Wednesday Apr. 19 @ 7:00 pm
GALAXY CINEMAS / Sault Ste. Marie

To celebrate National Canadian Film Day 150 admission is free
for this film, presented as part of Canada on Screen,
TIFF’s year-long programme celebrating Canada 150.

Director: Sarah Polley
Canada 2012
English / 108 minutes
Rating: PG-13 (for thematic elements involving sexuality,
brief strong language, and smoking)

Polley examines the elusive nature of truth and memory through the varying narratives of her family as they look back on decades-old events. The combination of “archival” footage, still photos, and
testimonials creates a captivating visual assemblage, and the
responses from the storytellers are heartfelt and revealing. The
result is a lively and richly textured documentary that seamlessly
blends past and present, the real and the imagined. Filled with
tender and powerful moments, the film is a personal essay on how
our narratives shape and define us as individuals and as families.

Stories We Tell is one of those movies you watch on a screen and replay in your head for days, moving between its many levels of inquiry and touched, always, by Polley’s compassion toward her relatives in
particular and people in general. Ty Burr, Boston Globe

What Polley unearths is a well of emotion and one of the most powerful new films I’ve seen in recent memory. Corey Atad, Movie Mezzanine

Simply the most enthralling, idiosyncratic and entertaining family
memoir around. Rima Sabina Aouf, Concrete Playground

Thursday Apr. 20 @ 7:00 pm / GALAXY CINEMAS / Sault Ste. Marie

Director: Michael Dudok de Wit
France/Belgium/Japan  2016
No dialogue / 80 minutes
Rating: PG

Shipwrecked on a deserted island, a man struggles to find his place in this new world. The basics for survival are abundant yet
frustratingly out of reach, and danger lurks in the smallest of
crevices. And every escape attempt is thwarted by an enormous sea turtle that seems intent on having him stay. A tale told with a classic simplicity that belies its emotional power, The Red Turtle luxuriates in the magic of life and the cycles of nature. Nominated for Best
Animated Feature Film at the 2017 Academy Awards.

Michael Dudok de Wit’s hypnotizing, entirely dialogue-free The Red
Turtle is a fable so simple, so pure, it feels as if it has existed for hundreds of years, like a brilliant shard of sea glass rendered smooth and elegant
through generations of retelling. Peter Debruge, Variety

Presented with short film Blind Vaysha

Blind Vaysha
Director: Theodore Ushev
Canada 2016
English / 8 minutes

The tale of a girl who could see the past with her left eye and
the future with her right eye, but who could not see the present.
Nominated for Best Animated Short Film at the 2017 Academy Awards.

Thursday Apr. 6 @ 7:00 pm / GALAXY CINEMAS / Sault Ste. Marie

Director: Paul Verhoeven
France/Germany/Belgium 2016
French with English subtitles  / 131 minutes
Rating: R (for violence involving sexual assault, disturbing sexual content, some grisly images, brief graphic nudity, and language)

Perennial provocateur Paul Verhoeven’s latest offering is sure to have audiences squirming. A high-powered businesswoman, Michèle (Isabelle Huppert) seems indestructible. After being raped she returns to her normal routine, apparently unaffected. But the brutal sexual assault elicits both dreams of revenge and erotic
fantasies. Huppert’s ascetic approach to her portrayal of Michèle is
masterful as she navigates the hectic labyrinth of her life like a ship
cutting through thick fog. A film that is likely to stay with you long
after the credits roll.

High-risk material yields unexpected rewards in this remarkable rape-
revenge drama, a possible career high for Paul Verhoeven.
Guy Lodge, Variety

Elle is a mysterious puzzle, not mainly about whodunit plot points, but the far more titillating question of who people truly are and what they’re capable of. Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune

Huppert is phenomenal in her most unnerving performance since Michael Haneke’s The Piano Teacher. Ty Burr, Boston Globe

Thursday Mar. 30 @ 7:00 pm / GALAXY CINEMAS / Sault Ste. Marie

Director: Jim Jarmusch
USA 2016
English / 118 minutes
Rating: R (for some language)

Paterson (Adam Driver) works as a bus driver in Paterson, New
Jersey and his life is a repetitive routine. His wife Laura (Golshifteh Farahani), as even-tempered as her husband, is a perfect match. They’re just an ordinary couple in an ordinary small city. But there’s more beneath the surface of these two. Each morning Paterson scrawls a poem in his notebook, and each evening Laura welcomes him home with a new and quirky surprise. An offbeat meditation on the couple’s desire for creative self-expression, Paterson is a
rewarding slow burn of a film.

