The Dog Who Stopped the War, Dec. 28th 1pm

The Dog Who Stopped the War, Dec. 28th 1pm, 35mm, Mayfair Theatre

English-language version of the Quebec film "La Guerre des tuques". From the height of the Cold War comes a tale of a real cold war: kids competing over a giant snow fort. A super-smart dog, toboggans, plenty of snowballs, and a subtle anti-war message make for wintertime fun that the whole family can adore.  

Also from the same producer we have the Peanut Butter Solution in March!

Janis, Dec 7th 7pm at the Bytowne

Janis, 1975, 35mm, 96mins. A beautiful print provided by Library and Archives Canada.
One night only! December 7th at 7pm, Bytowne Cinema
Ottawa filmmaker Budge Crawley produced Janis through his company, Crawley Films, Canada`s largest independent film studio. This rock`n`roll documentary is one of the many highlights of an astonishing film career that lasted from the late 1930`s until the early 1980`s, with over 5000 films produced during that time.

In 1970, Budge Crawley decided to make the film after seeing Joplin during the Festival Express concert tour, which crossed Canada just months before Joplin died of a heroin overdose.

Crawley spent the next four years, and many thousands of dollars, securing the rights to concert performances, rehearsals and interviews — all of the footage available — including sequences from the Woodstock and Monterey Pop festivals.

Janis is a unique rock documentary that is as compelling for its musical sections as it is for its frank interviews with Joplin. The film was completed and released with the approval of Joplin's parents.

Janis won an Etrog as best nonfiction feature at the Canadian Film Awards in 1975 and was a considerable box office success.”

- Canadian Film Encyclopedia

Don't Miss Carry On! on Nov 9th 7pm

This is your one chance to see a rare Canadian War film on 35mm with a live band! for only $10.

Carry on, Sergeant (1928), 35mm, Black and White, Nov. 9th, 7pm at the Bytowne Cinema.

Carry On, Sergeant! Nov. 9th

Carry On, Sergeant, 1928, 35mm, 98mins, 7pm, Bytowne Cinema, Nov 9th

Accompanied by LIVE MUSIC from Mike Dubue and Mike Essoudry!

Carry On, Sergeant! was shot at Trenton Studios in Ontario and in the surrounding countryside by British Director Bruce Bairnsfather, with legendary Canadian filmmaker Gordon Sparling working as his assistant director. With a budget of $500,000,  it was the biggest-budget film produced in Canada up to that time. Much of that budget went to recreating WWI-era France, with sprawling sets and battlefield scenes featuring hundreds of extras.

The story follows a group of workers from Hamilton who join the army to fight in WWI, and the travails and temptations that befall them during the war. The film has excellent production values and presents a drama that may feel surprisingly modern to today’s audiences. Bairnsfather’s insistence on portraying the soldiers as flawed human beings resulted in some criticism from those who expected a straightforward glorification of Canada’s war effort.

Produced as a silent film just as theatres were transitioning to sound, it had only a brief run at the box office before it was removed from circulation in January 1929. It fell into obscurity for many years before Gordon Sparling donated a print to Library and Archives Canada, resulting in a complete restoration of the film. That restored print is the same one we will be showing with a brand-new live soundtrack composed by Ottawa’s own Mike Dubue (Hilotrons). Similar screenings of other silent films that have been held around town in the past couple of years have sold out quickly, so please make sure to show up early to ensure a seat.”

Rabid, Oct. 26th Bytowne Cinema 6:50pm

Rabid, 35mm, Rated R, 91mins, Bytowne Cinema, 6:50pm

Rabid stands as one of David Cronenberg’s most political, and most explicitly Canadian, horror films. It’s a tale of medical experimentation gone wrong, resulting in a parasite-borne plague rapidly spreading from an isolated rural medical clinic to the big city of Montreal, along with concomitant anarchy. The film initially gained its notoriety for featuring Ivory Snow soap box model/porn star Marilyn Chambers in one of her short-lived attempts to ‘go legit’.  She is actually one of the film’s strongest features, putting in an unsettling performance as the plague’s ‘Typhoid Mary’ who infects the male populace of the city with the insanity-inducing parasites.

