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Femicide, media bias, and telling the real stories of women behind the headlines

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1. Minimum wage

A pile of Canadian bills and coins, including loonies, twoonies, nickels, dimes, quarters, plus bills of 100, 50, 10, and 20 dollars.
Credit: PiggyBank/Unsplash

The minimum wage will go up to $15.20/hr on April 1. The minimum wage in Nova Scotia is currently $15/hr. That increase took effect on Oct. 1, 2023. From a press release:

The increase follows the formula previously recommended by the Minimum Wage Review Committee and accepted by the government. Starting this year, the rate is to be adjusted by the national consumer price index plus one percentage point from the minimum wage rate set the preceding April. That means an increase this year of 4.7 per cent from the April 2023 rate.

The press release also said about 6% of workers, or 26,200 Nova Scotians, worked for minimum wage during the period from April 2022 to March 2023. Most of those workers are in retail and the hospitality industry.

The living wage in Halifax is currently at $26.50/hr. According to this story by Yvette d’Entremont in September, more than half of Nova Scotians make less than the living wage.

I once thought about writing a Morning File detailing how much one hour of minimum wage could purchase, but I realized it would sadly be a very short list.

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2. Electricity at tent encampment

A tent encampment at Grand Parade in front of City Hall in Halifax. Credit: Suzanne Rent

“Critics have been grumbling online about a recent arrangement that’s brought free power to a homeless encampment in Halifax,” reports Bruce Frisko with CTV Atlantic.

The man who’s led the charge to provide electricity says it’s a small concession that should be available in every camp.

“It’s amazing. It’s the equivalent of running into the woods and handing somebody power,” said volunteer Stephen Wilsack. “This has given new life to a lot of the residents. Their ability to charge a phone, to have light, to have devices just to play music.”

The source is nearby city hall. The electricity runs from there to a rented generator and backup battery, where it’s distributed through cables all over the encampment.

But there is a lot of grumbling on social media about this arrangement with people saying it’s a fire hazard and is enabling the people who live there.

Wilsack is having none of it and said while it’s good to have electricity at the camp, the real solution is permanent housing.

“Let’s put them in a housing situation. It’s going to cost, but the alternative is, if we don’t do it, it’s going to cost lives.”

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3. Pete’s striking workers

Workers from Pete’s Frootique in Halifax on the picket line on Tuesday, Dec. 19, 2023. Credit: Suzanne Rent

“As the strike by workers at the downtown Halifax Pete’s Frootique location enters its seventh week, Tyson Boyd said he and his colleagues are starting to feel ‘a little angry and a little fed up,’” reports Michael Gorman with CBC.

“We’ve given Sobeys every opportunity to come back to the table and bargain in good faith and they have yet to do so at all,” said Boyd, speaking outside the store on Dresden Row that’s owned by grocery giant Sobeys.

The company closed the store indefinitely when the strike started on Nov. 18. About 90 workers represented by the Service Employees International Union Local 2 walked off the job after failing to negotiate a contract with the company, which is headquartered in Stellarton, N.S.

Because most people who work at Pete’s make minimum wage, union officials have said a pay increase of five cents per hour offered by Sobeys doesn’t come close to helping employees meet growing cost-of-living pressures. The minimum wage in Nova Scotia is $15 an hour. A report published in September calculated a living wage in Halifax to be $26.50.

Sobeys, meanwhile, told CBC it’s ready to go back to the bargaining table once the union leadership is ready.

The workers have a Facebook page here and are getting support from across the country. The workers are planning a national day of action for Saturday.

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4. Pallet shelters

Pallet shelters. Credit: Pallet

“After an October 2023 promise to have Pallet shelters in place by the colder months, Nova Scotia opposition parties are calling for clarity on when the shelters will be delivered,” reports Zack Power for Global.

The province said $7.5 million was spent to purchase 200 units from the rapid-response shelter provider Pallet, as well as new bed frames, mattresses and additional support.

Since then, Deputy Minister Melissa MacKinnon said there have been unexpected delays in obtaining the units.

In a statement on Wednesday, provincial spokespeople told Global News the province is working to find “suitable land and services to support the Pallet villages” and that it will be weeks before the province can identify the first site.

The U.S.-based company Pallet requires lands to hold a set of standards before delivery, including access to services, water, sewer, electricity and more. The provider does not ship units until suitable land has been chosen.

In a statement, Christina Deveau, a spokesperson with the Department of Community Services, told Global that once the land is chosen, the department will work to get water, power, and sewer to the site, and then the Pallet shelters can go in.

“The department feels the sense of urgency with getting the Pallet shelters in place, and we must balance that with getting this complex work done right.”

Back in October, Lucia Peth, a spokesperson with Pallet, contacted me to see if I wanted to interview their CEO Amy King about the shelters and how they will be set up in Halifax. I said I was interested in learning about the Halifax deployment, and never heard back. Here’s what Peth told me in an email about Pallet:

The company’s shelters span more than 100 sites across 85 cities. The company has launched a series of new initiatives to ensure that shelter and housing are not the only solutions cities and governments employ in addressing this crisis. This includes five dignity standards that all city, government and onsite operator partners must follow when contracting a Pallet village, as well as advisory services, which provide cities with individualized plans.