Paterson’s life sounds like it would be pretty dull to live through, let alone watch in a movie. But in writer-director Jim Jarmusch’s hands, Paterson becomes a fascinating and enthralling film that finds magic in the
mundane. Rob Thomas, Capital Times (Madison, WI)

The different Patersons combine into a terrific take on love’s abiding worth, the mechanics of creativity and the strength of community. The film has Jarmusch’s trademark deadpan deliberation, but it’s also
possessed of a great and genuine heart. Craig Mathieson, The Sunday Age

Poetry is about taking the realities of your life and the complexities of your mind and heart and transforming them into something beautiful and pure, and that’s exactly what Jarmusch does with Paterson. It’s
lovely stuff. Daniel Barnes, Sacramento News & Review 

Thursday Mar. 2 @ 7:00 pm / GALAXY CINEMAS / Sault Ste. Marie

Presented in partnership with Shadows of the Mind Film Festival
Feb. 27 – Mar. 5, 2017
http://www.shadowsfilmfest.com/

Director: Kenneth Lonergan
USA 2016
English / 136 minutes
Rating: R (for language throughout and some sexual content)

After the death of his older brother Joe (Kyle Chandler), Lee (Casey Affleck), a reclusive handyman in Boston, is shocked to learn he’s been appointed legal guardian of his nephew, Patrick (Lucas
Hedges). Lee reluctantly returns to his hometown where he is forced to confront his past while he deals with the realities of the present. In stark contrast to his uncle, Patrick is full of life and the two
struggle to adjust to a world without the man who held their family together. Filled with authenticity and honesty, Manchester by the Sea is a deeply empathetic story of loss and human connection.

It’s Affleck’s movie to quietly own as layer upon layer of Irish impassivity is stripped away from his visage until the unspeakable can be spoken. Matthew Lickona, San Diego Reader

The sadness of “Manchester by the Sea” is the kind of sadness that makes you feel more alive, rather than less, to the preciousness of things.
Ty Burr, Boston Globe

Miraculously, this lengthy, achingly sad story is very entertaining and leaves you wanting more. An undercurrent of dry humour makes its way into even the most tragic of sequences.
Nick Dent, Daily Telegraph, Australia

Thursday Feb. 23 @ 7:00 pm / GALAXY CINEMAS / Sault Ste. Marie

Director: Barry Jenkins
USA 2016
English / 110 minutes
Rating: R (some sexuality, drug use, brief violence, and language)

Despite a harsh home life and being bullied at school, Chiron is
a survivor. As he gets older, it becomes clear that his real battle
isn’t on the streets, it’s an internal one – reckoning with his complex
love for his best friend. We follow Chiron from childhood (Alex R.
Hibbert) to his teens (Ashton Sanders) to adulthood (Trevante
Rhodes) as he navigates the dangers of homophobia, drugs, and
violence. An impressionistic vision of Chiron’s psyche in which
sensuality, pain, and unhealed wounds take centre stage with
staggering power, Moonlight explores the profoundly human need
to feel connected.

Moonlight is both a disarmingly, at times almost unbearably, personal film and an urgent social document, a hard look at American reality and
a poem written in light, music and vivid human faces.
A.O. Scott, New York Times

Jenkins gives us a sensitive chronicle of growth, maturation and self-
acceptance. A remarkable film. Ernesto Diezmartinez, Cine Vértigo

The indie drama touches on themes of race, sexuality and isolation in ways that are rarely depicted in cinema. Mara Reinstein, US Weekly

Thursday Feb. 16 @ 7:00 pm / GALAXY CINEMAS / Sault Ste. Marie

Director: Pedro Almadóvar
Spain 2015
Spanish with English subtitles / 99 minutes
Rating: R  (for some sexuality/nudity)

Mining three of Alice Munro’s short stories and relocating them to Spain, Almodóvar creates this marvelously textured tale examining the strained relationship between a mother and daughter.
Moving backward and forward through time, the film chronicles the relationship between Julieta (played by Emma Suárez and Adriana Ugarte) and her daughter Antía (played by Priscilla Delgado and Blanca Parés). A stylish melodrama with an engaging story, Julieta reflects on the magic of chance encounters and the fragility of
relationships in the face of secrets.

