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• The Outdoor Film Experience allows for a little rain, films will screen the following night.

First it was Bill Murray, then it was Johnny Depp, now Steven Spielberg joins the crew of men honoured at the Outdoor Film Experience (rebranded after 12 years from alFresco filmFesto).

While I've no doubt that Spielberg will bring out the punters (I've been watching a lot of Kitchen Nightmares lately), in light of this week's heavily shared, heavily amazing article by Linda Holmes for NPR.org, I admit I had my heart set on a Summer of Streep. I will take solace in the fact that Jurassic Park is a) awesome and b) passes the Bechdel Test.

The location: A 30-foot inflatable screen at the end of the Halifax Waterfront Boardwalk (near the Halifax Seaport Farmer’s Market)

The schedule:


Friday, July 19: E.T. The Extra Terrestrial, 1982, 115min (Rated PG)
Friday, July 26: Raiders of the Lost Ark, 1981,115min (Rated PG) 

Friday, August 2: Jaws, 1975, 124min (Rated PG) 

Friday, August 9: Catch Me If You Can, 2001, 142min (Rated PG) 

Friday, August 16: Jurassic Park, 1993, 127min (Rated PG)
Friday, August 23: People’s Choice vote between Minority Report, War of the Worlds, and Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
*Vote on Facebook by noon, August 16th. The winning film will be announced just before the Jurassic Park screening.

This year, before each film, the Outdoor Film Experience (I don't fear change but this name is kinda tough to Google) will screen an Atlantic Canadian produced short film. This is a joint presentation with CBC, called Summer Shorts.

As always, bring your blankets and chairs, screenings start at dusk and gates will open one-hour prior. In the case of rain, films will screen the following evening. Please check for rain date updates at atlanticfilm.com/festivals/aff-ofe/outdoor-film-experience.

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• How could you say no?

OUTeast is planning a reel-y amazing event this year! The second annual OUTeast Queer Film Festival will be taking Halifax by storm June 20-23 at the Neptune Studio Theatre and this year they’ve added something new to their Saturday night festivities—a prom.

Saturday June 22, 10pm, the Atrium in Citadel High School will transform for the BGF: Big Gay Prom.

Festival producer Andria Wilson is feeling enthusiastic about the new addition to the festival.

“It’s a really big step for us to throw a large scale event like that,” says Wilson. “Leading up to this we’ve been doing partner events in terms of our special events but this is really our party.”

The prom will take place after one of Wilson’s favorite films in the festival G.B.F., Gay Best Friend. The film is a comedy directed by Darren Stein and written by George Northy about a boy who thinks his life is over when he is outed to his classmates. However, soon the queen bees of the school take her under their wing in competition to have their very own gay best friend.

This year’s festival will also feature screenings of a broad range of documentaries about the infamous Divine, I Am Divine, to the French film Les Invisibles (The Invisible Ones). The festival will even be showing a film directed by and featuring James Franco, Interior. Leather Bar.

“This year’s lineup is a real growth from where we were last year,” says Wilson. “The way I feel about this year’s program is that it’s really a sure thing. Anything you go to is going to give you a special experience and it’s going to give you something to talk about when you leave the theatre and that’s what’s most important to me.”

Screening tickets can be purchased at the Neptune Theatre Box Office and festival passes are available online at outeastfilm.com and Venus Envy. Special event tickets can be purchased at Venus Envy as well.

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• A still from Red Horizon's trailer

Kris Booth, Frances Leary and Andrea McCullough are the team of three who are representing Nova Scotia in the first annual CineCoup film competition as one of the top 10 finalist teams with their film Red Horizon.

 In its first year, the CineCoup competition has selected 10 feature film projects, piloted by Canadian directors, which are currently being packaged and promoted in hopes of winning the final prize of a $1,000,000 production budget and a financed Cineplex release. CineCoup is hopeful they will be able to help find funding for all nine projects, but there can only be one winner.

 The competition is currently in its tenth week and for their film,Red Horizon, the Nova Scotian trio have already completed nine of the “missions” necessary for the competition, including a trailer.

