CineSiege
— the annual juried showcase of York University’s Department of Film — presents a collection of shorts. The films include riveting fiction, cutting-edge alternative works and provocative documentaries, selected by leading lights of the Canadian film and media scene. It screens one night only, Tuesday, Oct. 21 at 7pm the Bloor Hot Docs Cinema, 506 Bloor St. West.
The showcase features the best productions of 2013-14 by York University’s talented undergraduate filmmakers. The films being showcased were chosen from a shortlist of 29 nominees, which in turn were culled from a pool of 147 productions.
The jurors for this year’s program are renowned filmmaker, artist and production designer Phillip Barker (Soul Cages, Malody); Meaghan Brander, manager of Film Circuit at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF); filmmaker and artist Lynne Fernie, senior Canadian programmer at Hot Docs International Canadian Documentary Film Festival; Liam Lacey, film critic for The Globe and Mail; and award-winning writer/director Charles Officer (Nurse.Fighter.Boy, Mighty Jerome).
The CineSiege 2014 jury (from left): Phillip Barker, Meaghan Brander, Lynne Fernie, Liam Lacey, Charles Officer
Jurors will be on hand at the screening to introduce their picks and explain why they were chosen. They will also announce the awards for genre winners and for exceptional achievement in screenwriting, cinematography, sound and editing.
The nominee lineup this year includes six works by first- and second-year students, selected by faculty members in the Department of Film, who will also choose an award-winner from each year.
“The productions competing for honours at CineSiege 2014 are once again of an outstanding calibre,” said Professor John McCullough, chair of the Department of Film in the Faculty of Fine Arts. “The creativity, ambition and craft on display are truly inspiring, and we offer hearty congratulations to all the nominees.”
“Sincere thanks go out to our jurors, for giving their valuable time and expertise in support of this next generation of filmmakers,” said McCullough. “And we’re extremely grateful to Cinespace Film Studios — our founding sponsor — for continuing to make this event possible.”
CineSiege finalists and prizewinners regularly go on to screenings and awards at home and abroad. Recent success stories include Mark Pariselli’s After (2009), which has shown at more than 40 festivals worldwide including Paris, Athens, Seattle, Chicago and San Francisco. Gerald Patrick Fantone’s Play.Stop.Rewind. (2010) was an official selection of the Montreal World Film Festival, Vancouver International Film Festival and Beijing International Student Film & Video Festival. Nikolas Tsonis’ Children of the Sun (2011) screened at Toronto’s Images Festival and took top prize in the experimental category at the Savannah International Animation Festival in 2012. Emily Pickering’s What a Young Girl Should Not Know (2011) made waves at the 2012 Worldwide Short Film Festival, and Janice Lee’s Faraway (2011) won a Toronto Film Critics Award in 2012. Jeff Garneau’s Erasermen (2012), named by TIFF as one of that year’s top 10 student-made shorts in Canada, was presented at the Edmonton International Film Fest and won the Rising Star Award at the 2014 Canada International Film Festival in Vancouver.
CineSiege is made possible through the generous support of Cinespace Film Studios. Admission is free. For more information on the nominees, visit the CineSiege 2014 website.