Straightforward and yet emotionally complex, the film is
Almodóvar’s most sobering work to date, a mystery about a daughter’s abandonment of her mother without explanation.
Steve Davis, Austin Chronicle

The stylistic amalgam is remarkable: a bold, painterly camera
and a Nobel Prize-winning writer’s ideas come together in a
melodrama about the unspoken.
Chance Solem-Pfeifer, Willamette Week

It’s no surprise that Julieta is marvelous to look at, but it possesses just as much substance as style. Ann Hornaday, Washington Post

Thursday Jan. 26 @ 7:00 pm / GALAXY CINEMAS / Sault Ste. Marie

Director: Stella Meghie
Canada 2016
English / 82 minutes

The lives of Jean (Taylour Paige) and her multi-generational, middle-class family of strong-minded, stubborn women, come to an
arresting stop when the estranged patriarch of the family literally dies on their doorstep. Tensions rise, old conflicts come to a boil,
and chaos ensues as Jean seeks to uncover the family’s buried
secrets while at the same time coming to terms with her own
mistakes. A savvy comedy exploring three generations of vibrant and unforgettable women, Jean of the Joneses is one of the best-
written and most entertaining films of the year.

Introducing both a fresh new voice and a fresh new face to independent filmmaking, Jean of the Joneses is a crisply urbane comedy from first-time writer-director Stella Meghie, boasting a sparkling lead performance by Taylour Paige. Michael Rechtshaffen, Hollywood Reporter

Takes its cues from both Woody Allen’s self-indulgent worlds and the
literary panache of Zadie Smith, but remains original in its darkly funny perspective. Julia Cooper, Globe & Mail

Highly visually controlled, snappily edited, and beautifully acted, Jean of the Joneses is a clever New York comedy about the Caribbean diaspora. Sean L. Malin, Austin Chronicle

Thursday Jan. 19 @ 7:00 pm / GALAXY CINEMAS / Sault Ste. Marie

Director: Otto Bell
USA 2016
Kazakh with English subtitles  and English / 87 minutes

For centuries, the Kazakh people have hunted with golden eagles
in a tradition that has been handed down from father to son. This
riveting documentary follows Aisholpan Nurgaiv, a 13-year-old girl
that becomes the first female in twelve generations of her family to
become an eagle hunter. Featuring stunning  cinematography, this is
a rare look at one of the world’s last true wildernesses. Set against
the breathtaking expanse of the Mongolian steppe, this intimate
tale of a young girl’s quest has the dramatic force of an epic
adventure. An empowering story of an incredible journey.

Along with Aisholpan’s enduring spirit, The Eagle Huntress excels in portraying the beauty and respect the people here have for both the animals and environment. With Simon Niblett’s soaring cinematography, using a mix of eagle-mounted GoPro cameras and drone footage, there’s both an expansive and intimate sensory rush when we see Aisholpan in action. Jordan Raup, The Film Stage

The outline of a modern feminist epic is always there in the background. What’s surprising is how fresh and charming the movie manages to be. John Hartl, Seattle Times

Factor in the feel-good story, Bell’s bracing cinematography, and his meticulous observance of the villagers’ customs and environments, and the film becomes a multilayered exploration of dignity, perseverance, and progress. Leah Pickett, Chicago Reader

Director: Werner Herzog
USA 2016
English / 98 minutes
Rating: PG

An eccentric, entertaining, and enlightening meditation on our
digital world, Lo and Behold investigates the internet’s integration
into every aspect of our lives. Through interviews with scientists
and entrepreneurs at the cutting edge of digital technologies,
Herzog considers the new possibilities opened up by the internet, and  speculates on how humanity and the world will be impacted
by these developments. But the promises of a bright future are
tempered by some darker realities. The film refrains from any final
judgments, leaving the viewer to consider the implications on their own lives and hopes for the future.

This documentary is one of Herzog’s best; it’s thoughtful yet entertaining, amusing yet heartbreaking, and sometimes simply beautiful. Jeffrey M. Anderson, Common Sense Media

Herzog’s observations, however, are steeped in optimism, an embrace
of the mystic, and, even, good humor. Ray Pride, Newcity

The shape of things to come is a subject very dear to the hearts of the high-tech evangelists Herzog talks to, and it accounts for the pulse of freakish comedy that beats through Lo and Behold. Anthony Lane, New Yorker