Media 7053E Glacier St, Powell River BC V8A 5J7 editor@qathetliving.ca • tel 604 485 0003
Congratulations to FOR AN INCREDIBLE CELEBRATION OF CREATIVITY
I look forward to continuing to serve and support this vibrant arts community!
Randene Neill, MLA Powell River
Randene.Neill.MLA@leg.bc.ca Drop by, email or give us a call—we’re excited to connect with you and support our community.
qathet international
Top Ten Reasons to Come to the Film Festival
1. Good Films
Individually, the feature films presented at qiff are each a testimony of artistic vision delivered by a collaboration of dedicated professionals. The cinematic journey is supplemented by a curated selection of shorts that add context and perspective to each feature. An emerging theme for this year’s festival is ‘resilience’ and how community supports us in tough times.
2. Great Parties
The festival has an opening and closing party, with food, music, and a pay bar. The opening film, təm kʷaθ nan Namesake is a collaboratively made documentary, a coming together of Tla’amin Nation filmmakers and their allies. Filmmakers Evan Adams, Peg Campbell, Eileen Francis, Angela Kendall, Davis McKenzie, Claudia Medina and Emily White will be in attendance. The closing party’s live cool jazz performance precedes the film Köln 75, a jazzy film about a young woman promoting a Keith Jarrett solo concert.
3. Lively Discussion
An important aspect of engagement is discussion. Gathering in a movie theatre and immersing in cinema is a catalyst for this. qiff helps facilitate discussion through panel discussions after films, special guest Q&As, and Morning-After Film Salons. Join us at the Salons at 12pm upstairs in The Screening Room, treats from 32 Lakes Café & Bakery provided.
4. Historic Patricia Theatre
There’s no place like it! The theatre has been around since the days of Vaudeville and silent film. Now owned by the qathet film society –
our new seats, updated concession, and renovated washrooms elevate the creature comforts of the experience – combining heritage charm and modern comfort!
5. Special Guests
Drawing on cultural contributors in our community, and the added attraction of guests from out of town, provides a depth of insight and delivers value that extends beyond the price of admission and the cinematic experience. Check out the Special Guests section in this guide for current details. We’re updating our website as visitors confirm their attendance.
6. Accessibility
The theatre has wheelchair accessible seating at the rear and front of the theatre. Our loge box seating is held for those with mobility issues, with seats that are wider than our row seating. There are 2 accessible parking spaces in front of the theatre. Passenger drop-off is available at the curb. Our washrooms are also wheelchair accessible.
7. Popcorn
The popcorn at the Patricia is second-to-none, and our on-site corn connoisseurs are working to make it even better. Eating popcorn is one of the healthiest snack habits you can have. It's filled with fibre, has more antioxidants than some
fruits and vegetables, and may even help fight cancer (take this with a grain of salt and some nutritional yeast).
8.
Community
Sitting home alone on the couch to watch a film just isn’t the same as being in the theatre. There is no substitute for the emotional connection that results from a group response to a critical moment in a film. Our community includes not only the folks who come to the theatre, but the businesses that sponsor our films, and the local funders who appreciate and support our vision.
9. Thoughtful Reflection
With all the media we consume in an average day, much of it is forgotten. The films selected for qiff do the heavy lifting required to deliver messages that have resonance. They may require a little extra effort to fully experience and appreciate their art, but the rewards resonate over time, with images and sounds replaying in one’s mind, and conversations about filmic moments continuing after the festival ends.
10. Light and Sound
The historic Patricia Theatre has an awesome state-of-the-art digital projection system that’s coupled with professionally tuned superior sound. Depending on where you sit in the theatre, it’s an all-enveloping experience. Our reserved seating option let passholders pick their favourite seat. Film is an axis for cultural augmentation, critical dialogue, and a place for community and understanding – Engaging cinema. Engaging minds.
Gary Shilling Film Fanatic
təm kʷaθ nan Namesake
In təm kʷaθ nan Namesake, the British Columbia city of Powell River confronts how reconciliation is put into action when the Tla’amin Nation requests Powell River City Council to change the city’s name.
This sparks a heated debate about who Israel Powell was, and whose history of this community is told and respected. Through insightful interviews, Tla’amin storytelling and oral history, archival imagery, heated community engagement, and powerful footage of the support for and against this request, the region’s rich Indigenous history is brought forward as reconciliation is hopefully implemented.
The film explores Tla’amin naming traditions as a gift to seeing the land – a way to understand traditional places.
Elders describe how names are given so landmarks are recognizable. Expanding on how Tla’amin choose names for places and people, a map of the area shows Indigenous names being erased as English and Spanish people’s names displace/replace them.
There are those who feel that since their grandfather’s immigrated here, it would dishonour them to change the name of the town they helped build. A young father and ally brings a bouquet of orange flowers from his garden, saying he wants to use his speaking time to have us all think about what it would be like to have our children taken from us, as was done to Indigenous families by the residential school system set up by Israel Wood Powell.
With the knowledge that the name change request won’t be resolved during the making of this documentary, the goal is to make a film that celebrates the Tla’amin Nation, while giving space to those against the name change.
təm kʷaθ nan Namesake is a collaboratively made documentary, a coming together of Tla’amin Nation filmmakers and their allies: Evan Adams, Peg Campbell, Eileen Francis, Angela Kendall, Davis McKenzie, Claudia Medina and Emily White. It is funded and supported by Telus originals.