Astute viewers will note that Rabid offers a jaundiced view of Canada’s society as one in which powerful institutions, both public, and private, cannot be trusted to fulfill their duties without some measure of negligence and/or incompetence. With the Quebec setting of the late 70s there are naturally echoes of the earlier October Crisis, an event that will always have some place in the psyche of Canadians when considering issues of social order and governmental authority.

Rabid is the only Cronenberg film that wears its Canuck identity proudly on its sleeve. French accents, wintry locales, and rural farmlands reaffirm the sheer Canadian-ness of it all. The Canadian location is paramount, since the threat posed in Rabid is most effective in a society with a concentrated governmental control of services. Rabid proposes a broad examination of the cautions of state control…It is an effective film, biting, clever, dark, timely and ultimately Canadian.

– Canuxploitation.com

Ivory Tower September 28th 7pm Bytowne Cinema

Wednesday September 28th 7pm, Ottawa Premiere, Director in Attendance, 2k Digital Cinema Presentation. 5.1 sound


Ivory Tower is Canadian director/musician/puppeteer Adam Traynor’s feature film debut. The Ottawa-born Traynor treats this ‘existential sports comedy’ as an exercise in high silliness, with just enough family drama to give the action some emotional heft.

Set in the world of international chess competition, it features the sibling rivalry between two chess prodigies fighting over the game and the same woman. The film is infused with the rhythms of both chess and music, and stars a roster of talented Canadian musicians, including multi-instrumentalist and Grammy-nominated producer Chilly Gonzales, Juno-Award winning DJ/producer Tiga, and internationally-renowned raunch rocker Peaches. Music fans should also watch for appearances by indie-pop superstar Feist and underground pop sensation The World Provider.

Gonzales, best known for producing Feist’s albums and having his music appear in the Apple iPad commercial that launched the product last year, stretches himself here not only as a musician (by providing the film’s soundtrack) but also as an actor and writer. Traynor and French filmmaker Céline Sciamma – writer and director of the provocative 2007 film Water Lilies – also share scripting credits. Their combined talents result in a comedy thatCahiers du Cinema compared (positively!) to the work of both Will Ferrell and Wes Anderson, and which Toronto.com described as ‘sweetly nutty’.  Perhaps having doubted that a group of non-actors and a first-time director could pull off such a high-concept comedy with any degree of success, the Montreal Gazette ended up declaring it ‘a hilarious and surprisingly accomplished satire.’  With such a talented group of collaborators, perhaps it shouldn’t have been too much of a surprise after all.

    –  Lost Dominion Screening Collective

This screening marks the debut of the Canadian Cult Revue film series at the ByTowne, presented by the Lost Dominion Screening Collective.

Regular admission prices apply, or you can buy a series pass: 11 movies for $45.

Canadian Cult Revue Starts Sept 17th with Deadly Eyes

Deadly Eyes, Rated R, Sept. 17th at 10pm, Mayfair Theatre

 The Lost Dominion Screening Collective presents a gorgeous 16mm print of the Canadian camp classic "Deadly Eyes" (1982), in which Toronto is overrun by giant killer rats!

Disgruntled maintenance worker Scatman Crothers wants a vacation, scream queen Lisa Langlois wants to bed the gym teacher, and noted rat-ologist Cec Linder just wants to talk your ear off, but these losers are no match for the swarm of genetically mutated rodents - actually dachshunds in fur coats! - who set out to eat their extremities for dinner.

In spite (because?) of a forehead-slapping screenplay and an overweening preponderance of love interests, this howler is by far the most entertaining Canadian killer-rat movie of the 80s. Import director Robert Clouse, best known for his many Bruce Lee flicks, makes the most of his tax-shelter budget; the film keeps on catching you by surprise with unforgettable set pieces in bowling alleys, movie theatres and subway tunnels. They even eat a baby.

Jonathan Culp - programmer at "Toronto's Classiest Cinema". Trash Palace - will be there in person to introduce this rare gem, one of the most entertaining films ever to be utterly forgotten by its nation of origin.