 Red Horizon, described as being an “actor-driven piece” with Hitchcock-like elements, will be a psychological thriller set in a spaceship while six best friends begin to turn on each other. As part of the CineCoup competition, whether Red Horizon wins will be dictated by the audiences’ reaction.

 Aiming to get people participating in Canadian film, the competition watches how the audience engages with the videos from the film projects, particularly through social media as they also monitor conversations outside of the competition website to help narrow down the competition.

 An online vote will be opening on the CineCoup website on May 30th and will be open until June 3rd to cut out five of the current competing film projects.

 You may be asking, why is their only one Nova Scotia team representing?

Despite having had 50 RSVPs, when the CineCoup cross-country tour came to The Hart & Thistle Gastropub back in February, according to Booth, the writer and director of Red Horizon, the turnout for the event was not great and led to Red Horizon being one of the few submissions from the east coast.

 Both Booth and Leary, who is the marketing strategist for the team, say being one of the few Nova Scotian teams to enter the contest has been an advantage, but they hope next year more teams will enter.

 “It’s been fun building a relationship with the film community,” says Leary. They’re quick to confirm if they win, their film will be made in Nova Scotia, completely under the one million dollar budget.

 Both are intent on emphasizing the fact that as much as they want to win, for them, the competition is about making people more aware of the Canadian film industry.

 “I have this shirt that says ‘Canadian is not a genre’,” says Booth, and adds that for him, it’s more then just a t-shirt. He clarifies, “To me, a Canadian film is a film made by a Canadian”.

 Thinking about submitting something next year? Booth’s advice to filmmakers thinking of entering the competition for next year is as follows, “Believe in the process and go in being truthful to who you are and have enthusiasm for the movie you want to make”.

 Leary adds in, “Be willing to take risks and have fun. You can’t take yourself too seriously”.    The winning film project will be screened in January 2014

Watch the Red Horizon trailer below

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Spend a day at the movies this weekend, why don't you? Director Jason Buxton's Blackbird is thankfully still showing at Empire Theatre Park Lane, and after the Saturday, May 18 evening showing (6:20pm), Buxton will be hosting a Q&A so you can get right down to the business of picking a director's brain. Film buffs, unite.

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• This is totally me when I row 400 metres at the gym.

Lost at sea. Everyone in Nova Scotia knows exactly what those words mean. We’ve seen lives changed by it and families left waiting, desperate for any hope of their loved ones' safe return.

The Disappeared is the story of six men lost at sea, stranded in two lifeboats and their attempt to get back to shore. The film looks at what happens in the aftermath of the ship sinking. Drifting along in two small lifeboats, these men see everything stripped away from them, until all that remains is the sea.

It’s frightening to watch these men struggle to keep moving forward. Without any sign of help or land to speak of and the vastness of the ocean all around them is terrifying in its emptiness. A cheerful feel-good movie this is not, but it’s a cathartic experience without parallel for a Maritime community.

Shandi Mitchell is an east coast native and the writer and director of this film. Currently rooted in Nova Scotia, the filming of The Disappeared took place in Lunenburg. Mitchell said she knew the movie could be filmed nowhere else. “I always knew we’d be shooting it out here," says Mitchell. "For me it had to be the sea. It was a very powerful experience to shoot it with people whose lives are the sea.”

The film opens locally for the first time on Friday, April 19 at Empire Theatres Park Lane. If you didn’t get a chance to see it at the Atlantic Film Festival, this is your chance.

The film has garnered much critical acclaim. It sold out for its Atlantic Film Festival and St. John’s International Women’s Film Festival showings. Since then The Disappeared has made a nine-stop tour across Canada and almost every film critic has praised the powerful themes of the movie.

Mitchell is looking forward to the theatrical release and seeing Halifax’s response to a film that hits so close to home. “I think our stories are important, and this is our story. It’s a story of the sea, it’s an east coast story. I hope that they enter the ocean with us and they feel that we got something right with this telling of it.”