Directed by: ƛɛsla Dr. Evan Adams & tagəm Eileen Francis
Country: Canada
Language: English & Ayajuthum
Genre: Documentary
Running Time: 1 hr 16 min
To Be Released: 2026 – Not Rated
Screening info:
Special Community Screening Filmmakers in Attendance
Encore Screening Monday March 16 7 pm Feature Film Tickets only. No passes.
Sponsor:
Mr Nobody Against Putin
Working from Pavel “Pasha” Talankin‘s first-hand footage, Mr Nobody Against Putin director David Borenstein exposes the Russian government’s extreme tactics to indoctrinate young students before shipping them off to the front lines.
With the snappy casualness of a “day in the life” vlog, Pavel “Pasha” Talankin, a charismatic Russian teacher who serves as planner and videographer for all of his school’s events, introduces us to his peculiar small town: Karabash. Known as the most toxic place on Earth due to a copper smelting plant, here the average life expectancy is 38 and cancer affects the population disproportionately.
It’s in this maligned place that Pasha has built a safe haven with his classroom, fostering friendships between students and pushing them to explore their creativity. Pasha works in the same school he attended and where his mother still works as a diligent librarian.
Teaching couldn’t be more personal for him. Thus, when Presi-
dent Putin’s unchecked propaganda antics threaten his noble efforts, he springs into action.
Teachers and educators are vital to the ecosystem of society. They prepare children and teach them to become adults, educating them about history, social sciences, and languages, giving them everything they need before letting them go out in the world.
So what happens when teachers are compromised by the government? What happens when a teacher must follow a strict curriculum laden with political propaganda? What happens when a country’s government decides to tell its people lies and indoctrinate the young in order to push them to enlist and join the army of one of the bloodiest European wars since World War II?
In Mr Nobody Against Putin , we follow Pasha Talankin as he witnesses his small town in the Ural Mountains change as the invasion of Ukraine changes the school he teaches at into something he doesn’t recognize.
Directed by: David Borenstein & Pavel Talankin
Country: Denmark, Czech Republic, Germany
Language: Russian
Genre: Documentary
Running Time: 1 hr 30 min
Released: 2025 – Not Rated
Screening info:
Saturday March 7 1:30 pm Feature Film & Short
Sponsor:
Preceded by: Paradaïz by Matea Radic 9 min – Animation 2026
Welcome to a place where the houses have holes, tomatoes are ticking time bombs and snails wander the streets in search of a safe space. In Paradaïz, Sarajevoborn artist Matea Radic uses absurdist animation, archival images and her own slippery childhood memories to explore the real meaning of home.
Special Moments from Last Year
Hamnet
From Academy Award® winning writer/director Chloé Zhao, Hamnet tells the powerful story of love and loss that inspired the creation of Shakespeare’s timeless masterpiece, Hamlet.
Breaking hearts and mending them in one fell swoop, Hamnet speculates on the inspiration behind Shakespeare’s masterpiece with palpable emotional force thanks to Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal’s astonishing performances. This adaptation of Maggie O’Farrell’s novel is earthy, soaring, profound and life-affirming.
Maggie O’Farrell’s 2020 novel Hamnet imagined the relationship between the Bard and his spouse as an intimate tale of lust, compromise, joy, resentment, support, and sorrow. A marriage, in other words.
It also focuses on one of the defining events of their lives, the death of their 11-year-old son Hamnet, and how that unfathomable loss leads William to write the tale of a melancholy Dane in an existential crisis.
The play takes their boy’s name as its title — Hamnet and Hamlet being virtually synonymous — and
Directed by: Chloé Zhao
Country: United Kingdom, United States
Language: English
Genre: Biography / Drama / History / Romance
Running Time: 2 hr 5 min
Released: 2025 – Rated: PG
Screening info:
Saturday March 7
7 pm Feature Film secures Shakespeare‘s legacy.
O’Farrell imagined a speculative fiction that nonetheless grounded the story of a famous historical couple in the reality of both love’s labor and a sense of loss. Even the man who wrote eloquent romantic soliloquies that have endured centuries still royally pissed off his wife on the regular.
What makes Chloé Zhao’s films so special is the way they convey nature’s transcendent quality. From The Rider to her Oscar-winning Nomadland and even her unloved Marvel blockbuster Eternals, they find the mystical within our everyday surroundings, making the prosaic feel profound.
That aesthetic instinct is the best part of Hamlet, Zhao’s wildly hyped fifth film. The fictionalized story of how William Shakespeare and his wife worked through the loss of their son has been overwhelming festival audiences with emotion, leaving viewers and critics alike in puddles of sobs. Jessie Buckley’s performance in particular has inspired effusive praise for its raw intensity.
Encore Screening
Tuesday March 17
7 pm Feature Film Tickets only. No passes.
Sponsor:
Emergence: Women in the Storm
Climate change is here.
As heat domes, atmospheric rivers and mega fires reshape our world, how do we protect the things that are most vital?
Emergence: Women in the Storm, from award-winning filmmakers Nova Ami and Velcrow Ripper (Incandescence, Metamorphosis), goes beyond the headlines to explore how people are navigating the reality of climate emergency.
When fire broke out in the town of Lytton, B.C., residents were forced to flee through air filled with the smell of burning sage. In the Fraser Canyon, Yarrow, and Princeton, massive flooding left entire communities without food, heat or power.
But in a crisis, it is everyday people who provide critical support and aid. Across Canada, residents opened their homes to evacuees, offering food, shelter, places to camp and help with livestock.
