In was filmed in Sudbury, Ontario and also screened earlier this year at the South by Southwest (SXSW) Film Festival under its former title Bloody Hell.
Featuring: Emily Hampshire, D’Pharaoh Woon-a-tai, Dale A Whibly, Kataem O’Connor, Vivien Endicott-Douglas, Emma Hunter, Michael Therriault and Rhoslynne Bugay.
Premieres Monday, September 18 at 8 p.m.
IRENA’S VOW
Through the eyes of a strong-willed woman comes the remarkable true story of Irena Gut Opdyke (Nélisse) and the triumphs of the human spirit over devastating tragedy. 19-year-old Irena Gut is promoted to housekeeper in the home of a highly respected Nazi officer in Poland when she finds out that the Jewish ghetto is about to be liquidated. Determined to help 12 Jewish workers, she decides to shelter them in the safest place she can think of—the basement of the German Major’s house. Over the next eight months, Irena uses her wit, humour, and immense courage to hide her friends as long as possible.
Featuring: John Nelles.
Premieres Saturday, September 23 at 4:30 p.m.
MY ANIMAL
Living in a small and constrictive northern town, Heather (Menuez) is in a constant life struggle being around an alcoholic mother, forced to sit on the sidelines of the hockey team she desperately wishes to join on the rink, and being unable to leave the confines of her home during each full moon. When an intriguing and alluring figure skater named Jonny (Stenberg) enters the rink, Heather’s life, sexuality, and personal identity are pried wide open, exposing a growing desire that clashes with her darkest secret and forces her to try to control the animal that resides within her. My Animal was filmed in Timmins, Ontario.
Featuring: Charles Fox Halpenny, Harrison Halpenny, Cory Lipman, Bill MacDonald, Dean McDermott, Stephen McHattie, Scott Thompson, Heidi von Palleske and Don Stockford (stunt coordinator).
Premieres Saturday, September 23 at 9:30 p.m.
ORAH
Orah (Oladejo), a Nigerian immigrant taxi driver in Toronto, agrees to launder dirty money for her boss (Bedard) in exchange for bringing her son over from Nigeria. When the plan goes horribly wrong, Orah takes matters into her own hands to settle the score. Orah was partially filmed in Sudbury, Ontario.
Featuring: Morgan Bedard, Lucky Onyekachi Ejim, Somkele Iyamah Idhalama, Femi Lawson, Oyin Oladejo, Christopher Seivright, OC Ukeje and Susie Bianco (stunt coordinator).
Premieres Saturday, September 23 at 4 p.m.
PURGATORY JACK
Purgatory Jack is a neo-noir mystery thriller set against the backdrop of Purgatory, a dirty, dangerous, and destitute landscape run by outlaws and outcasts. Former musician turned grizzled private detective Jack Marlin (Rozon), has a new case and it’s helping new arrival Viv Vacious (Beaton), a punk pop star who accidentally overdosed, find her mother who committed suicide twenty years earlier. Despite being murdered in cold blood, Jack found himself in Purgatory, and now Viv may be the key to unlocking his own mystery. But in an afterworld where blood is the drug and the only ones carrying it are the new arrivals (with a ticking clock of 72 hours), Jack has more to handle while Viv races against death. By outwitting the outlaws, these two musicians from clashing eras will unlock the conspiracy behind the curtains of hell’s waiting room and discover why blood is more than a drug in this hard boiler from the Butler Brothers.
Featuring: Emily Alatalo, Alexandra Beaton, Joel Gagne and Dillon Jagersky (stunt coordinator).
Premieres Thursday, September 21 at 9:30 p.m.
SEVEN VEILS
Jeanine (Seyfried), an earnest theater director, has the task of remounting her former mentor’s most famous work, the opera Salome. Some disturbing memories from her past will allow her repressed trauma to color the present. Acclaimed Canadian writer/director Atom Egoyan has screened several films at Cinéfest, including The Sweethereafter, Remember, and Guest of Honor. Seven Veils reunites Atom Egoyan with Amanda Seyfriend after previously working together on Chloe, which also screened at Cinéfest in 2009.
Featuring: Rebecca Liddiard, Douglas Smith, Tara Nicodemo and Vinessa Antoine.
Premieres Saturday, September 23 at 3 p.m.
SUZE
Suze follows the emotional rollercoaster of single mother Suze (Watkins) after her only daughter leaves for university on the other side of the country. Suddenly feeling like she no longer has purpose, Suze quickly finds herself taking care of her daughter’s heartbroken ex-boyfriend who she can’t stand. Suze was filmed in Hamilton, Ontario, and stars actor Charlie Gillespie who also starred in The Rest of Us, which screened at Cinéfest as a Gala Film Presentation in 2019.
Featuring: Aaron Ashmore, Rainbow Sun Francks, Charlie Gillespie, Sandy Jobin-Bevans, Sara Waisglass, Sorika Wolf and Don Stockford (stunt coordinator).
Premieres Sunday, September 17 at 12:30 p.m.
SWAN SONG
Swan Song is an immersive look inside The National Ballet of Canada, as it mounts a legacy-defining new production of Swan Lake, directed by ballet icon Karen Kain on the eve of her retirement. With full access to the creative process, the film delves into the lives of the dancers as they push themselves to their limits to stage one of the most significant nights in their careers and company history. Swan Song was executive produced by Canadian actress Neve Campbell, most famously known for her work in 1997’s The Craft, the Scream franchise, and 1998’s Wild Things.
Featuring: Tomas Schramek, Chelsy Meiss, Stephanie Hutchison, Jenna Savella and Antonela Martinelli.
Premieres Saturday, September 16 at 7 p.m.
WARRIOR STRONG
When Bilal Irving (Johnson-Hinds) left his small hometown bound for a basketball career worthy of his phenom status, he was sure he would never return. But with his recent suspension from the Chinese league, he finds himself desperate for an opportunity to repair his image, and what could change a “coach-killer” narrative more than returning home to coach his old high school team?
Featuring: Macaulee Cassaday, Thomas-Dylan Cook, Keenan Grom, Aidan Kalechstein, Stephen Kalyn, Julian Young and Flint Eagle (stunt coordinator).
Premieres Monday, September 18 at 4:30 p.m.
Photos and capsule descriptions courtesy of Cinéfest Sudbury.
