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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCheck out Maya Annik Bedward\u2019s Black Zombie before a screening of Night of the Living Dead. Black Zombie plays plays July 24 and July 26. (Supplied)\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
The feature-length doc by Toronto\u2019s Maya Annik Bedward delves into the ethnographic roots of the living dead, tracing the Hollywood story back to consider the zombie\u2019s origins as a symbol of island spirituality and Haitian resistance.<\/p>\n
Producers for the film include Slash of Guns N\u2019 Roses and Jennifer Holness, who co-created the historical anthology series BLK: An Origin Story. Black Zombie plays July 24 and July 26.<\/p>\n
Linking golf to power and privilege<\/p>\n
In Rafael Manuel\u2019s Filipi\u00f1ana, a 17-year-old girl gets hired as a \u201ctee girl\u201d at an elite country club outside Manila. But under the club\u2019s pristine, almost-robotic facade of pageantry, Isabel (Jorrybell Agoto) finds some dirt she can\u2019t simply wash away.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The winner of the Silver Bear jury prize at this year\u2019s Berlin Film Festival, plus a special jury award at Sundance, this slippery tale of elitist coverups was executive produced by Chinese filmmaker Jia Zhangke (Ash Is Purest White) and features dialogue in English, Mandarin, Tagalog and Ilokano. Filipi\u00f1ana screens July 23 and July 25.<\/p>\n
Healthy doses of drama<\/p>\n
Fans of pulse-pounding hits such as ER and The Pitt should scrub in for GIFF\u2019s prescription of medical stories, which take audiences to the front lines of the health-care world.<\/p>\n
Switzerland-set Late Shift follows the dedicated surgery nurse Floria (Leonie Benesch), who works to keep her patients in the clear during an understaffed overnight gig where every second lost is life-altering (July 23 and 24).<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
From Canadian documentarian Nance Ackerman, The Delivery Line examines the growing global roles of midwives, whether in urban hospitals, medical deserts or in war zones (July 23 and 24).<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
From the front lines of Gaza, American Doctor \u2014 the 2026 winner of the audience choice award at Toronto\u2019s Hot Docs festival \u2014 checks in with Palestinian, Jewish and Zoroastrian doctors responding in real time to humanitarian crises, grief and instability in the embattled territory (July 23 and 26).<\/p>\n
Join the band<\/p>\n
You never know who will discover your music when it gets posted to the internet. Just ask X-Cetra, a quartet of friends from California who burned 20 copies of their debut album Summer 2000 as preteens on the other side of Y2K.<\/p>\n
The band was \u201cready to become the next Spice Girls,\u201d Janet Washburn told The Guardian in 2025. That fame was elusive \u2014 but not impossible.<\/p>\n
About 20 years later, the American label Numero was on board to release vinyl of the millennial time capsule into the Brat era. Summer 2000: The X-Cetra Story is about being both in time and ahead of it. (July 24 and 26).<\/p>\n
After collaborating on the upcoming feature MEAT \u2014 co-written by bandmates Sean Henderson and Ryan Steel \u2014 Winnipeg art-rock outfit Fencing will take the stage on July 24 for GIFF\u2019s official afterparty.<\/p>\n
Living Hour\u2019s Brett Ticzon \u2014 a member of the MEAT crew \u2014 will also be spinning as Mr. Brett at the Gimli Dance Pavilion.<\/p>\n
New shorts for the summer<\/p>\n
Summer is for shorts, GIFF says, and this year\u2019s festival features fresh and rediscovered outputs by some of the province\u2019s brightest creative minds.<\/p>\n
Among the program of 10 new shorts, which screens July 26 at 4 p.m., is Father Alphonse and the Fight Between Carnival and Lent. Artist Diana Thorneycroft sets her latest stop-motion tale on Mardi Gras, with a novice priest racing from his apartment to his church during the final hour of celebrations.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Ryan Hill\u2019s animated short Computer-Assisted Simulation Technology for Optimizing Rivers is about Manitoba\u2019s original timber architects \u2014 the humble beaver \u2014 and how their structural integrity transforms waterways for the better.<\/p>\n
From Thompson\u2019s Anna Holmen comes the 16-mm silent film Magic Tricks, which sees a stuffed animal brought to life by a magician; Holmen\u2019s previous film, The Birds Live Here, won top Canadian honours at last year\u2019s University of Winnipeg Film Festival.<\/p>\n
In a different kind of creature horror, a queer alien crashes to earth and stumbles across the television, where she\u2019s exposed to a shockingly true Canadian story of government sexuality testing in The Fruit Machine: A Space Opera by Shawna Dempsey and Lorri Millan.<\/p>\n
On July 23, the Winnipeg Film Group presents a retrospective of 13 shorts from its 50-plus years, including Ed Ackerman and Gregory Zbitnew\u2019s photocopied animation 5 cents a Copy (1980); Norma Bailey and Ian Elkin\u2019s Goldeye, a story of smoked fish (1983); the late Alan Pakarnyk\u2019s fantastical Adam\u2019s Dream (1989); Abby Elizabeth Falvo\u2019s 2023 seance *666; and Nicole Blundell\u2019s Geometrika, an inner-eye tale about floaters.<\/p>\n
winnipegfreepress.com\/benwaldman<\/p>\n
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\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t Ben Waldman Ben Waldman is a National Newspaper Award-nominated reporter on the Arts & Life desk at the Free Press. Born and raised in Winnipeg, Ben completed three internships with the Free Press while earning his degree at Ryerson University\u2019s (now Toronto Metropolitan University\u2019s) School of Journalism before joining the newsroom full-time in 2019. Read more about Ben<\/a>.<\/p>\n Every piece of reporting Ben produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print \u2014 part of the Free Press\u2018s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press\u2019s history and mandate<\/a>, and learn how our newsroom operates<\/a>.<\/p>\n
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