Through interviews with survivors, impressionist sequences, and remarkable footage, the raw poetry of renewal is forged. Built out of empathy, shared experience and the need to stabilize the life-sustaining systems of the planet and its inhabitants, this collective effort brings people together to tell a new story about living better in a changed world.
Nova Ami is a Canadian documentary filmmaker of mixed Filipino heritage. Her current work explores themes of climate emergency and environment, focusing on the perspectives of women and diverse communities.
Velcrow Ripper creates powerful, cinematic feature documentaries that deal with the central issues of our times.
Directed by: Nova Ami, Velcrow Ripper
Country: Canada
Language: English
Genre: Documentary
Running Time: 1 hr 25 min
Released: 2025 – Not Rated
Screening info:
Sunday March 8
1:30 pm Feature Film & Short Filmmakers in Attendance
Sponsor:
Preceded by:
My Knitting Circleby Alexandra Knowles 12 min – Documentary 2026
Winters in the sparsely populated Yukon are long, cold and dark— a natural recipe for isolation. For newcomers like Alexandra Knowles, it can be hard to find friends. But anywhere there is a yarn store, there are knitters. And where there are knitters, there is a knitting circle, weaving together a circle of care, one stitch at a time.
All That’s Left of You
A deeply moving, multigenerational drama, All That’s Left of You follows a Palestinian teenager who gets swept into a protest in the Occupied West Bank and experiences a moment of violence that rocks his family.
The film unfolds as his mother recounts the political and emotional threads that led to that fateful moment. Spanning seven decades, the film traces the hopes and heartaches of one uprooted family, bearing witness to the scars of dispossession and the enduring legacy of survival.
An epic-scale journey into the depths of the Palestinian plight, masterfully tracing and carefully dissecting a multifactorial and convoluted intergenerational trauma.
Starting in a setting of pulsating action and anguish that leaves a tormenting question unresolved, we are plunged (and swept) from the get-go into a story of undulating pain and a recurring sense of futility.
Divided into four chapters – the surge of violence during the Nakba in 1948; the consolidation of a new status quo in the West
Bank in 1978; the outbreak of the First Intifada in 1988; and the filmic present of 2022 – Cherien Dabis’s devastating All That’s Left of You makes us both witnesses and participants in a fathomless and irreparable loss.
Yet Palestinian-American filmmaker Dabis resists the lure of convenient sentimentality, weaving instead a labyrinthine character study, shrouding a series of underground and catastrophic conflicts within the bounds of family. In a meticulously paced yet heart-wrenching finale that imparts a bitter aftertaste of unfinished repatriation and existential uprooting, life and hope emerge as the sole bulwark against inhumanity and dehumanization.
According to Dabis, All That’s Left of You isn’t political in its approach. It's deeply personal and profoundly intimate. A historical epic that chronicles the story of the land through the eyes of one family and three generations of struggle. A family portrait, examining the relationship between grandfather, father and son, and the legacy of trauma passed down to each.
Directed by: Cherien Dabis
Country: Germany, Cyprus, Occupied Palestinian Territory, Jordan, Greece, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United States, Egypt
Language: Arabic & English
Genre: Drama / History
Running Time: 2 hr 25 min
Released: 2025 – Not Rated
Screening info:
Sunday March 8
7 pm
Sponsor:
Feature Film
The Film Festival is Brought to You By
qathet film society
Board
President: Terry Noreault
Vice President: Claudia Medina
Treasurer: Devan Gillard
Secretary: Angie Davey
Directors at large:
Peg Campbell
Eli Leyland
Nina Mussellam
Nola Poirier
Tai Uhlmann
Staff
Executive Director: Gary Shilling
Education Director: Peg Campbell
Operations Manager:
Linda Krepinsky
Communications Designer: Nicole Narbonne
Programming Committee
Chair: Peg Campbell
Paul Demers, Linda Krepinsky, Claudia Medina, Emma MorganThorp, Gary Shilling, Tai Uhlmann, Laura Wilson, Tom Wojtusik
Patricia Entertainment Company
Board
President: Terry Noreault
Secretary: Peg Campbell
Treasurer: Eli Leyland
Staff
Theatre Manager: Laura Wilson
Evan Doan, Geoff Koch, Kathy Piechotta, Jason Schreurs
PARKS, RECREATION & CULTURE
Inside and Out the Patricia is a Gem
The Secret Agent
Once in a while, you see a movie that doesn’t feel made, but extracted from a dreaming mind. It has a strong personality and visual style and moves to its own mysterious rhythms. It won’t go to you and hand over its meanings. You must go to it.
That’s The Secret Agent, written and directed by Kleber Mendonça Filho.
Set in 1977 Brazil, roughly at the midpoint of a 21-year military dictatorship, The Secret Agent is a drama, a satire, an intriguingly laid-back espionage film, and a recreation of a time and place, with expressionistic and surreal flourishes that must be accepted on their own terms.
Wagner Moura stars as Marcelo, a tall, bearded fellow with gentle energy and sad eyes. He arrives in Recife, the state capital of Pernambuco, Brazil, in a bright yellow Volkswagen Beetle.
We don’t know why he’s come to Recife. We won’t know for a long time. You have to pick up on subtext in order to understand
certain conversations. Marcelo and the other characters in his orbit try to avoid saying exactly what they mean, because someone might be listening.