The housing solution narrative – no matter the city – always blames cost and time as barriers. Still, Pallet’s model goes up in hours and is a necessary stepping stone in the continuum of care for those experiencing homelessness.

Again, this announcement about the shelters was made in October and it’s now January. The days will only get colder.

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Femicide, media bias, and telling the real stories of women behind the headlines

Two-time Olympic cyclist Melissa Hoskins. Credit: Facebook

On the weekend, Melissa Hoskins,a two-time Olympic cyclist from Australia, was killed by her husband when he was behind the wheel of his car. Rohan Dennis, also a world champion cyclist, was charged in her death this weekend.

But from some of the headlines that were popping up online and social, you’d never guess Hoskins’ husband was even involved or that Hoskins had a name. Here is one: “Two-time Olympic cyclist, 32, dies after being hit by car.”

I recall similar headlines several years ago when Dr. Elana Fric Shamji, a respected and well known physician in Toronto and mother to three, was murdered by her husband.

In April 2019, Anne Kingston wrote in Macleans about Fric’s murder and media bias in reporting on domestic violence.

There has yet to be a #MeToo equivalent for the largely private crime of family violence. That leaves it to others, including media, to train a spotlight on the reality. A first step would be to stop illustrating stories involving charges of intimate-partner violence with “Fakebook,” or upbeat, heart-warming imagery of the accused and victim, seen in coverage of Fric’s death. It’s a media reflex to want the wedding pic. But showing couples in what could be staged happy moments mitigates the reality of violence and inadvertently creates sympathy and bias for the accused. These stories often are mistakenly framed as a “love story” gone tragically wrong or a crime of “passion,” a perception hard-wired into the legal system, according to a 2015 study that found that men who kill their wives, girlfriends or family members receive shorter sentences than men who kill strangers. Its author, Myrna Dawson, a professor at the University of Guelph and Director of the Centre for the Study of Social and Legal Responses to Violence (CSSLRV), refers to this as the “intimacy discount,” and notes it contains vestiges of the days when women were men’s legal property.

This week, I contacted a few violence-against-women organizations to learn more about how media can do better when it comes to reporting on women who’ve been killed by men.

Ann de Ste Croix is the provincial coordinator for the Transition House Association of Nova Scotia (THANS), the umbrella organization representing women’s shelters in the province. She pointed me to this statement THANS made in November regarding femicide and gender-based violence. Femicide is the broad term for the killing of a woman or girl because of her gender.

As the statement notes, between 2018 and 2022, 850 women in Canada were victims of femicide. The most common form of femicide is intimate partner violence, followed by familial violence. On its website, THANS notes that the spectrum of violence against women includes sexual assaults, family violence, intimate partner violence, financial abuse, and psychological abuse.

According to these stats from December 2022 from the Nova Scotia Advisory Council on the Status of Women, women continue to be the most predominant victims of domestic violence in Nova Scotia: 79% of victims were women, compared to 21% who were men.

That statement from THANS included this mention about the media and femicide:

In most media reporting on femicides, the word “femicides” itself is hardly used. Using the term “femicide” is crucial as it acknowledges the crucial gender-based nature of these killings, highlighting the targeted violence against women and emphasizing that these are not random incidents but part of a wider problem.

Then, I contacted Women’s Shelters Canada for their input. Executive director Lise Martin had this to say:

Media bias in femicide reporting perpetuates a dangerous narrative that may influence societal responses to gender-based violence. When women are killed by their partners, using euphemisms like ‘died’ instead of more accurate descriptions like ‘killed’ or ‘murdered’ deflects blame. Such bias not only undermines the gravity of the individual tragedy but also contributes to minimizing the broader issue socially and politically.

They suggested I contact the Ontario Association of Interval and Transition Houses (OAITH), which has several resources on how to report on femicide, including this chart that examines how media reported on femicides in Ontario in 2022-2023.

Credit: OAITH

In 2021, OAITH also did this report of recommendations on how to report on femicide. The report here details each best practice, including use of the term femicide, language do’s and don’ts, adding contact information for local resources, contextualizing femicide and violence against women as a social problem, using expert sources as well as friends and family, appropriate photos, including statistics, and not assigning the responsibility of violence to the women.

Here’s what Marlene Ham, executive director of OAITH, told me:

When femicide killings are framed within the media as isolated incidents, the focus remains on individual circumstances and consequences rather than the larger context of a social problem rooted in patriarchy, gendered power relationships and broken systems.

By excluding important facts concerning the reality of gender-based violence, journalists are contributing indirectly to ideologies and institutions that uphold gender inequality.

