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Toronto-based Raven Banner has added the Michael Jai White action film Sunset Superman and road rage thriller Cold Road to its Cannes slate.

Jason Krawczyk, who directed 205 SXSW fantasy He Never Died, wrote and directed Sunset Superman starring White as Jt, a gentle giant helping his grandmother fix the leaky sink in her secluded cabin.

When the cabin is targeted by a gang of home invaders led by the unhinged Stan, played by Billy Zane, Jt must fend off growing number of thugs while keeping his grandmother – whom he fears the most— oblivious to the escalating mayhem.

Justin Kelly, Robert Fisher...

Dene filmmaker Kelvin Redvers’ Indigenous thriller Cold Road has been picked up by levelFilm.

The debut feature comes from the Canadian filmmaker who made headlines when he was initially turned away from a red carpet screening of horrormeister David Cronenberg’s Crimes of the Future at the Cannes Film Festival for wearing handmade moccasins with the requisite tuxedo. After an intervention by the Telefilm Canada, the Canadian film financier, Redvers was allowed into the gala screening for Cronenberg’s film.

Cold Road, a genre thriller from IndigiFilm Media and starring Roseanne Supernault, is set on a frozen highway in the remote Canadian North where an Indigenous woman, Tracy, and her dog, Pretzel, are hunted by a stranger in a semi truck.

As Tracy realizes she’s being stalked, it’s too late to turn back, the temperature drops, night comes and she has no choice but to fight for her life.

Stars: Hannah Emily Anderson, Daniel Arnold, Madison Walsh, Helen Belay, Roseanne Supernault, Kyra Harper, Luke Moore | Written by Berkley Brady, Tim Cairo | Directed by Berkley Brady

Dark Nature begins with a much different, and more realistic horror than what follows. Joy is busy in the kitchen making dinner when Derek gets home. It’s obvious he’s not happy and from the way both Joy and the dog react we know that is a very bad thing. She barely escapes, the dog isn’t so lucky.

Six months later Joy is still trying to get past this trauma and her friend Carmen thinks she has the solution. She convinces her to join her, Tara (Helen Belay; Abracadavers), Shaina and some others on a camping trip/therapy session with the somewhat controversial Dr. Dunnely, “You guys talk about her like you’re in a cult”.

Berkley Brady makes her feature debut...

Maple Syrup Massacre is a monthly series where Joe Lipsett dissects the themes, conventions and contributions of new and classic Canadian horror films. Spoilers follow…

Last year in October 2022, Indigenous filmmaker Jeff Barnaby passed away from cancer. Although he had only written and directed two feature films, Barnaby was a key figure in Canadian genre cinema, notably his advocacy for better and more varied forms of Indigenous representation in front of and behind the camera.

While 2019’s Blood Quantum is arguably Barnaby’s most popular film (I reviewed it for Bloody out of TIFF), his 2013 feature debut Rhymes for Young Ghouls remains an underseen gem. Both films are incredibly political and confrontational; while their genre elements help make them accessible for audiences, each film is a passionate defense of Indigenous rights and, more importantly, a call to arms against white (Canadian) settlers.

Rhymes for Young Ghouls is a period film,...

Award-winning filmmaker and acclaimed visionary Jeff Barnaby passed away in Montreal on Oct. 13, following a year-long battle with cancer.

The 46-year-old, who was born and raised on the Mi’gmaq community of Listuguj, is widely celebrated as redefining Indigenous cinema with elements of magical realism, body horror and sci-fi.

According to a release announcing Barnaby’s passing, he is remembered as a passionate filmmaker who loved music and often created the soundtracks to his films on the fly with whatever instruments were required. He was uncompromising in his stance on Indigenous identity and storytelling, and was a valued member of the film community for his authenticity and honesty.

“In Mi’gmaq the word for ancestor and parent is the same thing, ungi’gul. Your language, your land, and your elders are time capsules as much as they are cultural touchstones,” Barnaby recently wrote, as per the release.

“As an Indigenous...

There’s risk dealing with a therapy group like that at the center of Berkley Brady’s directorial debut Dark Nature: the narrative quite often needs to turn into a “Trauma Olympics” if it’ll progress. She knows this and even includes the sentiments as a joke early on when one of Dr. Dunnley’s (Kyra Harper) usual patients Shaina (Roseanne Supernault) speaks about why she’s attending this woodland retreat in the Treaty 7 territory of northern Alberta (Brady is a Métis filmmaker) before trivializing those of newcomer Joy (Hannah Emily Anderson). It’s an important moment, reminding us the potency of trauma isn’t about some objective scale of relativity. Whether war (Shaina) or domestic abuse (Joy), the resulting suffering these women face is what matters.

It can be difficult to separate, especially when the correlation aligns for some. While the psychological horrors Joy faces appear stronger than Shaina...

Last year, RADiUS scored at the box office and in Awards Season with its documentary 20 Feet From Stardom (nearly $4.95 million and Best Documentary Feature Oscar win). This year, it may have another non-fiction awards behemoth, hitting theaters this weekend.

Citizenfour, directed by journalist and filmmaker Laura Poitras, tells the story of Nsa leaker Edward Snowden as he disclosed massive domestic U.S. government spying. The film unfolds in real time as Poitras and Guardian colleague Glenn Greenwald, working on a long-term project about government surveillance, were contacted online by a mysterious source calling himself “Citizenfour.” The film, completed in secret while Poitras was in self-imposed virtual exile, alleges even more Nsa overreaching at home and abroad than just what came out of the massive pile of U.S. documents Snowden leaked.

Another potential awards contender also arrives in U.S. theaters this weekend: Sweden’s entry for Foreign Language Oscar,...

Watch a new red band clip from Jeff Barnaby's Rhymes for Young Ghouls, which made its world premiere at the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival over the weekend. The film is set against the backdrop of residential schools in the 1970s as it follows an aboriginal teen (Kawennahere Devery Jacobs) who exacts revenge on a sadistic Indian Agent. This marks Barnaby’s debut feature film, after having previously directed multiple short films, including The Colony and File Under Miscellaneous, which both previously premiered at Tiff in 2007 and 2010. Also in the cast are Glen Gould, Brandon Oakes, Mark Anthony Krupa and Roseanne Supernault.

One chaotic round of updates coming up.

Jane Espenson has announced the new project she has been working on with Alessandra Torresani, Brad Bell (Cheeks) and Sean Hemeon, in an interview with CliqueClack. Yes, it's Husbands, a web series about "two guys, a newly dating couple, who celebrate a new marriage equality law in Vegas and wake up married." A couple of snippets from the interview:

Km: What do you hope to become of Husbands in the long run? If it simply stays as a free series on the web, will that satisfy not only you but the actors?

Je: Honestly, I would love to see Husbands turn into a network television show. I’m loving the freedom that we’re enjoying as we put it together ourselves, but there’s something about it that feels so accessible — it’s Ab Fab, Dharma and Greg, Will and Grace … it feels...