Murder is everywhere. Some deaths are punishments, levied against the regime’s opposition. Others are byproducts of street crime. There’s a lot of overlap. Hired killers are free agents who will murder a stranger and dispose of the corpse—whether the client is the state, a corporation, or some random person with a grudge— then have a nice dinner and go to bed. This film is partly about how people accept a world where such things can happen, and learn to move within it.
Like a political thriller from the 1970s Hollywood, The Secret Agent presents us with an X-ray of society from its highest reaches to its darkest corners. It’s hard to imagine a richer cast of characters, each individualized and respectfully given their humanity.
Directed by: Kleber Mendonça Filho
Country: Brazil, France, Netherlands, Germany
Language: Portuguese, German, & English
Genre: Crime / Drama / Mystery / Thriller
Running Time: 2 hr 38 min
Released: 2025 – Rated: 14A
Screening
Monday March 9 7 pm
Sponsor:
The Mastermind
The Mastermind is a 1970s-style character portrait of an art thief from writer-director Kelly Reichardt (Old Joy, Meek’s Cutoff, First Cow), and is perfectly titled. It captures the way the thief sees himself. But it could also be sarcastic—the kind of nickname other prison inmates would give the new guy, who’s behind bars because his estimation of his abilities doesn’t match reality.
Josh O’Connor plays James Blaine Mooney, a married suburban father of two with a secret life as an art thief. Not the Thomas Crown type of art thief; he’s a couple of steps up from somebody who’d steal a rolled-up poster from a booth at a fan convention.
James’ wife, Terri (Alana Haim), doesn’t know about her husband’s secret life, only that there are times when he’s supposed to drive the kids home from school but calls to say he can’t because something important just came up.
To observers beyond the Mooneys’ little circle in the Massachusetts town where they live, James might be just another handsome, charming but rather slippery young husband who’s been coasting on his unkempt charisma and is going to get cleaned out in divorce
court when his wife finally decides she’s had enough.
O’Connor, as was evident in last year’s Challengers and 2023’s La Chimera, has an ingenious way of weaponising his own earnestness. Whatever the role, there’s always something gentle about him on screen. Yet with a well-placed smirk, he twists half of it into disarming performance and preserves the other as authentic vulnerability. He rarely settles for the characters that naturally suit him, and, as a result, offers those like James new and surprising angles.
O’Connor is merely the center of a brilliantly chosen ensemble, from a prim Hope Davis and a bloviating Bill Camp as JB’s parents, to a genial John Magaro and a shrewd Gaby Hoffman as the friends with whom he thinks he can hide out. Even the smallest role, like Jerry (Matthew Mahler), the henchman driver for the gangsters JB also gets mixed up with, gets the dignity of Reichardt’s attention when it’s the exact kind of moment most other filmmakers would cut away from. “A little advice from me: Never work with a wildcard,” says Jerry kindly to JB, who is quivering in the backseat. “You know, for next time.”
Directed by: Kelly Reichardt
Country: United States, United Kingdom
Language: English & French
Genre: Crime / Drama
Running Time: 1 hr 50 min
Released: 2025 – Rated: PG
Screening info:
Tuesday March 10 1:30 pm Feature Film & Short
Sponsor:
Preceded by:
The Girl Who Cried Pearls by Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski 17 min – Animation English Version – 2025
A haunting fable about a girl overwhelmed by sorrow, the boy who loves her, and how greed leads good hearts to wicked deeds.
It Was Just an Accident
Despite its title, you can’t find a more controlled film than Jafar Panahi‘s Palme d’Or winner It Was Just an Accident.
From the opening shot, featuring a husband (Ebrahim Azizi) and his pregnant wife driving at night on a dirt road, we’re fully in the Iranian auteur’s grasp. The couple’s child bounces in the back seat to the pop music blaring from the radio, forming a sweet family drive that’s interrupted by the dad running over a dog.
Despite the daughter’s sadness over the canine, her mother is unfazed. She blames it on God and the lack of streetlights, which makes animals common prey on this road. “It was just an accident,” she says. Much like the creatures whose lives are destroyed on this street, by virtue of this misfortune, their lives will be diverted.
It Was Just an Accident is a film about prisons, the ones time and memory make for us, and the hard-to-find psychological keys that’ll release us. Because
how do you remain human when your humanity has been stripped? How can you not resort to fighting with the opposition’s worn-out tools? It seems that’s all you have left.
These are questions Panahi poses to his characters, who, through a simple read, could all be interpreted as versions of him. By extension, then, these can also be interpreted as questions he’s posed to himself.
The director was first imprisoned in 2010 for two months, enduring mistreatment by his captors and hearing about threats against his family. When he was finally released, he was put on house arrest and banned from making movies, a ban he continues to defy to this day.
If success is the greatest revenge then Jafar Panahi surely drew particular savour from his Palme d’Or win at Cannes for this brilliantly knotty conundrum.
Directed by: Jafar Panahi
Country: Iran, France, Luxembourg, United States
Language: Persian
Genre: Crime / Drama / Mystery / Thriller
Running Time: 1 hr 43 min
Released: 2025 – Rated: PG
Screening info:
Tuesday March 10
7 pm Feature Film & Short
Sponsor:
Preceded by:
The Sounds of Things Ablaze by Hayat Najm 6 min – 2D Animation 2025
A woman walks down the sidewalk, avoiding the cracks in the pavement like a child. Her body remains on high alert, remembering the horrors of a war that continues to haunt her. The Sounds of Things Ablaze is a charcoal-drawn animated short film about the resilience of women.