The media plays a powerful role in helping Canadians understand the root causes of gender-based violence and action needed towards femicide prevention. When a femicide occurs in Canada, it’s journalists who ultimately decide how this killing is framed- not just in the headline and imagery but in how present a victim will be in the story of her own death. Well-informed, best practice media coverage gives us the knowledge we need (such as past history of violence) to understand and contextualize femicides within larger gender inequity.

One of those suggestions from OAITH — using friends and family as sources on reporting of femicide— reminded me of Joan Baxter’s story about Susie Butlin, who was killed by her neighbour, Ernest (“Junior”) Ross Duggan.

In that story from June 2020, just two months after the mass killings in Portapique, Baxter spoke with Suzanne Davis, Butlin’s best friend, about the threats Duggan was making to Butlin in the weeks before he murdered her, and how the RCMP failed to protect Butlin.

In July 2022, Baxter spoke with Brenda Forbes who used to live in Portapique and who warned police about her neighbour, but no one listened. That neighbour went on to kill 22 people on April 18 and 19, 2020. Forbes told Baxter about the warning signs that she saw, but that the RCMP refused to listen to, including how controlling and abusive that neighbour was of his common-law partner, Lisa Banfield.

Both of Baxter’s stories should remind us that we need to listen to women, believe women.

In April 2020, I wrote this piece “Male violence: “A pandemic in its own right” about how experts knew the killings in Portapique started with domestic violence. This quote from Andrea Gunraj, vice-president, public engagement with the Canadian Women’s Foundation, who I interviewed, still sticks with me: “Men who are privately dangerous to women are publicly dangerous to everyone.”

This is true, and so media’s reporting on the issue should not only reflect the stories of women who are killed, but how the violence they faced affects us all. Because it does. We’ve seen it over and over: at École Polytechnique in Montreal in 1989, in Portapique in 2020, when women including Melissa Hoskins and Dr. Elana Fric Shamji are killed, when hundreds of others are killed and their names don’t even get a mention in a headline. We can do better.

Michael MacDonald, the commissioner for the Mass Casualty Commission, had this to say to reporters about violence against women. From a story in CTV:

Women have been carrying, through community-based organizations, the burden of protecting women almost exclusively for far too long,” MCC commissioner Michael MacDonald said to reporters Thursday, while urging men — especially men in positions of power — to call out gender-based violence.

“Men who are leaders in society have to call it out for what it is, it’s an epidemic,”

Any woman in Nova Scotia who needs support can call or text the provincial toll-free line 1-855-225-0220, available 24/7 or their local shelter organization or call 911 if you’re in an emergency situation.

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If you didn’t know, the longtime supper-hour show Live at 5 was cut by 30 minutes in December. The show still runs from 5pm to 5:30pm, and CTV national news takes over that last half hour.

Now, some longtime viewers of Live at 5 and fans of its hosts Maria Panopalis, Jayson Baxter, and Katie Kelly, want the full 60 minutes back. This post was making the rounds on Wednesday:

It’s Mark and I miss “Live at 5”. Yes CTV destroyed totally our Atlantic content news stories. I can switch my channel to the CTVnews channels to get world news. But I have enjoyed our Atlantic broadcasts since tv had rabbit ears out of Moncton and Live at 5 since 1982..

CTV has become a glorified CNN and we do not need a politically correct news broadcast we need and deserve our Atlantic news. We want the sweet little Maritimer’s backyard stories.

A comment on CTV page asked for a poll on this, well do one, CTV does it for everything else. We like Maria and Jason and Katie and Bruce and rest of the team because they are Maritimers and dedicated to us!

Let’s go CTV, swallow your pride and give us back Live at 5, we can pretend it never happened!

Like to hear Steve Murphy’s opinion on this!

People love Live at 5 and are clearly missing the show. I think the hosts on shows like this really connect with their audiences and with local stories. What’s up with the change, I don’t know. Katie Kelly, one of the show’s hosts, shared this message on Facebook:

Thank you so much for the messages. We really have the best viewers in the world.

I was on vacation the week that the changes happened so that’s why you haven’t seen me. (in case you missed it, CTV’s Live at 5 is now a 30 minute show and a new national show has been added from 5:30-6)

From now until the beginning of January, I will be hosting CTV morning live with the lovely morning team… and in the new year I will be back on in the evening with arts and entertainment news on the 6pm show.

Sending so much love from Maria, Jay and I and we thank you for your support as we navigate these changes

 

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Blood In The Snow Film Festival Celebrates 13 Years!

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Blood in the Snow FILM FESTIVAL

Celebrates

13 YEARS

Be Afraid.  Be Very Afraid”

Toronto, on – Blood in the Snow Film Festival (BITS), a unique and imaginative showcase of contemporary Canadian genre films are pleased to announce the popular Festival is back for its 13th exciting year.  The highly anticipated Horror Film festival presented by Super Channel runs November 18th– 23rd at Toronto’s Isabel Bader Theatre  The successful, long running festival takes on many different faces this year that include Scary, Action Horror, Horror Comedy, Sci-Fi and Thrillers.  Festival goers will be kept on the edge of their seats with this year’s powerful line-up.

