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Toronto Police have opened a homicide investigation after local filmmaker Reeyaz Habib was found dead in the city’s West End on June 8.

Habib, a graduate of the School of Cinematic Arts at USC, recently completed his directorial debut, the comedy Fat Lady Sriracha, which is in postproduction. Toronto Police Services on Wednesday said the homicide and missing persons unit was investigating a “suspicious death” that occurred June 8 in the Liberty Village neighborhood and appealed for help from the public to establish the director’s whereabouts between June 4 and 8.

“Reeyaz was a wonderfully kind spirit, full of an excitement for life and telling the complex yet necessary stories within it. He brought us all together to fulfill a lifelong dream. We’re extremely grateful for the time and trust we got to have with him and look forward to honoring his legacy by making sure his story gets told,” Fat Lady Sriracha...

Exclusive: Asia-focused production, financing and sales outfit Est Studios has acquired international sales rights to Canneseries selection Streams Flow From A River, produced by Canada’s Fae Pictures.

Created by Christopher Yip, the English-language series is premiering in the Canneseries Short Form Competition at MipTV.

The series follows the struggles of a Chinese-Canadian immigrant family, who dream of owning land and place their bets on a laundromat in a tiny rural town in Alberta, Canada. When a freak snowstorm traps the dysfunctional family together, they are forced to confront events from a decade ago that tore them all apart.

The ensemble cast includes veteran Chinese-Canadian actors Jane Luk and Simon Sinn; rising stars Liam Ma and Danielle Ayow; Canadian TV actor Jinny Wong; Hong Kong-Canadian actor Raymond Chan, and newcomers Dana Liu and Adrian So.

The series also features performances from Indigenous actors Wesley French (Tribal) and Colton Clause (Three Pines...

Rupert Everett is to star in AGC Television, Lionsgate Television and Night Train Media espionage drama Gray, which has entered production in Toronto, as the series rounds out key cast. Check out a first-look picture of leads Lydia West and Patricia Clarkson above.

AGC Studios’ TV arm is producing, with Lionsgate, whose involvement was previously announced, and Night Train co-financing. Lionsgate Television International will shop the show internationally in partnership with Herbert L. Kloiber’s Germany-based Night Train. AGC Studios will distribute in the U.S., represented by CAA.

The show stars Clarkson as CIA spy Cornelia Gray, who comes in from the cold after 20 years in hiding and discovers a new mole within her old spy network. Lydia West (It’s a Sin) co-stars.

Everett (My Best Friend’s Wedding), Wendy Crewson (Pretty Hard Cases) and Shawn Doyle (Star Trek: Discovery) also have roles, with Tim Rozon (Wynonna Earp, Schitt’s Creek), Jamaal Grant and Benjamin Sutherland announced today to round out the key cast.

John McLaughlin (Black Swan) is writing, based on an idea from author David Baldacci.

Exec producers are AGC’s Stuart Ford and Lourdes Diaz, Clarkson, McLaughlin, Baldacci, director Ruba Nadda, Marc Shmuger, Lionsgate’s Agapy Kapouranis and Elliott Brannon and Night Train’s Kloiber.

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Rupert Everett (My Best Friend’s Wedding, the Shrek franchise), Wendy Crewson (Pretty Hard Cases, Peacock’s Departure) and Shawn Doyle (Paramount+’s Star Trek: Discovery, Netflix’s Frontier) are joining stars Patricia Clarkson and Lydia West in espionage thriller series Gray.

Other new cast members unveiled on Thursday are Tim Rozon (Schitt’s Creek), Jamaal Grant (USA’s Chucky, Amazon’s The Expanse) and Benjamin Sutherland (Epix’s Billy the Kid, OWN’s The Kings of Napa) round out the cast.

AGC Television, Lionsgate and Night Train Media also announced that principal photography on the eight-part show has started in Toronto and released a first-look photo. Gray is directed by Ruba Nadda (Roswell, NCIS: Los Angeles) who previously worked with Clarkson on the film Cairo Time. The series is written by John McLaughlin (Black Swan, Hitchcock) based on an idea from best-selling author David Baldacci...

Vampirism has been used as a metaphor for various kinds of addiction in several films over the years, like The Addiction (1995) and Larry Fessenden’s Habit (1995). There are just so many ways to compare creatures of the night who need to drink blood to survive to humans’ many unhealthy addictions. What would happen if a vampire decided to try and kick their habit of drinking blood? Filmmaker Blaine Thurier (Teen Lust) poses this question in his new film Kicking Blood and the answer is captivating.

Written by Thurier and Leonard Farlinger, and directed by Thurier, Kicking Blood premiered at Toronto International Film Festival in 2021. The film stars Alanna Bale as Anna, a vampire who likes to read books and works the overnight shift in a library, and Luke Bilyk (Adams Testament) as Robbie, a messy alcoholic whose life is falling apart.

Kicking Blood introduces the mysterious Anna, working her late-night...

Kicking Blood, starring Alanna Bale (Cardinal), Luke Bilyk (Degrassi), Benjamin Sutherland (Kim’S Convenience), Vinessa Antoine (General Hospital), Rosemary Dunsmore (Orphan Black), Ella Jonas Farlinger (Anne With An E), and Kristin Shepherd (Netflix’s The Knight Before Christmas). The fantasy thriller hits theaters March 31st from XYZ Films Releasing. After falling for a charming recovering alcoholic, modern vampire Anna sets her mind, and heart, on quitting blood and becoming human again. Release Date: March …

The post Kicking Blood lands trailer + release date appeared first on Horror News | Hnn.

"Kicking old habits... can be deadly." LevelFilm in Canada has unveiled the official trailer for a Canadian indie horror drama titled Kicking Blood, about a female vampire who tries to give up blood and become human again. This first premiered at the 2021 Toronto Film Festival last year. When Anna, a centuries old vampire, watches Robbie, a charming but reckless young man, recover from his alcoholism, she decides to quit blood and restore her humanity. The filmmakers state that they were inspired to update the vampire mythology - explaining more: "the idea of being immortal and addicted and you have to live in darkness. You can’t see the sunlight and you have no soul, and would there be just the tiniest spark left to compel you to try to recover from your addiction and reconnect with your soul in the end." Kicking Blood stars Alanna Bale, Luke Bilyk, Benjamin Sutherland,...