Inaugural St. Lawrence International Film Festival Announces Competition and Marquee Film Lineup

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‘Killing Poe’

The inaugural St. Lawrence International Film Festival, which is set to run October 22-25, 2015, has released its first wave of films, which comprise its competition and marquee programs. This year’s festival will feature 60+ screenings with over 25 features, 5 shorts programs and live performances in four cities in two countries.

NARRATIVE FEATURE COMPETITION

THE GIRL KING (Northeast Premiere), Finland/Sweden/Germany/Canada
Writer: Michel Marc Bouchard
Director: Mika Kaurismäki
Cast: Malin Buska, Sarah Gadon, Michael Nyqvist, Lucas Bryant, and Laura Brin
Synopsis: A beautifully shot period costume drama, this Finnish-Swedish-German-Canadian co-production presents a fresh cinematic portrait of Kristina of Sweden, crowned queen at the age of six in 1633 and who sought to make Stockholm the Athens of the North. Kristina’s reign becomes troubled when the nobles turn against her, her ‘modern’ ideas and her intimate relationship with her female lady in waiting and ‘bed-fellow.’ Canadian screenwriter and playwright Michel Marc Bouchard (Tom at the Farm) makes his English language debut.

KILLING POE (World Premiere), USA
Writer/Director: Nathan JacobsCo-Writer: Chris L. Firestone
Cast: Matt Bush, Osric Chau,Julianna Guill, Cyrina Fiallo, and Sunkrish Bala
Five college students find themselves failing the most infuriating class ever, and vow to take their revenge on the teacher, inspired by the plots of the Poe stores they have studied in his class. A comedy with a macabre edge, this ‘simple plan’ that spirals out of control features an ensemble of up and coming actors that capture the face of the modern college experience.

SUCKER (North American Premiere), Australia
Writer/Director: Ben ChessellCo-Writer: Lawrence Leung
Cast: Timothy Spall, Lily Sullivan, Jacek Koman, Jacinta Stapleton, and Eddie Baroo
Chinese-Australian Lawrence disappoints his family by cheating on his math exams, and failing to get into medical school. Banished to Melbourne for the summer, he falls in with a new family, a father-daughter con team, and they plot to swindle their way through the top poker game in town. The film stars Timothy Spall (Harry Potter series, Sweeney Todd) and was co-written by Comedian Lawrence Leung from his own life and one-man show.

THE VIOLATORS (North American Premiere), UK
Writer/Director: Helen Walsh
Cast: Lauren McQueen, Borgan Ellis, Stephen Lord, Liam Ainsworth, and Derek Barr
This gritty debut from acclaimed novelist Helen Walsh set amongst the industrial wasteland housing estates of northwest England follows two teen girls from radically different backgrounds who strike up a strange friendship, one based on jealousy, cynicism and deceit. They face the harsh world of adults together, but their struggle will leave one of them shattered, and the other re-born.

DOCUMENTARY FEATURE COMPETITION

AUDITION (East Coast Premiere) USA
Director: Matt Herron
Cast: Paige Spara, Lolita Foster, Jess Brown, Erica Camarano, and Margaret Keane Williams
Two Roles, 100 hundred actors. Over several grueling days, a romance plays out as 100 actors audition for the chance to be MAN or WOMAN, all but two gradually eliminated based on the strength of their performances. As they advance toward a terrifying final scene, the audience witnesses both the behind-the-scenes drama of the audition process, as well as a polished edit of the film using a combination of the best performances. THE

BOLIVIAN CASE (US Premiere) Bolivia/USA/Australia/Colombia
Director: Violeta Ayala
Cast: Oskar Rittun Jenson
Three Norwegian teenage girls end up in Bolivian prison after trying to smuggle 22 kg of cocaine out of the country. Playing out like an international episode of Law & Order, the film follows the girls, some of whom successfully escape the country, and the fallout back in Norway where the case makes daily headlines. Violeta Ayala’s controversial documentary STOLEN premiered at TIFF in 2009.

THE SEX TEMPLE (North American Premiere), Sweden
Director: Johan Palmgren
With a centuries old theater falling on hard times, and a swingers club burning to the ground, two liberal-minded businessmen make an unlikely partnership. But with the sex club moving into the theater basement, and the theater staging Moulin-Rouge-style LGBT Burlesque shows, the middle-class minded town of Norrkoping, Sweden turns against them and their ‘depravity.’

TREE MAN (US Premiere), USA
Directors: Jon Reiner, Brad Rothschild
Every winter, Francois leaves his wife and three children in Canada to sell Christmas trees on Manhattan’s Upper West Side and live in his van parked on the street. A New Yorker for five weeks a year, and a part of many families’ holiday traditions, Francois takes us through the economics, loneliness, and freezing temperatures of life as an itinerant Tree Man.

MARQUEE SCREENINGS (In Brockville, ON):

BAND OF ROBBERS (Ontario Premiere), USA
Writer/Directors: Aaron and Adam Nee
Cast: Kyle Gallner, Adam Nee, Matthew Gray Gubler, Melissa Benoist, Stephen Lang, Eric Christian Olsen, Johnny Pemberton, and Beth Grant
In a reimagining of the classic Mark Twain novels, Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn are adults in the modern world, still searching for Injun Joe’s hidden treasure. With Kyle Gallner (Smallville, Veronica Mars) and Adam Nee (Drunk History) as Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer, also starring Hannibal Buress, Johnny Pemberton, Stephen Lang, and Creed Bratton.

THE LOST WORLD (Canadian Premiere),USA
Writer: Marion Fairfax Director: Harry O. Hoyt
Cast: Bessie Love, Lewis Stone, Wallace Beery, Lloyd Hughes, and Alma Bennett
*With live score from the Andrew Alden Ensemble The original special effects dinosaur film from 1925, based on the Sir Arthur Conan Doyle novel, returns to the big screen with a new live score composed by Andrew Aldenfor his contemporary and electronic chamber music group from Rochester, NY. Their music combines the influence of Steve Reich, Philip Glass, David Lang, Radiohead, Velvet Underground and Krzysvtof Penderecki to create beautiful and haunting landscapes. This will be the Andrew Alden Ensemble’s first performance in Canada. In 1998, the film was deemed “culturally, historically or aesthetically significant” by the Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry.

DARKNESS ON THE EDGE OF TOWN (Canadian Premiere), Ireland
Writer/Director: Patrick Ryan
Cast: Emma Eliza Regan, Emma Willis, Brian Gleeson, and Sam MonaghanIn this contemporary western set in the Irish countryside, Cleo, a troubled teen who also happens to be a hell of a shot, seeks to avenge the death of her sister. Unbeknownst to her, her best and only friend Robin is the murderer she has sworn to kill.

MARQUEE SCREENINGS (In Potsdam, NY):

FOR THE LOVE OF THE MAMBO (East Coast Premiere), USA
Director: Marsha Baxter (in attendance)
Cast: John ‘Dandy’ Rodriguez, Mitch Frohman, and Jose Madera
*Followed by a live performance featuring Mambo Legends Orchestra leaders John ‘Dandy’ Rodriguez, Mitch Frohman and Jose Madera, each who spent over 25 years working with Tito Puente.The Mambo Legends Orchestra, filled with musicians who night after night shared the bandstand with the late great Tito Puente, pass this intricate rhythm on to the next generation of musicians. Working with the Latin Ensemble from SUNY Potsdam’s own Crane School of Music, these music luminaries share the history and aesthetics of this treasured art form derived from Cuba that literally translates as “conversation with the gods.”