Blood in the Snow Festival begins with the return of alumni (Wolf Cop) Lowell Deans action horror feature Dark Match featuring wrestling veteran Chris Jericho followed by the mysterious Hunting Mathew Nichols. The unexpected thrills continue with Blood in the Snow World Premiere of Pins and Needles and the Fantasia Best First Feature Award winner, Self Driver.  The festival ends this year on a fun note with the Toronto Premiere of Scared Sh*tless (featuring Kids in the Halls Mark McKinney).  Other titles include the horror anthology series Creepy Bits and Zoom call shock of Invited by Blood in the Snow alumni Navin Ramaswaran (Poor Agnes). The festival will also include five feature length short film programs including the festivals comedy horror program Funny Frights and Unusual Sights and the highly anticipated Dark Visions program, part of opening night festivities.  Blood in the Snow Film Festival Director and Founder, Kelly Michael Stewart anticipates this year’s festival to be its strongest.  This was the first time in our 13 year history, all our programmers agreed on the exact same eight feature programs we have selected.”

Below is this year’s horror fest’s exciting lineup of features and shorts scheduled to screen, in-person at the Isabel Bader theatre. 

**All festival features will be preceded by a short film and followed by a Q&A with filmmakers.

Tickets for the Isabel Bader Theatre lineup on sale now and can be purchased  https://www.bloodinthesnow.ca

Super Channel is pleased to once again assume the role of Presenting Sponsor for the Blood in the Snow Film Festival. We extend our sincere appreciation to the entire BITS team for their unwavering commitment to amplifying the voices of diverse filmmakers and providing a platform for the celebration of Canadian genre content. – Don McDonald, the CEO of Super Channel

Blood in the Snow Festival 2024 Full screening schedule:

Monday November 18th
7pm – Dark Visions

Shiva (13:29) dir. Josh Saltzman

Shiva is an unnerving tale about a recently widowed woman who breaks with a long-held Jewish mourning ritual in hopes of connecting with her deceased husband.

How to Stay Awake (5:30) dir. Vanessa Magic

A woman fights to stay awake, to avoid battling the terrifying realm of sleep paralysis, but as she risks everything to break free, will she be released from the grip of her nocturnal tormentor?

Pocket Princess (9:45) dir. Olivia Loccisano

A young girl must take part in a dangerous task in order to complete her doll collection in this miniature fairytale.

For Rent (10:33) dir. Michèle Kaye

In her new home, Donna unravels a sinister truth—her landlord is a demon with a dark appetite. As her family mysteriously vanishes, Donna confronts the demonic landlord, only to plunge into a shadowy game where the house hungers for more than just occupants. An ominous cycle begins, shrouded in mystery.

Lucys Birthday (9:29) dir. Peter Sreckovic

A father struggles to enjoy his young daughter’s birthday despite a series of strange and disturbing disruptions.

Parasitic (10:00) dir. Ryan M Andrews

Last call at a dive bar, a writer struggling to find his voice gets more than he bargains for.

 Naualli (6:00) dir. Adrian Gonzalez de la Pena

A grieving man seeks revenge, unwittingly awakening a mystical creature known as the Nagual.

The Saint and The Bear (6:34) dir. Dallas R Soonias

Two strangers cross paths on an ominous park bench.

The Sorrow (13:00) dir. Thomas Affolter

A retired army general and his live-in nurse find they are not alone in a house filled with dark secrets.

Cadabra (6:00) dir. Tiffany Wice

An amateur magician receives more than he anticipated when he purchases a cursed hat from the estate of his deceased hero.

9:30 – Dark Match dir. Lowell Dean Horror / Action

A small time WRESTLING COMPANY accepts a well-paying but too good to be true gig.

 

Tuesday November 19th
7pm – Mournful Mediums

Night Lab (15:00) dir. Andrew Ellinas

When a mysterious package arrives from one of the lab’s field research stations, a promising young researcher uncovers a conspiracy against her masterminded by her jealous boss. She soon finds herself having to grapple with her conscience before making a life-or-death decision.

Dirty Bad Wrong (14:40) dir. Erica Orofino

Desperate to keep her promise to host the best superhero party for her 6-year-old, young mother Sid, a sex worker, takes extreme measures and books a last-minute client with a dark fetish.

Midnight at the lonely river (17:00) dir. Abraham Cote

When the lights go out at a seedy little motel bar, at the crossroads of a seedy little town, nefarious happenings are taking place, and three predators are enacting their evil deeds. Enter Vicky, a drifter who quickly realizes whats happening right under everyones nose. After midnight, In the shadows of this dim establishment, evil begets evil, and the predator becomes the prey.

Mean Ends (14:58) dir. Émile Lavoie

A buried body, a missing sister and an inquisitive neighbour makes for a hell of an evening. And the sun isnt close to settling on Erics sh*tty day.

Stuffy (18:26) dir. Dan Nicholls

A young couple sets off in the middle of the night to bury their kid’s stuffed bunny, as one of them is convinced that the stuffy might be cursed.

