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FEMALE Festival Best Scene: Indoctrinate, by Shannon Clarke
Summary: Kimberli is a psychologist who starts changing the way she helps her patients by showing them how to handle their conflicts with aggression.
CAST LIST:
Narrator: Geoff Mays
Kim: Hannah Ehman
Terry: Shawn Devlin -
LGBTQ+ Festival: Pocketful of Mondays, by Lindsey Morrison Grant (interview)
A highly sensitive, two-spirit person living above their adopted parent's appliance store has their life turned upside down when they learn their two "stillborn" babies may still be alive (now teens) and that their recurring childhood nightmare of the alien abduction of their birth parents may ha...
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BEST Scene Reading: SALLIE, by Chase Yancey (interview)
When the paths of the 11th Pennsylvania Civil War regiment and an American Staffordshire Terrier pup intertwine, the men of the 11th's lives are changed in ways they never could've predicted.
CAST LIST:
Narrator: Hannah Ehman
R. Coulter: Shawn Devlin
Captain Terry: Geoff MayGet to know the...
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GENRE Festival 1st Scene Reading: VOODOO VALENTINOS, by Michael Louis Gould
‘bigger the fools, bigger the stars’
A night-long, road comedy set in seventies, north-west England.
The paths of two girlfriendless, working class, teenage misfits are dramatically and hilariously altered by a 'voodoo cabbie' who collects them en route to a middle class, village party to which...
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LGBTQ+ Best Scene Reading: CAN I KEEP YOU?, by Xavion Niles
Summary: Teo is a straight man who has a hard time settling down, on the other end, Zan is a gay man who doesn't know how to casually date. The two of them end up helping each other out with their dating issues, until it's quite clear that they are in love with each other.
CAST LIST:
Narrator:...
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Q&A after screening: March 2025 Experimental/Dance/Music Festival
Question & Answer session after festival screening with filmmakers from the March 27, 2025 Festival at the Carlton Cinemas, in downtown Toronto, Canada.
Filmmakers in attendance:
Writer Irina Lytchak - THE MOMENT
Director Matthew Vargas - STRING HEAD
Director Jerry Trieus - KITE
Director Mi...
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ROMANCE Festival Best Scene: THE FOUNTAIN OF TRUTH, by R.A. Lee
Sometimes Love Needs a Grand Gesture
CAST LIST:
Narrator: Elizabeth Rose Morriss
Cherish: Val Cole
Joseph: Steve Rizzo
George: Shawn Devlin -
DEATH Short Story: For Oscar, by Nathaniel Rowe
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THRILLER/SUSPENSE Best Scene: THE OLD MAN & THE DEAD, by Robert Benjamin
Thirty years after a world-wide zombie apocalypse in which man kind prevailed — life is nearly back to normal, aside from the occasional residual zombie roaming about. When Tara and her new fiancé Paul finally decide it’s time for him to meet Tara’s father, Paul has one major fear: that her shotg...
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ROMANCE Festival 1st Scene: THE ART OF THE MATTER, by Janna Jones (interview)
Two strangers meet and sparks fly, but when he accidentally discovers forged paintings at her house, he leaves abruptly. That would be the end of their story except for the fact that he's reported her to the FBI, and their children are marrying one another on Christmas day.
https://instagram.com...
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SCIENCE FICTION Short Story Reading: Whimper, by Alex Everett
A man watches over his mother as an extraterrestrial pandemic destroys the world.
Performed by Val Cole
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1st Scene Reading: Take Care, by Olivier Ross-Parent (interview)
Something has happenned in Mady's life. As an immigrant woman in America, she has achieved the American dream; A successful career as a doctor of psychology, a lavish home, nice car, and, most importantly a husband and two wonderful children, yet something is missing. Not knowing what it is, she ...
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LGBTQ+ TV 1st Scene Reading: AFTERLIFE ANONYMOUS, by Michael Kezele (interview)
A gay ghost haunting a West Hollywood house, along with his dysfunctional Grim Reaper friend, help a straight cop solve crimes.
CAST LIST:
Narrator: Val Cole
Sal: Steve Rizzo
Shawn: Shawn Devlin
Corey: Andy CampGet to know the writer:
1. What is your screenplay about?
It's about a gay ghos...