25th annual qathet international
nan
Namesake
6 pm Opening Party
Fri March 6 – 7 pm
1hr 16min | Documentary
Canada | English /Ayajuthum
Mile End Kicks
Wed March 11 – 1:30 pm
1hr 51min | Comedy/Drama/ Music/Romance
Canada | English
Mr Nobody Against Putin
Sat March 7 – 1:30 pm
1hr 30min | Documentary
Denmark/Czech Republic/ Germany | Russian
100 Liters of Gold
Wed March 11 – 7 pm
1hr 28min | Comedy
Denmark/Finland/Italy | Finnish
Hamnet
Sat March 7 – 7 pm
2hr 5min | Biography/ Drama/ History/Romance
United Kingdom/United States | English
The Blue Trail
Thur March 12 – 1:30 pm
1hr 27min | Drama/Sci Fi
Brazil/Mexico/Chile/ Netherlands | Portuguese
Emergence: Women in the Storm
Sun March 8 – 1:30 pm
1hr 25min | Documentary
Canada | English
No Other Choice
Thur March 12 – 7 pm
2hr 19min | Comedy/Crime/ Drama/Thriller
South Korea | Korean/English
Limited Individual Tickets available online at qathetfilm.ca, at the Patricia Theatre box
international film festival
All That's Left of You
Sun March 8 – 7 pm
2hr 25min | Drama/History Germany/Cyprus/Occupied Palestinian Territory/Jordan, Greece/Qatar/Saudi Arabia, United States/Egypt | Arabic/ English
France/United States | English/Russian/Burmese/ Arabic/French/Spanish
It was Just an Accident
Tue March 10 – 7 pm
1hr 43min | Crime/Drama/ Mystery/Thriller
Iran/France/Luxembourg/ United States | Persian
Köln 75
6 pm Closing Party Sat March 14 – 7 pm
1hr 56min | Biography/Music/ Drama
Germany/Poland/Belgium | German/English
office during box office hours before the Festival, and at the door during the Festival.
Mile End Kicks
Hilarious, slyly self-deprecating and yet deeply compassionate, writer/director Chandler Levack’s delightful gem of a movie Mile End Kicks is one that already feels like it has all the makings of a comingof-age classic for a new generation. It’s a work that’s profoundly attuned to character and refreshingly willing to poke fun at itself just as it finds an ultimate grace in the journey, making for a complete portrait with all its character’s rough edges intact. There’s an inherent beauty to how personally Chandler Levack’s Mile End Kicks begins.
Grace Pine (a delightfully human Barbie Ferreira) is in a dingy basement as Canadian indie rock band “Islands” is on stage. The audience is packed shoulder-to-shoulder, only rivaled by how tightly crowded the band themselves appear on stage. But none of this matters to Grace. As she passionately scribbles her thoughts down onto a tiny notepad, it’s as if all her dreams are being formulated and completed simultaneously.
There’s much to be discovered in dark rooms such as these, where
great art seems to frequently inhabit and grow wild. Losing yourself in art is a beautiful thing, and when that passion is discovered, giving it your all provides you with such a fulfilling relationship.
And that is something both felt and innately understood in Levack’s semi-autobiographical film. She, too, was a young music critic in the early 2010s. And although much of Mile End Kicks is steeped in clear specificities mined from personal experience and nostalgic memories of a time long gone, there’s a universal appeal to how Levack writes Grace and how Ferreira portrays her.
Levack shows how easy it is to lose oneself amidst a sea of possibility. It can be deeply exciting as we acknowledge the bevvy of roads in front of us, but there’s also paths that should clearly be avoided. But for Grace, who is 23 and finds herself in the cultural music hub of Mile End, Montreal, those warning signs aren’t necessarily at the forefront of her mind. And who can blame her?
Directed by: Chandler Levack
Country: Canada
Language: English
Genre: Comedy / Drama / Romance / Music
Running Time: 1 hr 51 min
Released: 2025 – Not Rated
Screening info:
Wednesday March 11 1:30 pm Feature Film & Short
Sponsor:
Preceded by: Freaks of Nurture by Alexandra Lemay 6 min – Animation 2018
A stop-motion film about a mother-daughter relationship bursting at the seams with babies, poodles and flying spaghetti.
Morning-After Film Salons
This year’s Film Festival welcomes the return of our popular Morning-After Film Salons. They take place upstairs in our new Screening Room and will be led by a variety of local film lovers. These Salons are open to anyone attending films at the festival and are a welcoming place for discussion of the previous day’s screenings. Visiting filmmakers will also attend. The Salons take place at 12pm on every day that has an afternoon matinee scheduled. They
run for approximately an hour, depending on the depth of discussion, and participants can go directly to the 1:30 matinee after the discussion.
Coffee and treats will be supplied. Special thanks to 32 Lakes Café and Bakery for their support. This is a great opportunity to deepen your understanding of the films at the Festival and to share your thoughts with other film lovers.
Oceanside Entertainment
The Screening Room is a place where you and your friends can come and watch a movie, play video games, have a meeting, or just hang out. Included in the room is cinema seating for 16 people, an 80” plasma TV, streaming services, Blu-ray/DVD player, and Nintendo Switch. You can also bring your own devices and plug them into the system. The room is located upstairs and accessed through the side door to the left of the box office. It can be booked on an hourly basis and includes access to our kitchen and upstairs washroom. For more details, please contact Laura: laura@patriciatheatre.com.
100 Liters of Gold
An endearing black comedy set in the provinces of Finland, 100 Liters of Gold adopts the visual style of a ’60s Western.