Dungeon of Death (18:33) dir. Brian P. Rowe

Torturer Raullin loves a work challenge, especially if that challenge involves hurting people to extract information from them.

9:30 – Hunting Matthew Nichols (96 mins) dir. Markian Tarasiuk

Twenty-three years after her brother mysteriously disappeared, a documentary filmmaker sets out to solve his missing person’s case. But when a disturbing piece of evidence is revealed, she comes to believe that her brother might still be alive.

w/ short: Josephine (6:15) dir. John Francis Bregar

A man haunted by his past seeks forgiveness from his deceased wife, but a session with two spirit mediums leads to an unsettling encounter.

Wednesday November 20th
7pm – BITS and BYTES

Ezra (10:57) dirs. Luke Hutchie, Mike Mildon, Marianna Phung

After fleeing the dark and demonic chains of his shadowy old home, Ezra, a killer gay vampire, takes a leap of faith and enters the modern world.

Head Shop (18:14 episode 1-3) dir. Namaï Kham Po

In a post-apocalyptic world, Annas life and work are dominated by her father Sylvestre, a short-tempered mechanic with a terrible reputation for tearing the head off anyone who dares cross him. He decides that shes old enough to follow in his footsteps, much to her dismay. To prove herself, she must now decapitate her first victim. Can she find a way to defy fate?

D dot H (18 :15 episodes 1-2) dirs. Meegwun Fairbrother, Mary Galloway

Struggling artist Doug is visited by the beautiful and enigmatic H, who claims he holds the power to visiting inconceivable places.” Still half-asleep, Doug is shocked when H vanishes suddenly and her doppelganger, Hannah, strides past.

Creepy Bits: Last Sonata (21:08) dir.

Adrian Bobb, Ashlea Wessel, David J. Fernandes, Sid Zanforlin and Kelly Paoli.

Set among forests, lakes, and small towns, Creepy Bits is a horror anthology series helmed by five innovative filmmakers exploring themes of human vs. nature, the invasion and destruction of the natural world by outsiders, and isolation within a vast, eerie landscape that is not afraid to fight back.

Tales from the Void: Whistle in the Woods” (24:36) dir. Francesco Loschiavo

Horror anthology TV series based on stories from r/NoSleep. Each tale blends genre thrills & social commentary exploring the dark side of the human psyche.

9:30 – Self Driver dir. Michael Pierro Thriller

Facing mounting expenses and the unrelenting pressure of modern living, a down-on-his-luck cab driver is lured on to a mysterious new app that promises fast, easy money. As his first night on the job unfolds, he is pulled ever deeper into the dark underbelly of society, embarking on a journey that will test his moral code and shake his understanding of what it means to have freewill. The question becomes not how much money he can make, but what he’ll be compelled to do to make it.
 

w/ short: Northern Escape (10:38) dirs. Lucy Sanci, Alexis Korotash

A couple on a cottage getaway tries to work on their relationship but ends up getting more than they bargained for when they discover something sinister lurking beneath the surface.

Thursday November 21st
7pm – Funny Frights

Midnight Snack (1:41) dir. Sandra Foisy

Hunger always strikes in the dead of night.

Hell is a Teenage Girl (15:00) dir. Stephen Sawchuk

Every Halloween, the small town of Springboro is terrorized by its resident SLASHER – a masked serial killer who targets sinful teenagers that break The Rules of Horror’ – dont drink, dont do drugs, and dont have sex!

Gaslit (10:36) dir. Anna MacLean

A woman goes to dangerous lengths to prove she wasn’t responsible for a fart.

Bath Bomb (9:55) dir. Colin G Cooper

A possessive doctor prepares an ostensibly romantic bath for his narcissistic boyfriend, but after an accusation of infidelity, things take a deeply disturbing turn.

Any Last Words (14:22) dir. Isaac Rathé

A crook trying to flee town is paid an untimely visit by some of his former colleagues. What would you say to save your life if you were staring down the barrel of a gun?

Papier mâché (4:30) dir. Simon Madore

A whimsical depiction of the hard and tumultuous life of a piñata.

The Living Room (9:59) dir. Joslyn Rogers

After an unexpected call from Lady Luck, Ms. Valentine must choose between her sanity and her winnings – all before the jungle consumes her.

A Divine Comedy: What the Hell (8:55) dir. Valerie Lee Barnhart
 Dante’s classic Hell is falling into oblivion. Charlotte,

sharp-witted Harpy, navigates the chaos and sets out despite the odds for a new life and destiny.

Mr Fuzz (2:30) dir. Christopher Walsh

A long-limbed, fuzzy-haired creature will do whatever it takes to keep you watching his show.

Out of the Hands of the Wicked (5:00) dirs. Luke Sargent, Benjamin Hackman

After a harrowing journey home from hell, old Pa boasts of his triumph over evil, and how he came to lock the devil in his heart.

The Shitty Ride (9:13) dir. Cole Doran

Hoping to impress the girl of his dreams, Cole buys a used car but gets more than he bargained for with his shitty ride.

