🌀 FILM 5 applications are open. Register for info session on Sept. 24th. Deadline to apply is the 29th!

🍿 HIFF at TIFF & AFCOOP at AIFF

🏆 News on the Linda Joy and Helen Hill Award winners!

⚓️ Lunenburg Doc Fest is now on.

Sleepy week post-AIFF. Hope you were able to make it out to a few screenings and enjoy the festivities.

AIFF wrapped up on Wednesday, and AFCOOP staff were squeezing in as many movies as possible. Henry got sick halfway through and is down for the count, Erica is now on vacation post-festival. Cody and Brielle have been holding down the office.

Big congrats to the Linda Joy & Helen Hill award winners! A. Laurel Lawrence won the Linda Joy Post Award, Anna Wheeler won the Linda Joy Award, and Daisy Graham won the Helen Hill Award. Follow us on Facebook or Instagram to learn more about the projects in the coming days.

BL: How many screenings did you go to?
CC: 13, it could have been 15, but for some I couldn’t get a good seat.
BL: Nice, I saw 11 in the end. Any favourite viewing?

CC: Probably IF I HAD LEGS, I’D KICK YOU, it looked good, the acting was good. It starts off stressful, and then escalates. NIRVANA THE BAND THE SHOW THE MOVIE was a close second favourite.
BL: Nice, I loved the NIRVANA screening too. Same with opening night of bretten’s film. There was a lot of great energy with the audiences this year. It felt great. I really enjoyed AGATHA’S ALMANAC too. But I got stung by a horrent or wasp on my way to the screening.

We’re already looking forward to AIFF 2026 with no allergic reactions from wasps and catching colds halfway through!

Last week, your humble HIFF correspondent was on the ground at the 50th annual Toronto International Film Festival, marching dutifully past the branded kiosks of Festival Street and questionable value of the Criterion Mobile Closet — where, as I understand it, regular people can pay to emulate the cinephile experience celebrities are given for free.

Things got more sensible inside the cinemas, where with some doing one could break TIFF’s massive program down to one manageable and instructive survey of where movies are right now.

It’s worth noting that this was a banner year for filmmakers you may have encountered at HIFF. Rhayne Vermette (Ste. Anne, HIFF ‘22) unleashed her hypnotic new film Levers, Mark Jenkin (Bait, HIFF ‘20) brought his Bolex psychodrama Rose of Nevada, and Sophy Romvari (shorts in HIFFs ‘21 and ‘23) continued an award run with Blue Heron, her feature debut stunner.

Atlantic artists broke through with a Best Canadian Short honourable mention for Heather Young’s A Soft Touch and a bustling world premiere for bretten hannam’s Sk+te'kmujue'katik — screenings so packed with Halifax film faces that the balance shifted and TIFF was momentarily at HIFF.

As always, the Wavelengths program provided a respite from the noisy, Oscar-hopeful headliners. For me, the film of the fest (and maybe even of the decade thus far) was Alexandre Koberidze’s Dry Leaf, a three-hour missing-person curio shot on a 2008 Sony Ericsson phone. I’m almost certain I’ve never seen a film projected at this particular resolution (320x240?), and I hope to never find out how these visuals "scale for streaming." But in the screening room, the brick-sized pixels created the effect of a pointillist painting in motion, and I could actively feel my personal taste be challenged and eventually changed.

Awards season looms large at TIFF, and it will be right around the corner to wear us down, but it’s hard to be cynical about Where Movies Are after seeing this many zero-compromise, art-first works in such a short period of time. Here's hoping we can bottle as much of that as possible for when HIFF turns 20 this May.

FLEAPIT CINEMA SHORTS VOLUME 5: EQUINOX (OUTDOOR SCREENING!)
Various | Canada | 2014-2025 | 75m

Fleapit Cinema is going outside for Shorts Volume 5: Equinox! Spilling into the backyard of the Museum of Natural History, its first-ever outdoor screening presents six short films that offer luminous new ecologies for the future and the past.

These films from contemporary female/afab filmmakers find space to bloom in the cracks between experimental, documentary, and speculative fiction. Analog processes like handmade emulsion, eco-processing, and phytograms consider the filmmakers’ subjectivities as inextricable from the landscapes they approach. Relationships between documentarian, subject, place, and capital are deconstructed and re-seeded.

TUKTUIT 
dir. Lindsay McIntyre | 2025 | BC *

NOTES FROM THE ANTHROPOCENCE
dir. Terra Long | 2014 | BC *

LIGHT AND LAND
dir. Kyath Battie | 2023 | SK *

IT MATTERS WHAT
dir. Francisca Duran | 2019 | ON *

SEE WEEDS
dir. Dawn George | 2017 | NS

الحديقة السريّة THE SECRET GARDEN
dir. Nour Ouayda | 2024 | QC/Lebanon *

*Atlantic Premiere

Thursday, September 25th
Doors at 7:30pm / Show at 8pm
Runtime: 75 minutes

$10/PWYC

Location:
Garden of the Museum of Natural History - 1747 Summer St.
(Bell Road gate entrance across from the Halifax Lancers)

Bring your own chairs, blankets, snacks, beverages!

