With the support of the Cineworks Independent Filmmakers Society, I will be screening three of my favourite short films together for the first time on the big screen next Tuesday, December 12th. These macabre works include Bridge No. 29, Socket and the award-winning Siren.

The First CINELATION Retrospective will celebrate the last ten years I have worked diligently as an independent filmmaker with a great assortment of talented and dedicated artists. I hope you will brave the cold to enjoy a rare opportunity to experience these three films.

The Black Box Studio is located at 300 – 1131 Howe Street behind the Cinematheque. Since the entrance is down a back alley, I encourage you to bring a friend.

The First CINELATION Retrospective takes place on December 12th at 6:30pm.

---

INTRODUCTORY SPEECH

This is going to be fun.

For all my life I loved the movies.

I am obsessed with cinema.

To thrill, shock, terrify and give you all pleasure.

To elate.

It’s all in the name: CINELATION.

It’s interesting being so much closer now to The Cinematheque, one of my haunts.

When I introduced “Socket,” one of three films I am proud to screen tonight, before a large audience in 2016, I claimed that it would be in good company with The Cinematheque series “This is Going to Hurt, A Cinema of Cruelty” with films like “A Clockwork Orange,” “Fat Girl,” and “Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me.”

I intend to make good on this promise with these macabre, sadistic, and dare I say, romantic films full of pain, yearning and ecstasy. They’re quite funny too.

I also had the good fortune to work with many talented artists, actors and technicians crafting these films that I conceived and executed for the past whole decade.

In my mind, these three films in this retrospective are a single piece that I always suspected would play very well together.

You see, when I was making “Bridge No. 29” – your appetizer for the evening – I was dreaming of “Socket,” your main course, as well as “Siren,” your just dessert, which has played in 84 film festivals around the world, and won 17 awards including Best Horror Short Film at the Peephole FilmFest.

So sit back fellow passengers, fellow moviegoers, I’m going to drive you into dark and stormy waters now.

Enjoy the show!

---

SIREN (2020)

DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT: SIREN (2020) | IMDB

Synopsis: Driving on a highway late at night, distracted driver April (Dalit Holzman) and her combative lover Brooke (Erin Morgan) are pulled over for speeding by two sinister police officers (Eryka Alanna and Madison Isolina). During a strange and increasingly frightening interrogation, the two women find themselves under the power of a supernatural force that changes everything they ever knew about themselves… and each other.

FILM FESTIVAL AWARDS AND NOMINATIONS

“Siren” has been featured in 85 festivals all around the world including the Hard:Line International Film Festival in Germany, which prizes “unusual storytelling methods (and) an exotic visual language… that could be important in the future of the genre.”

SIREN has also earned 16 award wins and 24 nominations.

PEEPHOLE filmfest
Winner for Best Horror Short Film

Vancouver Independent Film Festival
Winner for Best Thriller Short Award for the Spring 2022

Snow Leopard International Film Festival
Winner for Best Horror Short Award
Nominated for Best Color Editing and Best Sound Design

The South African Independent Film Festival
Winner for the Best Experimental Film

The Strange Days Horror Fest
Winner for Best International Short Film Award for September 2023

The Rio Grind Film Festival
Winner for Best Cinematography

Montreal Requiem Fear Fest
Winner for Best Actress (Dalit Holzman)
Nominated for Best Canadian Short Film

HORROR-RAMA 2022 International Short Film Festival
Winner for Best Actress – Scream Queen (Erin Morgan)

MORE AWARDS AND NOMINATIONS

---

SOCKET (2016)

DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT: SOCKET (2016) | IMDB

A professional photographer (David Cutcher) discovers that you should never ridicule the amateur photography of your eye doctor (Robyn Bradley).

---

BRIDGE NO. 29 (2014)

DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT: BRIDGE NO. 29 (2014) | IMDB

Synopsis: A woman (Julia Harnett) who lives alone comes home to find an old acquaintance (Matt Seeley) has let himself into her apartment.

---