The prolific writer-director Teemu Nikki salutes his country’s (and his family’s) tradition of sahti-making, following two dysfunctional middle-aged sisters, third-generation makers of the Finnish farmhouse ale. Sahti is a must to mark births, weddings and funerals, as well as almost everything in between.
Touching on issues such as alcoholism and family trauma, but with a light touch, Finland’s international Oscar submission provides a breath of fresh air (albeit one redolent with alcohol) amongst the serious dramas in this category.
In the village of Sysmä, the two best sahti brewers are the sisters Pirkko (Elina Knihtilä) and Taina (Pirjo Lonka) who live together and have nothing much else to do than to compete with other brewers, usually male, including their own father.
Pirkko likes to “get high on her own supply” to the point of erratic behaviour usually ending with a blackout, while Taina seems to be
the more sensible one, but she is guilt-ridden by the car accident that crippled their third sister Päivi (Ria Kataja). She is coming to the hometown to get married to artist Nestori (Jakob Öhrman) and she wants 100 litres of her sisters’ best brew for the party.
That is exactly what they do, following all the strict steps in the procedure, so their final batch is a “perfect ten”. Tasting it, they get so carried away that they end in a days-long blackout realising that they drank or shared the whole 100 litres and burned all the money they owned.
More than just a film about brewing, 100 Liters of Gold is a celebration of Finnish culture through its portrayal of sahti. By integrating humor with heartfelt storytelling, director Teemu Nikki crafts an unforgettable cinematic experience that highlights both the struggles and joys of preserving tradition in a modern world.
The film’s ability to transcend its cultural roots while maintaining authenticity is what makes it truly resonate with audiences.
Directed by: Teemu Nikki
Country: Denmark, Finland, Italy
Language: Finnish
Genre: Comedy
Running Time: 1 hr 28 min
Released: 2025 – Not Rated
Screening info:
Wednesday March 11 7 pm Feature Film
Sponsor:
The Blue Trail
Gabriel Mascaro’s dystopian fantasy stars Denise Weinberg as a spirited Brazilian senior who refuses to bow to ageist authoritarian dictates while she still has dreams and desires.
Gabriel Mascaro’s imaginative fable is a slap in the face of age discrimination, with hallucinogenic gastropods, dueling tropical fish and “wrinkle wagons” — trucks with caged flatbeds in which noncompliant oldsters are hauled off while kids snap cellphone photos. The subversive spirit gradually awakened in the 77-year-old central character is echoed in the cheeky pleasures of the plotting in a film both fantastical and grounded in earthy reality.
Pitched somewhere between science-fiction and fable The Blue Trail finds a beacon of optimism within its own dystopian view of the future. Set in the director’s native Brazil — and showcasing the astonishing natural beauty (side by side with decay) of the Amazon in every high-definition frame — the film centers a 77-year-old woman, Tereza (Denise Weinberg), in a soci-
ety that has deemed anyone above the age of 75 an impediment to its economic success.
Exultant public-address announcements and banners fluttering from passing planes proclaim, “The future is for everyone.” But happily self-sufficient Tereza is skeptical of her place in that future. She’s less than thrilled to come home and find government employees hanging golden laurels over the door to her humble shack; they award her a medal that declares her a “national living heritage.”
“Since when is getting old an honor?” she mutters with a scowl.
Bodies have been a thematic motif in Mascaro’s narrative features. That continues with The Blue Trail, in which ownership of the aged body of Tereza (Weinberg) is invalidated by bureaucratic edicts. But in a glorious FU to authoritarian rule, the director and his co-writer Tibério Azul celebrate Tereza’s physical vitality and even her resurgent eroticism as her transformative journey unfolds.
Directed by: Gabriel Mascaro
Country: Brazil, Mexico, Chile, Netherlands
Language: Portuguese
Genre: Drama / SciFi
Running Time: 1 hr 27 min
Released: 2025 – Not Rated
Screening info:
Thursday March 12
1:30 pm Feature Film & Short
Sponsor:
Preceded by: The Muse by Wanda Nolan 17 min – Documentary 2025
This touching short film explores the concepts of aging, memory and identity while demonstrating the power of creative connection.
We Build Community 3 ways to be part of your Chamber of Commerce:
• Become a member. Join the Powell River Chamber of Commerce to support local business advocacy, economic development, and a strong, unified business voice in our community.
• Networking and Community Events in Partnership with the Chamber. Build meaningful connections by participating in Chamber-led and partner-hosted networking and community events that bring businesses and community together.
• Resources & Business Promotion. Stay informed through quarterly email updates, access advertising opportunities, and promote your business through the Chamber’s communication channels. Email us at: office@powellriverchamber.com
CHAMBER OF COMMERCE
Why should I plan my own funeral?
It’s a thoughtful and loving thing that you can do for your family. When you pre-plan your funeral, you save your family from the emotional burden of making arrangements when you are gone, because you have already made the decisions, calmly and free of emotional stress.
Providing dignified service to the region since 1969
No Other Choice
No Other Choice is a darkly comedic thriller by acclaimed director Park Chan-wook that critiques modern work culture and the desperation of unemployment.
The film follows Man-soo, a laid-off paper mill manager, as he navigates absurd job interviews and ultimately resorts to extreme measures, blending humor with a sharp social commentary on identity and worth in a capitalist society.