After the screening on Friday, a Q&A session will take place, hosted by the First Weekend Club. Mitchell and actors Brian Downey, Gary Levert, Neil Matheson along with select members of the film’s crew will field questions from the audience. A reception will follow at the Victory Arms Pub

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• William MacGillivray

Filmmaking: it hasn’t always been as easy as the Vine app. When William MacGillivray started out, making moving pictures required lots of money and more equipment than an iPhone. “In the 1970s, the only filmmaking being done was by the province of Nova Scotia in their little office, or the National Film Board—but there was no place for independent film, nowhere you could make a film about anything you wanted,” he says. MacGillivray was one of the founding members of the Atlantic Filmmaker’s Cooperative, AFCOOP, in 1973. Since then, he’s made dozens of films and has seen big changes in the filmmaking industry. “Back then you couldn’t just make a film to be a filmmaker, you had to be very dedicated,” he says. “We really helped each other learn to make films with an independent voice.” This year, the St. John’s native won the Governor General’s Award for Visual and Media Arts. Currently in Ottawa for rounds of ceremonial brouhaha, MacGillivray is thankful to have been able to build a life around telling the stories of Atlantic Canada. “Something I’ve tried to do over my career is stay true to where I’m from… people ask me why I don’t move to Toronto, but I’m staying right where I am.”

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• <3 Bruce Campbell <3

Thrillema, Halifax’s premiere horror/sci-fi/exploitation film night has come back from the dead. Thanks to a reanimation from dedicated film lovers at Carbon Arc Cinema, you too can scream in delight as you watch classic genre movies. Originally started as a screening series by cinephile friends Adam Perry and Jason Eisener, Thrillema went on hiatus when their Dartmouth venue closed its doors. Eisener got busy working on his own film work, and Perry has his hands full running The Last Game Store, so Thrillema fell by the wayside. But film fan (and Coast reviewer) Dave Howlett saw an opportunity to bring it back after Strange Adventures and Carbon Arc hosted a screening of The Rocketeer. “I approached Adam and Jason to see about resurrecting it, and they very graciously gave us their blessing to do so,” says Howlett.

Howlett, along with Siloen Daley and Lauren Oostveen from Carbon Arc Cinema Group are programming the upcoming selections, and are starting off the series with a bang: Sam Raimi’s 1981 classic, Evil Dead (March 27, 7pm at Carbon Arc Cinema, 1747 Summer Street). “Lauren and I are both pretty avid horror movie fans,” says Howlett, “and we both really wanted to revisit the original Evil Dead before the remake is released—preferably with a big, rowdy group, which is always the best way to experience that type of movie.” Upcoming screenings include Ted Kotcheff’s 1971 Wake In Fright and Miami Connection, a film described by Howlett as “a cult gem from 1987 that features a multi-ethnic rock group battling coke-dealing ninjas.” Genius.

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It's Friday, treat yourself to a supremely enjoyable 10 minutes watching all of the videos posted on somewhereinnovascotia.tumblr.com/. Because what was I JUST saying?

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• The Liars in question

I can't help myself, I love mentions of Halifax or Nova Scotia in US pop culture. It's my number one favourite thing next to how Americans pronounce "Montreal". Also, you and I both know that a typical Pennsylvanian teen's response to "Spain, maybe... Halifax" is not "Halifax! Why there?" but "Halifax? Is that in Europe?". I suspend my disbelief mostly because I like the way he tries he cram that box of Cocoa Spheres into a backpack before giving up.

Thanks to Jacob Boon for the tip.

And here's another one from last Thursday's Vampire Diaries! My cup runneth over. "Obscure, desolate island"? We've got those. And do they mean Sable Island? Won't the vampire kill the ponies? Continuity, people.

And you can thank Lindsay Raining Bird for this one.

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• Putney Swope

Dalhousie Art Gallery’s African History Month free film series, curated by Ron Foley Macdonald, kicked off yesterday, continuing every week at 8pm until the end of the month (6101 University Ave). If you know what’s good, you won’t sleep on this one, last Tuesday featured The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975, next week is Melvin Van Peebles’ Story of a 3-Day Pass, and we’re particularly excited for February 19’s feature Putney Swope, described as “Mad Men taken over by the Black Panthers” (UM YES). The series finishes with Ava DuVernay’s I Will Follow on February 26.