9:30 – Invited dir. Navin Ramaswaran Horror

When a reluctant mother attends her daughter’s Zoom elopement, she and the rest of the family in attendance quickly realize the groom is part of a Russian cult with deadly intentions.

w/ shorts: Defile dir. Brian Sepanzyk

A couple’s secluded getaway is suddenly interrupted by a strange family who exposes them to the horrors that lie beyond the tree line.

 A Mother’s Love dir. Lisa Ovies

A young girl deals with the consequences of trusting someone online.

Friday November 22nd
7:00 pm – Creepy Bits (anthology horror series)

Creepy Bits is a short horror anthology series that explores pandemic age themes of isolation, paranoia and distrust of authority, serving them up in bite-sized chunks. Directed by Adrian Bobb, Ashlea Wessel, David J. Fernandes, Sid Zanforlin and Kelly Paoli.

9:30 – Pins and Needles (81 min) dir. James Villeneuve Horror / Thriller

Follows Max, a diabetic, biology grad student who is entrapped in a devilish new-age wellness experiment and must escape a lethal game of cat and mouse to avoid becoming the next test subject to extend the lives of the rich and privileged.

w/ short: Adjoining (11:42) dirs. Harrison Houde, Dakota Daulby

A couple’s motel stay takes a chilling turn when they discover they’re being observed, leading to unexpected consequences.

Saturday November 23rd
4pm – Emerging Screams (94 mins)

Apnea (14:58) dir. David Matheson

A single, working mother finds her career and her offbeat sons safety in jeopardy when she discovers that her late mother is possessing her in her sleep.

Nereid (7:48) dir. Lori Zozzolotto

A mysterious woman escapes from an abusive relationship with earth shattering results.

BedLamer (15:00) dir. Alexa Jane Jerrett

On the shores of a small fishing village lives a lonely settlement of men – capturing and domesticating otherworldly creatures that were never meant to be tamed.

Blocked (6:30) dir. Aisha Alfa

A new mom is literally consumed with the futility of cleaning up after her kid.

Dance of the Faery (10:23) dir. Kaela Brianna Egert

A young woman cleans up her estranged, great aunt’s home after her death. Upon inspection, she soon realizes that her eccentric obsession with fairies was not born out of love, but of fear.

Deep End (7:36) dir. Juan Pablo Saenz

A gay couple’s heated argument during a hike spiral into a nightmare when one of them vanishes, leading the other to a mysterious cave that could reveal the chilling truth.

Ojichaag – Spirit Within (11:21) dir. Rachel Beaulieu

An emotionally devastated woman seeks comfort in her choice to end her life. As she faces death in the form of a spirit, she must decide to let herself go to fight to stay alive.

Lure (9.56) dir. Jacob Phair

A tormented father awaits the return of the man who saved his son’s life.

Let Me In (10:00) dirs. Joel Buxton, Charles Smith

A reluctant man interviews an unusual immigration candidate: himself from a doomed dimension

7:00 pm –The Silent Planet (95 mins) dir. Jeffrey St. Jules Sci-fi

An aging convict serving out a life sentence alone on a distant planet is forced to confront his past when a new prisoner shows up and pushes him to remember his life on earth

w/ short: Ascension (3:57) dir. Kenzie Yango

Deep in a remote forest, two friends, Mia and Riley, embark on a leisurely hike. As tensions run high between the two, a strange humming noise appears that seems to be coming from somewhere in the woods.

9:30 – Scared Shitless (73 mins) dir. Vivieno Caldinelli Horror / Comedy

A plumber and his germophobic son are forced to get their hands dirty to save the residents of an apartment building, when a genetically engineered, blood-thirsty creature escapes into the plumbing system.
 

w/ short: Oh…Canada (6:20) dir. Vincenzo Nappi

Oh, Canada. Such a wonderful place to live – WHETHER YOU LIKE IT OR NOT. A musical look into the artifice surrounding Canadian identity.

 

Tickets for the Isabel Bader Theatre lineup on sale now and can be purchased https://www.bloodinthesnow.ca/#festival

 

Follow “Blood In The Snow” Film Festival:

https://www.instagram.com/bitsfilmfest/

 

Media Inquiries:

Sasha Stoltz Publicity:

Sasha Stoltz | Sasha@sashastoltzpublicity.com | 416.579.4804
https://www.sashastoltzpublicity.com

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It’s time for a Halloween movie marathon. 10 iconic horror films

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Sometimes, you just have to return to the classics.

That’s especially true as Halloween approaches. While you queue up your spooky movie marathon, here are 10 iconic horror movies from the past 70 years for inspiration, and what AP writers had to say about them when they were first released.

We resurrected excerpts from these reviews, edited for clarity, from the dead — did they stand the test of time?

“Rear Window” (1954)

“Rear Window” is a wonderful trick pulled off by Alfred Hitchcock. He breaks his hero’s leg, sets him up at an apartment window where he can observe, among other things, a murder across the court. The panorama of other people’s lives is laid out before you, as seen through the eyes of a Peeping Tom.