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Poetry Reading: Reason Enough, by Brooke Bianchi-Pennington
https://youtu.be/nEdWr4lIOFc
Performed by Val Cole
POEM:
I don’t remember ever being beautiful.
Must have been, at some point.
Kindergarten maybe?
All I know is, by third grade,
My tummy was a tad too
Big to be beautiful.But don’t worry. This isn’t a poem
About hating my body. Actually,
I’v... -
LGBTQ+ Festival TV Best Scene: JESSIE, by Sallyann Fellowes
Jessie follows the haunting of a ghost girl who visits her great great niece and starts cause chaos in their lives.
CAST LIST:
Narrator: Shawn Devlin
Anna: Hannah Ehman
Susie: Elizabeth Rose Morriss -
CRIME/MYSTERY Festival 1st Scene: PEARL FISHER, by Suzanne Birrell (interview)
When a precocious mixed-race five-year-old wanders into a fire station with only a backpack and a cryptic note about her missing mother, she has no idea it will set off a chain of events that will reshape her life. The little girl, who refuses to give her name, is sent into foster care and given ...
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ACTION/ADVENTURE Festival: THE LAST NORTHERN WHITE RHINO, by Sam Holeman
Hunted by a lethal crime syndicate, a disgraced ex cop finds sanctuary as a wildlife ranger where his seasoned lethality becomes vital to protecting the last northern white rhino from the very predators that employed him.
CAST LIST:
Narrator: Hannah Ehman
James: Shawn Devlin
Willem: Geoff Mays -
BEST Scene Reading: DEAR MR HUTTON, by Jennifer Marsh
Inspired by the music of Three Dog Night, a young girl enjoys childhood in 1970s Ohio and develops a desire to travel abroad, if she can convince her parents to let her go.
CAST LIST:
Narrator: Shawn Devlin
Ruth: Hannah Ehman
Andrea: Val Cole -
FEMALE Fest Best Scene: KAM60 The Butterfly Prince, by Maria Pearce (interview)
The butterfly prince is a story of a fictional character K.A.M.60 that attempt to honour the great French astronomer Charles Messier who developed the Messier catalogue and discovered many Messier objects in the sky in particular in the Virgo constellation. In the book K.A.M.60 real name is = Kar...
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Best Scene: Shesafella: The Fancy Tales, by Felice Cohen (interview)
Summary: Fella, a softball player, is bullied at home by her stepmother and stepbrothers, who treat her like Cinderella. She cooks, she cleans, and she caters to all their needs. However, when the family gets invited to the Mayor's daughter's birthday ball, she is excluded until her fairy godmoth...
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Poetry Reading: Accolade to a Nameless Station, by Inge Sorensen (interview)
Performed by Val Cole
POEM:
September 29th, 2020
Air from Terra Rising
Quivering in the Mountains
Rocks Rumble Beneath Earth, & One’s Feet
Wind Blares Down on All of Us
Nature Plays Tambourines – Touching Each of Our Ears
Terrene Mother Drums her Hands’ Down on the Planet’s Crust
Manmade Iron ... -
Poetry Reading: A Story from Hell, by Robert Wen
https://youtu.be/_3QgQ-xnSD8
Voice Over by Val Cole
POEM:
somewhere in my travels i had taken the wrong turn
i can’t inform my path to there for i have yet to learn
i don’t know how it happened, how hell i stumbled into
journey aside, i found the devil’s lair without a clueamidst flames i ...
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Poetry Reading: X, by Ruthie Marlenee
Performed by Val Cole
POEM:
Look at the big, beautiful Moon tonight.
See the little red spot that is called Mars.
See the almighty Elon Musk take flight.
Launched from the earth through its cosmos and stars.But lo, it’s only his robot doppelganger
on a mission to plant the American flag.
Oh ... -
BEST Scene Reading: TICKET TO KYIV, by Hannah Miyamoto (interview)
A carefree young American woman gains a new appreciation for life when she is caught up in the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.
https://www.instagram.com/hannah_pacificostudios/
CAST LIST:
Narrator: Geoff Mays
Kalyna: Hannah Ehman
Rachel: Elizabeth Rose Morriss
Stepan: Shawn DevlinGet to...