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• Roughhousing? You'd better believe that's a Detention

In honour of the Canadian Council of the Blind’s White Cane Week (and, you know, fun) Accessible Media Inc’s Ryan Delehanty and Detention writer Mark Palermo present two special screenings of Joseph Kahn and Palermo’s Detention to kick off Carbon Arc’s new 2013 program.

The first screening (7pm) is a descriptive video screening for the visually-impaired, featuring additional narration. The second screening (9:15pm) is with the film’s original audio track.

“There's something exciting about art forms cutting through the boundaries we imagine separate us,” says Palermo, who will be in attendance for Q&A after the screenings. “Detention may focus on 21st century kids, but that isn't the limit of the audience that would relate to it or enjoy it. When Ryan presented the idea of this screening to me, it seemed like such an inclusive thing to do with a film that's obviously very close to me, so I was immediately on board.”

Detention, starring The Hunger Games’ Josh Hutcherson, is a genre mishmash. Comedy, horror, sci-fi, manic teen films—it’s got it all, and this screening includes an elegant English accent to boot.

Delehanty says descriptive video tracks occur less often in North America, so he was pleasantly surprised to find out a track was included on Detention. The Blu-Ray for the film was produced in England, where European accessibility-related broadcasting requirements are stricter, causing studios to be more proactive. 

“Blind and low-vision Haligonians have few, if any, opportunities to enjoy a movie at the theatre in an accessible format,” says Delehanty. “Detention is definitely a movie best enjoyed at a big, public screening with an enthusiastic crowd. I was really excited by the idea of having a fully-inclusive showing with a diverse audience who wouldn't normally have the chance to gather and enjoy a film together.”

“It's worth seeing, especially if you've seen the movie before, because it adds another dimension to a movie that's very meta,” says Palermo. “The guy who does it does a great job. He's English, so this wild North American pop genrefuck film takes on an esteemed Mike Leigh quality.”

Proud film dad Palermo is especially happy to screen the film closer to home after the film’s original opening in April. “It’s my kid. I'm happy for it to be off at school and making its own friends, but sometimes I need to go to the PTA meetings and make sure it isn't being dealt meth and is being treated right,” says Palermo. “When it opened in April it played out in Bayers Lake, so I'm happy to bring the movie closer to downtown for a couple screenings.” 

Catch Detention on Friday, February 1, 7pm (descriptive track screening) and 9:15pm, $7 at the accessible auditorium of Museum of Natural History, 1747 Summer Street.

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• I wish I had this one.

You’ve got stacks on stacks on stacks of ‘em, and nothing quite matches up to the nostalgic feeling of adjusting the tracking, so dig out your old VHS for a cool idea from the Atlantic Filmmakers Cooperative and SMU film and media studies professor Jennifer VanderBurgh. AFCOOP is compiling a found footage VHS project—called Home Bodies—as part of the Halifax Independent Film Festival (also seeking entries until February 15), taking place this April. Submit your home videos and VHS ephemera to be included in a compilation which will screen at the festival.

“We are interested in off-broadcast TV recordings and homemade projects (home movies) recorded on VHS,” according to the press release. “Videotapes used for training and promotion are also welcome. Together, we will see what VHS remembers.”

Submit entries (in person or by post) with contact information to AFCOOP, attention Martha Cooley, 5663 Cornwallis, Suite 101, Halifax, B3K 1B6. Deadline for submissions is February 20.

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• The Umbrellas of Cherbourg bring May flowers

Beginning tonight, Nouvelle Vague Landmarks: The French New Wave and the reach for new cinematic expression, Dalhousie Art Gallery's weekly free Wednesday night film series (8pm at the Dalhousie Art Gallery, 6101 University Avenue) covers the wide, weird and wonderful ground of the most fashionable of all film movements, French New Wave.

Film and video curator Ron Foley Macdonald presents a selection of sentimental, campy and riveting films, as well as a lecture titled "The French New Wave: The Generation of Change" (Thursday, February 7, 8pm, free) providing an "overview of the major figures, context and films of the French New Wave and its impact on the cinema and popular culture overall, with examples from the works of Godard, Varda, Marker and Truffaut."

Commit this schedule to memory/start styling your hair now.