James Stewart, Grace Kelly, Thelma Ritter and others make it good fun.

— Bob Thomas

“Halloween” (1978)

At 19, Jamie Lee Curtis is starring in a creepy little thriller film called “Halloween.”

Until now, Jamie’s main achievement has been as a regular on the “Operation Petticoat” TV series. Jamie is much prouder of “Halloween,” though it is obviously an exploitation picture aimed at the thrill market.

The idea for “Halloween” sprang from independent producer-distributor Irwin Yablans, who wanted a terror-tale involving a babysitter. John Carpenter and Debra Hill fashioned a script about a madman who kills his sister, escapes from an asylum and returns to his hometown intending to murder his sister’s friends.

— Bob Thomas

“The Silence of the Lambs” (1991)

“The Silence of the Lambs” moves from one nail-biting sequence to another. Jonathan Demme spares the audience nothing, including closeups of skinned corpses. The squeamish had best stay home and watch “The Cosby Show.”

Ted Tally adapted the Thomas Harris novel with great skill, and Demme twists the suspense almost to the breaking point. The climactic confrontation between Clarice Starling and Buffalo Bill (Ted Levine) is carried a tad too far, though it is undeniably exciting with well-edited sequences.

Such a tale as “The Silence of the Lambs” requires accomplished actors to pull it off. Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins are highly qualified. She provides steely intelligence, with enough vulnerability to sustain the suspense. He delivers a classic portrayal of pure, brilliant evil.

— Bob Thomas

“Scream” (1996)

In this smart, witty homage to the genre, students at a suburban California high school are being killed in the same gruesome fashion as the victims in the slasher films they know by heart.

If it sounds like the script of every other horror movie to come and go at the local movie theater, it’s not.

By turns terrifying and funny, “Scream” — written by newcomer David Williamson — is as taut as a thriller, intelligent without being self-congratulatory, and generous in its references to Wes Craven’s competitors in gore.

— Ned Kilkelly

“The Blair Witch Project” (1999)

Imaginative, intense and stunning are a few words that come to mind with “The Blair Witch Project.”

“Blair Witch” is the supposed footage found after three student filmmakers disappear in the woods of western Maryland while shooting a documentary about a legendary witch.

The filmmakers want us to believe the footage is real, the story is real, that three young people died and we are witnessing the final days of their lives. It isn’t. It’s all fiction.

But Eduardo Sanchez and Dan Myrick, who co-wrote and co-directed the film, take us to the edge of belief, squirming in our seats the whole way. It’s an ambitious and well-executed concept.

— Christy Lemire

“Saw” (2004)

The fright flick “Saw” is consistent, if nothing else.

This serial-killer tale is inanely plotted, badly written, poorly acted, coarsely directed, hideously photographed and clumsily edited, all these ingredients leading to a yawner of a surprise ending. To top it off, the music’s bad, too.

You could forgive all (well, not all, or even, fractionally, much) of the movie’s flaws if there were any chills or scares to this sordid little horror affair.

But “Saw” director James Wan and screenwriter Leigh Whannell, who developed the story together, have come up with nothing more than an exercise in unpleasantry and ugliness.

— David Germain

Germain gave “Saw” one star out of four.

“Paranormal Activity” (2009)

The no-budget ghost story “Paranormal Activity” arrives 10 years after “The Blair Witch Project,” and the two horror movies share more than a clever construct and shaky, handheld camerawork.

The entire film takes place at the couple’s cookie-cutter dwelling, its layout and furnishings indistinguishable from just about any other readymade home constructed in the past 20 years. Its ordinariness makes the eerie, nocturnal activities all the more terrifying, as does the anonymity of the actors adequately playing the leads.

The thinness of the premise is laid bare toward the end, but not enough to erase the horror of those silent, nighttime images seen through Micah’s bedroom camera. “Paranormal Activity” owns a raw, primal potency, proving again that, to the mind, suggestion has as much power as a sledgehammer to the skull.

— Glenn Whipp

Whipp gave “Paranormal Activity” three stars out of four.

“The Conjuring” (2013)

As sympathetic, methodical ghostbusters Lorraine and Ed Warren, Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson make the old-fashioned haunted-house horror film “The Conjuring” something more than your average fright fest.

“The Conjuring,” which boasts incredulously of being their most fearsome, previously unknown case, is built very in the ’70s-style mold of “Amityville” and, if one is kind, “The Exorcist.” The film opens with a majestic, foreboding title card that announces its aspirations to such a lineage.

But as effectively crafted as “The Conjuring” is, it’s lacking the raw, haunting power of the models it falls shy of. “The Exorcist” is a high standard, though; “The Conjuring” is an unusually sturdy piece of haunted-house genre filmmaking.

— Jake Coyle

Coyle gave “The Conjuring” two and half stars out of four.

Read the full review here.

