Ottawa Canadian Film Festival

OCanFilmFest2018 Kick-off

Join us and our hosts SAW Video at a free event at the Knot project space (2 Daly Avenue, Ottawa) on Saturday September 8th at 5pm where we will be sharing the line-up of films selected for our 2018 festival. Click here for more information.

News/OCanFilmFest2018

Local Ottawa Showcase – Lesley Marshall

Her life in the arts started young, and her perseverance to see projects and ideas come off the ground is sure encouragement for any filmmaker. It was a wonderful opportunity for Ocan Film festival to hear first hand from Lesley Marshall in an artist talk hosted by Isabel Barsive in June.

Guest blog/OCanFilmFest Talks/Ottawa Filmmakers

Boost

Montreal director Darren Curtis’ Boost is a gritty feature film about Hakeem (Nabil Rajo), the teenage son of east African immigrant parents living in Montreal’s tough Parc-Ex neighbourhood and his best friend ‘A-Mac’ (Jahmil French) who become entangled with the mob after stealing a car.

Canadian Films

Spotlight: Cape Breton Film

Cape Breton Island has been showcased as a top tourist destination in Canada for many years. A great deal of chatter has been for it’s incredibly stunning landscapes and charm.

Guest blog

Finding Peter Bryce: Story of a National Crime

Growing up, all Andy Bryce knew about his great-grandfather was that he wrote the first health code in Canada, and he lived in a big house in Ottawa. But that all changed the day Andy opened a box of family memorabilia that his mother had left for him when she died.

Canadian Films

8 Minutes Ahead – Ben Hoskyn

Canadian film needs the encouragement Ben Hoskyn’s brings to the table with this feature. What is also a message from Hoskyn’s, is that no matter the time it takes to make a film, make it.

Guest blog

Rise

“They’re not just Native issues – they affect everybody. Our water’s not for sale; our land is not for sale. We were the original stewards of that land, and we have to be able to protect it.” — Rise director Michelle Latimer

Canadian Films

Werewolf – Ashley MacKenzie

As a fellow Cape Bretoner, seeing a film of this caliber made about life on the Island made me very excited for the future of film in Cape Breton.

Guest blog

Never Steady, Never Still

A woman with Parkinson’s disease copes with emotional loss in director Kathleen Hepburn’s feature film ‘Never Stead, Never Still’.

Canadian Films

8 Minutes Ahead

Shot in Hong Kong and Vancouver, Ben Hoskyn’s feature film debut 8 Minutes Ahead will enjoy its Ottawa premiere at the Mayfair Theatre on Sunday April 15th.

Canadian Films

Meditation Park

Mina Shum’s Meditation Park is a bittersweet comedy about a devoted Chinese-Canadian wife and mother in East Vancouver whose life and family are forever altered after she discovers an orange thong in her husband’s pocket, forcing her on a journey of truth and liberation.

Canadian Films

OCanFilmFest 2018 – Call for Entries

This is a reminder that our final deadline for film submissions is June 11th. For more details check out our 2018 Festival page.

News/OCanFilmFest2018

Stephen Coleman

Ottawa winters are cold and many people in our city go without adequate accommodation and protection from the elements. In his first feature length documentary Project Cold Days, filmmaker Stephen Coleman helps us meet these often invisible and voiceless people and allows them to tell their stories.

Ottawa Filmmakers

The Sound of Trees

At 17 Jérémie dreams of a life different from the one that awaits him at the family sawmill in the small Canadian town where he lives. Jérémie is more interested in pimping his car, listening to hip hop, and slacking off with his friends. This impressionistic debut, built upon convincing performances, tells of a summer that completely changed a teenager’s life.

Canadian Films

Hi-Ho Mistahey!

Alanis Obomsawin’s Hi-Ho Mistahey! (Cree for “I love you forever”), is a feature length Canadian documentary that profiles Shannen’s Dream, an activist campaign inspired by the work of Shannen Koostachin, a Cree teenager from Attawapiskat, who wanted to lobby for improved educational opportunities for First Nations youth.

Canadian Films

Surkhaab

Shot on location in Toronto and Chandigarh, Toronto-based writer/director Sanjay Talreja‘s feature film debut Surkhaab is described as “a week in the life of a human being trafficked.”

Canadian Films