Trenton hosts Quinte Canadian Filmfest next weekend

Screen capture showing actor Jeff Gruen in Marksman, a short film by Brycen Roy. Photo courtesy of Brycen Roy

By Julia Lennips

TRENTON – If you enjoy documentaries, comedy, horror and drama, the Quinte Canadian Film Festival is showcasing what it considers to be some of the best cinema from across Canada.

The event is being held in Trenton from Friday, Sept. 28, through Sunday, Sept. 30, at multiple venues, including the Centre Theatre and Trenton Town Hall-1861.

Creative director Joel George says the festival is a good opportunity for filmmakers to show their work.

“We want to share some incredible cinema with our local community here and have an opportunity to celebrate all the hard work that our local filmmakers bring in as well,” he told QNet News.

The festival started in 2013, and has grown since its beginnings.

“We started to think about what more could we offer,” George said, and so the festival started allowing filmmakers from across the country to submit entries, along those from the Quinte area.

There are many different types of films being shown over the three days, including documentaries, feature-length films, cinematic films and short films.

On the Friday night Hochelaga, Land of Souls, a quadrilingual Canadian film about a Mohawk archaeologist searching for his ancestors, will be screened. George says it’s a great film that is going to be interesting to show to the local community.

There will also be a few premieres, one of which is Playing Fire, a documentary made by local filmmaker Sean Scally.

“The film is about the massive explosion (of munitions)  that happened in Trenton in 1918. It sort of coincides with the Halifax explosion and it’s really interesting, with a lot of  facts about that. It’s sort of an exploration of that history.”

There will be over 20 other screenings over the course of the festival.

One is the five-minute short film Marksman, about an isolated man in the woods who has had a dramatic experience. The writer and director is Brycen Roy, a student in Loyalist College’s film and television production program.

For Marksman he got together his own crew, he told QNet News.

“I knew a bunch of people who would want to help out and make something cool, so I asked them all if they wanted to make something and they were up for it. So I wrote up a script one night and we all just started working on it. Eventually we were just like, ‘We could enter this in things,’ ” he said.

Roy said he got his inspiration for the script while waiting four hours for a ride home from school.

“I decided I was going to take some time to write it, and I thought about where it could take place … and I basically wrote the idea behind being in the woods.”

He figured out how to enter his film into the festival through members of the community.

“Everyone from different areas, including  Quinte West, all kind of pitched in. There’s a lot of involvement with the community, so a lot of people enter their own stuff. And it’s a lot of people’s first entry into any type of film festival, so  it’s a really cool experience to be a part of.”

Roy said he couldn’t say much about his film without giving away spoilers. He’s excited to see what the audience thinks of it, he said.

“My favourite part about making films is watching people watch my movies. I’m excited to see everyone’s films, but when mine shows up I’m going to not even be paying attention to the film, –I’m going to be watching the audience.”

Sean Williamson, the assistant director of Marksman, said the Quinte Canadian Film Festival is an excellent chance for young filmmakers to get their work seen.

“I think it’s a great thing for young filmmakers to enter into the film festival – because it’s literally where you start as young film creators … You have to get into the film festivals and see how the process works. And I think it’s such a cool thing for them to have it in such a small town.”