I made a list of film festivals

Film Festivals

He friends, I made a thing. I made a list of upcoming film festivals for my own reference, and I figured that others might find it useful, too. I know there are ways to find this info, but I like having it all in one big list, and I figure I can’t be the only one. 

This list is by no means exhaustive; it’s just the festivals that are presently on my radar. If you were wondering: yes, there are way too many for anyone to attend them all. If you know of a festival that I don’t have here, please feel free to shoot me an email or @ me on Twitter.

The list is presented in chronological order. Expected dates are present whenever they’re not available, and those dates are my guesses. I will do my best to keep this up to date on a monthly-ish basis. 

You can find the list here. I hope you find it useful.

-Matthew

Vancouver Just For Laughs Film Festival: Thunder Road Chronicles a Man on the Brink with a Must-See Performance from Jim Cummings

Thunder Road

Sometimes you see a movie, and there’s an actor who you have never seen before who you think, “holy crap, where did that person come from?”. They give a performance that you love, and maybe it becomes the part that makes them a movie star, or maybe not. You know they came from somewhere, though. Maybe it was an indie film, a festival darling, or both.

Thunder Road is for Jim Cummings, the former of those two films. An indie film you should see now so that one day when he is a movie star, you can say, “I saw him when”.

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Vancouver Just For Laughs Film Festival: ‘Sorry for Your Loss’ Lost Me

Sorry For Your Loss

Movies that don’t evoke a strong reaction are the hardest for me to write about, but they are not the ones I like to write about least. The ones I like to write about the least are the ones I don’t like at all. It sucks to watch something that many people have put a ton of work into and come away knowing that you’re going to have to tell people you can’t recommend seeing that work.

Unfortunately, that is what I have to do right now. Sorry For Your Loss is not a good movie.

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Vancouver Just For Laughs Film Festival: ‘Pork Pie’ is a fun romp through the country

Pork Pie

A man pulls into a service station because he’s having engine trouble. He parks the car, walks into the shop, and asks the man behind the counter if the car can be looked at because he thinks the engine is overheating. As he’s saying this, the engine explodes in the background. We’ve all had bad days, but this guy is having a really bad day, week, and present in general.

This is Jon, a man who is presently a wreck, distraught over losing his fiancée. He doesn’t know how to do it, but he needs to get her back, and so commences a road trip during which he will find himself.

If this is all sounding familiar, well, it is a bit familiar. Lovable screwup goes on a road trip with interesting misfits and figures out how to be slightly less of a screwup is not a new story by any stretch, but beautiful locations, a thrilling car chase, and a strong central performance make Pork Pie definitely worth your time.

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Vancouver Just For Laughs Film Festival: ‘Bernadette’ is sweet, but slightly confused

Bernadette / Sam Straley & James Psathas

Movies that don’t evoke a strong reaction are the most difficult for me to write about. It’s hard not to oversell the good and bad stuff and create an impression that something is better or much worse than it actually is. Bernadette is a movie like this. It’s well-produced, shot, and acted, and also is feels slightly confused about what it wants to be.

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