AIFF ONLINE - SEPT. 17 - 21st: STREAMING SELECT ATLANTIC CANADIAN FEATURES AND SHORTS!

If you missed a screening (or two) during the in-person festival, here’s your chance to catch up from the comfort of home. AIFF Online is streaming select Atlantic Canadian features and shorts until Sunday, September 21. Available exclusively in Atlantic Canada (Nova Scotia, Newfoundland & Labrador, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island).

Whether you want to revisit a favourite or discover something new, AIFF Online brings some of the festival’s most exciting films right to your living room.

LUNENBURG DOC FEST NOW ON - SEPT. 17 - 21st

Join Lunenburg Doc Fest for the opportunity to immerse yourself in a diverse selection of thought-provoking documentaries from around the globe. Engage with filmmakers, industry professionals, and fellow documentary enthusiasts through interactive discussions and Q&A sessions. It is sure to be an unforgettable cinematic journey that will expand horizons and leave a lasting impact.

NSCAD’s Visiting Artist Program is proud to present a screening and in-person artist talkback with Seth & Peter Scriver and their film Endless Cookie in partnership with Carbon Arc Cinema. This event is possible through the generous support of NSCAD University and the Dalglish Family Foundation.

Endless Cookie is based on true stories told by Peter, a mixed race (Indigenous and white) resident of the Shamattawa First Nation in Manitoba, with animations by Seth; a white Toronto-based artist, director, and half-brother to Peter through their shared white father. At the heart of the film is the relationship with each other and to the family as a whole. Wanting to engage with the complexity of that relationship by speaking about race and identity in a frank way that is both personal and political. Peter’s stories explore life in Shamattawa in its comical and fraught aspects, both within the natural landscape and the ongoing colonial project. The film documents & animates Peter's experiences as well as those of the family in Toronto.

SCREENING:
Fri, October 3rd, 6:30 PM

Prismatic Arts Festival 2025 is on from September 26th to October 5th!

The annual, multidisciplinary festival will feature groundbreaking live performances in music, dance, theatre, and visual arts by phenomenal Indigenous artists and artists of colour from across the country at venues all over Kjipuktuk / Halifax.

Cover art by Emma Hassencahl-Perley.

Prismatic has been bringing audiences vibrant, boundary-pushing new works in theatre, dance, music, film, visual arts, media arts, and spoken word since 2008.

Check out the full program on their website.

Screen Nova Scotia: Sustainable Production & Green Initiatives

Upcoming workshops and opportunities: September 2025

Sustainable Film Production Fundamentals: This NEW online course offers an introduction to climate science and explores the impacts of our industry, along with sustainable practices for production.

Carbon Calculation Fundamentals: This popular and essential online course is now offered once per month on Thursday evenings.

September 25, 7-8:15 PM EST: Register Here

For more info on Screen Nova Scotia's sustainability initiatives, please visit their website HERE.

Member Alex Kronstein is looking for support from friends, community, and colleagues!

In this own words:

On May 5th, one of my external hard drives suddenly failed - a 2TB drive containing both personal and critical business files I couldn’t afford to lose. Over the days that followed, it became clear that this wasn’t a simple glitch: the motor had failed, three internal heads were damaged, and even professional data recovery software couldn’t get anything off it.

/[…] The total recovery - including parts, service, diagnostics, and a replacement drive - came to $2200. I’ve paid it, but it’s left a serious dent in my finances during an already tough time.

So I’m putting this GoFundMe out there not as an emergency, but as a humble ask: if you’re able and willing to help me recover some of this unexpected expense, I would be incredibly grateful.

CFAT IS HIRING!

The Centre for Art Tapes is offering a Digital Archive and Exhibitions Internship through the Digital Skills for Youth Program. The intern will undertake detailed training that will allow them to undertake a series of day to day, and longer term tasks!

It’s an awesome gig to help develop CFAT’s first digital archive exhibition!

Applications Due: September 26th, 2025 at 11:59PM (AT)
Remuneration: $35/hour, 20 hours per week
Anticipated Start Date: October 14th, 2025
Completion Date: March 31st, 2026

Read more about the internship and how to apply here!

CHARLOTTETOWN FILM FESTIVAL DISCOUNT

ChFF 2025 extends its programming and broaden its scope to include more opportunities for screenwriters, comedy creators, television professionals, and French creatives. This year's edition will be something special, and they want to see AFCOOP members there!

Use the code: AFCOOP20 to get 20% off your tickets and passes