Park Chan-wook is a director who understands the mechanics of escalation. Whether he is building desire and intensity in The Handmaiden or diving into ultimate darkness with Oldboy, this legendary Korean auteur relishes in pushing his characters to the breaking point and seeing them unravel. In No Other Choice, he explores the desperation of an unemployed worker willing to use any means to get a job. The result is a film that is both darkly funny and harrowingly chilling.
No Other Choice has no short-
age of violence or laughs. The film begins with Man-soo (played brilliantly by Korean superstar actor Lee Byung Hun) hugging his family. He seems to have it all: a loving wife, two great kids, two golden retrievers, a beautiful house, and a job that he loves. Since this is a Park Chan-wook film though, we know that this bliss is short lived.
The first thing to go is the job: after 25 years working for Solar Paper, Man-soo is unceremoniously laid off. As his family’s financial situation grows increasingly dire and new employment is hard to come by, Man-soo feels like his options are increasingly limited.
With seemingly no other choice, he embarks on a plan to eliminate his competition… by any means necessary. It seems that, when it comes to job hunting, the process can be literally cutthroat.
Directed by: Park Chan-wook
Country: South Korea
Language: Korean & English
Genre: Comedy / Crime / Drama / Thriller
Running Time: 2 hr 19 min
Released: 2025 – Rated: 14A
Sponsor: Screening
Special Guests at qiff 2026
A special preview screening of the locally produced documentary təm kʷaθ nan Namesake is our opening night film on March 6, with the collaborative team of Tla’amin and ally filmmakers in attendance – Dr. Evan Adams, Eileen Francis, Davis McKenzie, Emily White, Peg Campbell, Angela Kendall and Claudia Medina. A Q&A will follow the screening. The team will be on hand to talk more about the film at the first Morning After Film Salon on Saturday at 12 pm. • In celebration of International Women’s Day on March 8, the afternoon screening will have guests for the short film, as well as the feature. Director Alexandra Knowles from Whitehorse, Yukon and NFB Producer Teri Snelgrove will introduce the short film My Knitting Circle on the importance of finding community wherever you live. Continuing the discussion on how critical it is to have collective effort, especially during the climate crisis, Gibson filmmakers Nova Ami and Velcrow Ripper will present their documentary Emergence: Women in the Storm. The screening will be followed by a Q&A with the filmmakers. • At the matinee on Friday, March 13, director Jenn Strom and producer Kevin Eastwood of the The Painted Life of E.J. Hughes, will talk about the making of this historical biography that delves into the life and paintings of a very private man, whose art works are now revered. Jenn and Kevin will be at our last Morning After Film Salon, 12 pm on Saturday, March 14. • Our closing party will have pianist Al Dicken and drummer Stuart Isto getting us in the mood for Köln 75, and the zaniness of the enterprising 18 year old concert promotor trying to pull off a Keith Jarrett concern against impossible odds. • As a bonus for those who want a preview look into the films at our festival, with a focus on the making of the documentary təm kʷaθ nan Namesake, please attend the qiff 2026 kick off at the PR Public Library on Tuesday, March 3, at 4pm. Peg Campbell will give an overview of the films at this year’s festival, and the filmmaking team of təm kʷaθ nan Namesake will talk about the creation of their documentary on the Tla’amin Nations request for the city of Powell River to change its hurtful name.
Can I Get a Witness? Filmmakers, Stars, and Crew
Peg Campbell with Pirouz Nemati from Universal Language
Star volunteers Lois Bridger and Angie Davey
Texada VR filmmakers Claire Sanford and Josephine Anderson
The Painted Life of E.J. Hughes
The Painted Life of E.J. Hughes follows the 70-year career of E.J. Hughes, during which he created hundreds of paintings of British Columbia.
From coastal villages to the Rocky Mountains, he captured the province in vivid, meticulous detail. Working quietly in his Vancouver Island studio, the paintings he produced evoke shared memories and a dreamlike sense of place, captivating elite collectors, and everyday Canadians alike.
Hughes was born in North Vancouver in 1913 and his early childhood was spent in Nanaimo. His trombone-playing father moved the family around and ended up in Vancouver.
Hughes, who wasn’t particularly academically minded but gifted in art, enrolled in the Vancouver School of Decorative and Applied Art (which later became the Emily Carr University of Art + Design), where Frederick Varley, one of the Group of Seven artists, was one of the teachers. Known as a reclusive, sensitive soul, Hughes’ future as
an artist was far from certain when he graduated from Vancouver’s fledgling art school during the Depression. In 1938, Hughes was struggling to make a living from fishing when he sketched the coastal scene before him. Sixty-five years later, Fish Boats, Rivers Inlet the oil painting inspired by that sketch—would fetch a fortune at auction, setting a new record for a living Canadian artist.
How did a man too shy to attend his own art openings become so acclaimed? Along the way, Hughes crossed paths with artists from the legendary Group of Seven and became one of Canada’s most prolific war artists, chronicling army life during the Second World War and profoundly changing his own artistic voice in the process.
Travel through painted landscapes and Canadian art history, tracing the quietly extraordinary life of B.C. painter, E.J. Hughes.
Directed by: Jenn Strom
Country: Canada
Language: English
Genre: Documentary / Arts Biography
Running Time: 1 hr 20 min
Released: 2025 – Not Rated
Screening info:
Friday March 13
1:30 pm Feature Film & Short Filmmakers in Attendance
Sponsor:
Preceded by:
Imprint by Duncan Major 5 min – Animation 2025
Chance encounters can leave a lasting imprint, like ink on paper. At 13, Duncan Major met artist Tara Bryan and discovered a shared passion for letterpress printing that shaped his life.