“Get Out” (2017)

Fifty years after Sidney Poitier upended the latent racial prejudices of his white date’s liberal family in “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner,” writer-director Jordan Peele has crafted a similar confrontation with altogether more combustible results in “Get Out.”

In Peele’s directorial debut, the former “Key and Peele” star has — as he often did on that satirical sketch series — turned inside out even supposedly progressive assumptions about race. But Peele has largely left comedy behind in a more chilling portrait of the racism that lurks beneath smiling white faces and defensive, paper-thin protestations like, “But I voted for Obama!” and “Isn’t Tiger Woods amazing?”

It’s long been a lamentable joke that in horror films — never the most inclusive of genres — the Black dude is always the first to go. In this way, “Get Out” is radical and refreshing in its perspective.

— Jake Coyle

Coyle gave “Get Out” three stars out of four.

Read the full review here.

“Hereditary” (2018)

In Ari Aster’s intensely nightmarish feature-film debut “Hereditary,” when Annie (Toni Collette), an artist and mother of two teenagers, sneaks out to a grief-support group following the death of her mother, she lies to her husband Steve (Gabriel Byrne) that she’s “going to the movies.”

A night out with “Hereditary” is many things, but you won’t confuse it for an evening of healing and therapy. It’s more like the opposite.

Aster’s film, relentlessly unsettling and pitilessly gripping, has carried with it an ominous air of danger and dread: a movie so horrifying and good that you have to see it, even if you shouldn’t want to, even if you might never sleep peacefully again.

The hype is mostly justified.

— Jake Coyle

Coyle gave “Hereditary” three stars out of four.

Read the full review here. ___

Researcher Rhonda Shafner contributed from New York.

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Sutherland House Experts Book Publishing Launches To Empower Quiet Experts

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Sutherland House Experts is Empowering Quiet Experts through
Compelling Nonfiction in a Changing Ideas Landscape

TORONTO, ON — Almost one year after its launch, Sutherland House Experts is reshaping the publishing industry with its innovative co-publishing model for “quiet experts.” This approach, where expert authors share both costs and profits with the publisher, is bridging the gap between expertise and public discourse. Helping to drive this transformation is Neil Seeman, a renowned author, educator, and entrepreneur.

“The book publishing world is evolving rapidly,” publisher Neil Seeman explains. “There’s a growing hunger for expert voices in public dialogue, but traditional channels often fall short. Sutherland House Experts provides a platform for ‘quiet experts’ to share their knowledge with the broader book-reading audience.”

The company’s roster boasts respected thought leaders whose books are already gaining major traction:

• V. Kumar Murty, a world-renowned mathematician, and past Fields Institute director, just published “The Science of Human Possibilities” under the new press. The book has been declared a 2024 “must-read” by The Next Big Ideas Club and is receiving widespread media attention across North America.

• Eldon Sprickerhoff, co-founder of cybersecurity firm eSentire, is seeing strong pre-orders for his upcoming book, “Committed: Startup Survival Tips and Uncommon Sense for First-Time Tech Founders.”

• Dr. Tony Sanfilippo, a respected cardiologist and professor of medicine at Queen’s University, is generating significant media interest with his forthcoming book, “The Doctors We Need: Imagining a New Path for Physician Recruitment, Training, and Support.”

Seeman, whose recent and acclaimed book, “Accelerated Minds,” explores the entrepreneurial mindset, brings a unique perspective to publishing. His experience as a Senior Fellow at the University of Toronto’s Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation, and academic affiliations with The Fields Institute and Massey College, give him deep insight into the challenges faced by people he calls “quiet experts.”

“Our goal is to empower quiet, expert authors to become entrepreneurs of actionable ideas the world needs to hear,” Seeman states. “We are blending scholarly insight with market savvy to create accessible, impactful narratives for a global readership. Quiet experts are people with decades of experience in one or more fields who seek to translate their insights into compelling non-fiction for the world,” says Seeman.

This fall, Seeman is taking his insights to the classroom. He will teach the new course, “The Writer as Entrepreneur,” at the University of Toronto, offering aspiring authors practical tools to navigate the evolving book publishing landscape. To enroll in this new weekly night course starting Tuesday, October 1st, visit:
https://learn.utoronto.ca/programs-courses/courses/4121-writer-entrepreneur

“The entrepreneurial ideas industry is changing rapidly,” Seeman notes. “Authors need new skills to thrive in this dynamic environment. My course and our publishing model provide those tools.”

About Neil Seeman:
Neil Seeman is co-founder and publisher of Sutherland House Experts, an author, educator, entrepreneur, and mental health advocate. He holds appointments at the University of Toronto, The Fields Institute, and Massey College. His work spans entrepreneurship, public health, and innovative publishing models.

Follow Neil Seeman:
https://www.neilseeman.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/seeman/

Follow Sutherland House Experts:

https://sutherlandhouseexperts.com/
https://www.instagram.com/sutherlandhouseexperts/

Media Inquiries:
Sasha Stoltz | Sasha@sashastoltzpublicity.com | 416.579.4804
https://www.sashastoltzpublicity.com

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