23 January - Elevator to the Gallows
Louis Malle, 1957, 88 minutes. With an uber-cool soundtrack improvised by Miles Davis, Malle’s dramatic debut follows two murder stories that intersect ironically while the director charts the new postwar attitude of emotional and existential detachment.

30 January - Les Cousins
Claude Chabrol, 1958, 112 minutes. The first big hit of the Nouvelle Vague sees director Chabrol following the ambivalence of pre-’60s young people as they struggle and celebrate through the new moral relativism infecting the Paris college scene.

6 February - Hiroshima mon amour
Alain Resnais, 1959, 90 minutes. Written with the author Marguerite Duras, this landmark New Wave film obliquely examines the collision between a female WWII collaborator and an A-bomb survivor.

13 February – Breathless
Jean-Luc Godard, 1960, 90 minutes. The breezy and definitive ode to American B-movies, Breathless tells the tale of a small-time hood on the run involved with a young American woman selling the Herald Tribune on the streets of Paris.

20 February - Last Year at Marienbad
Alain Resnais, 1961, 91 minutes. Working with the Nouveau Roman author Alain Robbe-Grillet, director Resnais fashions a quizzical but ultimately elemental essay on memory, place and the passage of time in this opaque, often perplexing classic.

27 February - Jules and Jim
François Truffaut, 1962, 105 minutes. This brisk three-way love story covers nearly twenty years of European history while capturing the enduring yet ephemeral nature of desire. Jeanne Moreau, Oskar Werner and Henri Serre star.

20 March - Le joli mai
Chris Marker, 1963, 165 minutes. A documentary meditation on the state of Paris–and France itself–just after the end of the bitter Algerian War of Independence, Le joli mai extols the art of personal non-fiction filmmaking.

27 March - The Umbrellas of Cherbourg
Jacques Demy, 1964, 91 minutes. The startlingly colourful landmark musical sees the luminous Catherine Deneuve singing her way through a two-part love affair in the famous port city of the title.

3 April - Paris vu par
Chabrol, Douchet, Godard, Pollet, Rohmer and Rouch, 1965, 95 minutes. Produced by Barbet Schroeder, Six in Paris lets a half-dozen directors profile different neighbourhoods through six diminutive dramas and comedies.

10 April - La Collectionneuse
Eric Rohmer, 1967, 89 minutes. One of the Six Moral Tales that made director Rohmer’s reputation, La Collectionneuse looks at a brief, self-conscious coupling between a jaded art reseller and a free-willed young woman at a seaside getaway in the South of France.

17 April – Barbarella
Roger Vadim, 1968, 98 minutes. Jane Fonda is unveiled–literally–in this campy romp written by Terry Southern that sees sexuality and Science Fiction blend in a wild futuristic vision.

24 April - Celine and Julie go Boating
Jacques Rivette, 1974, 193 minutes. Rivette’s most famous film follows two twentysomething young women as they explore magic and a possibly enchanted house in Paris in the early 1970s.

1 May – Daguerréotypes
Agnès Varda, 1975, 80 minutes. A documentary portrait of a lesser-known Paris neighbourhood, Daguerréotypes plays particular and loving attention to the sharply etched characters that populate the street corners.

8 May - The Story of Adele H.
François Truffaut, 1975, 96 minutes. Set partially in Halifax, Truffaut’s late feature recalls the tragic life of legendary author Victor Hugo’s daughter and her doomed love affair with a callous officer.

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• Patricia shows Michel how many times I jumped for joy when I heard about this series.

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• Nominate the Lena Dunham in your life.

Nomination fever continues with Women Making Waves seeking worthy candidates for their third annual event. Women in Film and Television - Atlantic (WIFT-AT) takes place March 15-17 in Halifax, and honours outstanding women with The Wave Awards. Nomination deadline is Tuesday, February 5 and nominations can be submitted by emailing awards.wift.at@gmail.com. “The Wave Awards are all about recognizing noteworthy women in the field,” says event co-chair Andrea Levesque. “There are no categories—the goal is to salute women for their remarkable contributions, accomplishments, emerging talent, vision, leadership, dedication and behind-the-scenes support. She could be a producer, a set designer, a make-up artist or bookkeeper.”