Sentimental Value
Sentimental Value is a deeply moving family drama directed by Joachim Trier, featuring Stellan Skarsgård as a filmmaker seeking reconciliation with his estranged daughter, played by Renate Reinsve.
The film explores complex family dynamics and the intersection of art and personal history, receiving praise for its emotional depth and strong performances.
The film opens with two themedefining scenes. In the prologue, we’re introduced to a home that a child has reimagined as a character for an essay, wondering if it’s happier when its belly is full of life, asking if it feels pain when its window is slammed. In the scene that follows the title card, we meet an actress in the middle of a breakdown before her opening night. She tries to run away from the full house before bursting into her version of The Seagull. A family home and the Herculean effort of performance. History, memory, expression, art, trauma— they’re all woven through Trier’s breathtaking drama, a movie that recalls Ingmar Bergman more than any he’s made yet but also one
that truly cements his status as one of the working masters. It’s a movie that sneaks up on you like great fiction, blending theme and character in a way that allows it to live in your mind after you see it, rolling around what it means to both the people in it and your own life.
Believability is so essential to the success of Sentimental Value. There has rarely been a film in which the family dynamic is more genuinely defined than in this one. Skarsgård, Reinsve, and Lilleas disappear into their roles, playing father, daughter, and sister so genuinely. As it always is, it’s in the small choices. There’s a hysterical bit in which Gustav buys some very inappropriate DVDs for his grandson, and the knowing laugh that Reinsve gives him is just wonderful. They follow the moment of unspoken joy with a cigarette, laughing and smiling as they do so.
Strained relationships aren’t only defined by their strain. And it’s often when we stop talking that old bonds reform just a little bit.
Directed by: Joachim Trier
Country: Norway, France, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, United Kingdom
Language: Norwegian, English, French
Genre: Drama
Running Time: 2 hr 13 min
Released: 2025 – Rated: PG
Screening info:
Friday March 13
7 pm Feature Film
Sponsor:
Orwell 2+2=5
George Orwell’s searing insights into empire and power and totalitarianism have never lost relevance.
That’s particularly true of his final work, the dystopian premonition 1984. Published 76 years ago, the novel is the core of Raoul Peck’s documentary portrait of the writer. With a dynamic mix of biography and intellectual essence, and with the re-election of Donald Trump the obvious inflection point for its urgency, Orwell: 2+2=5 delves into the ways Orwell’s arguments illuminate a century’s worth of geopolitics.
Raoul Peck is one of our most valuable documentary filmmakers. Instead of just presenting us with information, he shows us ways of seeing, inspiring us to look for patterns and connections we might not have seen otherwise.
That’s the principle at work in his new documentary Orwell: 2+2=5. You can know George
Orwell’s work backward and forward and still find something new in Peck’s film; or you can be an Orwell neophyte and understand why, 75 years after his death, his ideas and preoccupations feel more modern than ever.
At certain points in the 20th century, dystopian novels like Animal Farm and 1984 may have seemed unnecessarily alarmist, cautionary tales but not necessarily foregone conclusions about our future.
In 2025, they read like nonfiction. In these books, and in the witty, joyously precise essays he wrote during his lifetime, Orwell worried in advance about the lives we’re living today. Orwell: 2+2=5 makes the case for why we should be worrying, too.
Köln 75 is not strictly a jazz movie – but then, as Ido Fluk’s film keeps telling us, the improvised music of pianist Keith Jarrett is not really jazz.
This is the story of the 1975 solo concert at the Köln Opera House that yielded Jarrett’s legendary best-selling album The Köln Concert – or rather, the story behind the concert. While it highlights an engagingly spiky performance by John Magaro as Jarrett, the real focus is on Vera Brandes, the teenage jazz fan who, against all odds, made the event happen.
The film unfolds the night when an 18-year-old promoter named Vera Brandes risked everything to bring Keith Jarrett’s improvised solo concert to life at the Cologne Opera House in January 1975. Directed and written by Fluk, the film stars John Magaro as the moody, perfectionist Jarrett; Mala Emde and Susanne Wolff as Vera in youth and midlife, respectively; Michael Chernus as the wry jazz critic Michael Watts; and Alexander Scheer as ECM founder Manfred Eicher. At once a coming-of-age comedy, a backstage drama, and a self-aware
historical pageant, the film weaves voice-over commentary into its storytelling, reminding us that sometimes the scaffold matters as much as the masterpiece it supports.
Long before Ido Fluk put camera to film, Keith Jarrett’s 1975 solo at the Cologne Opera House had already become legend—an improvised marathon that transformed a chilly January night into a transcendent musical pilgrimage.
The Köln Concert album went on to exceed four million in sales, making it the best-selling solo piano record ever and a touchstone for anyone who believes in the magic of in-the-moment creation. That story still pulses through jazz clubs today, from dimly lit corners playing Can and Floh de Cologne to late-night listening sessions at home.
Köln 75 is a fun ride through period-specific Germany with fastpaced editing that keeps us on our toes whether caught in Vera’s whirlwind (Emde is fantastic), pulled into a Watts aside, or wading through the tortured melancholy of Jarrett’s genius.
Directed by: Ido Fluk
Country: Germany, Poland, Belgium
Language: German & English
Genre: Biography / Music / Drama
Running Time: 1 hr 56 min
Released: 2025 – Not Rated
Screening info:
Saturday March 14
6 pm Closing Party: Al Dicken, piano & Stuart Isto, drums
