Durham Film Fest returns with screenings in Ajax, Oshawa, Whitby

The Durham Regional International Film Fest, or DRIFF, has set its return dates and line-up of films from across Canada and the world.

DRIFF is a non-profit festival which has showcased numerous local and foreign films over the past several years. This year the line-up is as diverse as ever with films from Canada, Belgium, France, Ireland, Portugal and the United Kingdom.

The first night of the event will present the Canadian premiere of  Michèle Hozer’s latest documentary Atomic Reaction at Whitby’s Centennial Building at 416 Centre Street South. The CBC-Documentary Channel co-production follows Canada’s involvement in the Manhattan Project which developed the atomic bomb.

The film begins with Gilbert LaBine’s 1930 discovery of a rare radium deposit in the Northwest Territories, to Canada’s clandestine support of the Manhattan Project, all the way to the ongoing multi-billion nuclear clean-up project in Port Hope. The film screens on Oct. 24 at 7 p.m. Tickets are available online.

Hozier has built a remarkable career charting Canadian history and culture through several acclaimed documentaries. Sponsor Land (2017) follows the settlement of a fourteen-member family of Syrian refugees in Picton, Ontario. Sugar Coated, which examines the food industry’s love of sugar and how it sweetened the world’s food supply over the last 40 years, won Hozier the Donald Brittain Award for best documentary at the Canadian Screen Awards.

Prior to Atomic Reaction, DRIFF will screen The Canadian Dream, a short documentary about a migrant farmer and his family settling in Ontario.

On day two of the festival, the action moves to Ajax’s St. Francis Centre at 78 Church Street South. Doors open at 5:30 p.m. for a pre-screening party and a local food showcase.

This will highlight food from the Durham College Centre for Food and One More Cocoa, a gourmet chocolatier based in Whitby. Kenesha Lewis’ chocolates have been highly acclaimed since she opened her shop in 2021, even appearing on Oprah’s Favourite Things list.

Following the party, DRIFF will screen a series of shorts including;

• Yero Timi-Biu’s Essex Girls (United Kingdom),
• Nienke Deutz’s The Miracle (Belgium, The Netherlands, France),
• Emma Foley’s Sound and Colour (Ireland),
• Daniel Soares’ Bad for a Moment (Portugal), and
• Phoebe Jane Hart’s Bug Diner (USA).

Following these, the feature presentation is a Canadian picture, All the Lost Ones directed by Mackenzie Donaldson. The film, set for theatrical release later this year, follows three survivors of a near-future civil war hiding out near North Bay. The trio is endangered by the appearance of an anti-government militia leader and his followers.

Tickets are available online.

Finally, day three of the festival will offer a different kind of event. In a free show at the Biltmore Theatre at 39 King Street East in Oshawa, DRIFF will present a “special industry showcase on VFX and Immersive Media with a behind-the-scenes look at SPFX with the Dynamics Effects team.”

The Dynamic Effects Collective is a Toronto-based special effects studio that provides effects for all kinds of productions. They’ve worked on numerous major projects like Amazon Prime’s superhero satires The Boys and Gen V, Ang Lee’s ambitious film Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, FX’s vampire sitcom What We Do in the Shadows, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s action-comedy FUBAR and Jason Momoa’s sci-fi series See.

The free presentation runs from 10:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. with a lunch break in the middle.

Following this, a ticketed event will begin at 2:30 p.m. on Oct. 26. By 3 p.m. DRIFF will begin showing it’s Homegrown Shorts program features several diverse films like;

• Amir Zargara’s A Good Day Will Come
• Braden Wannamaker’s Hearing My Other Half
• Minerva Navasca’s Desync
• David Rendall’s Triage
• Jacob D. Phair’s Lure
• Lauren Eden’s Lavenza, and
• Kyle Marchen’s Heap

After a Q&A regarding the short films and a dinner break, the event resumes at 6:30 p.m. for DRIFF’s Closing Feature, Front Row. The film “introduces us to the chaotic yet endearing Bouderbala family in this delightful cinematic gem, which effortlessly blends farcical humour, heart, and insightful social commentary.”

Front Row is the latest directorial effort from Merzak Allouach, perhaps Algeria’s most important and influential filmmaker. Allouach has made dozens of films in his decades-long career which have featured prominently at the Berlin, Cannes, London, Moscow and Toronto film festivals. Algeria submitted for Academy Award consideration and he earned the FIPRESCI Award for Best Asian Film for Normal! in 2011.

The screening of Front Row will be preceded by one last short film, Unfamily by Siddharth Sharma. The short is the result of the DRIFF Filmmaker Incubator program. It follows “an international student who is forced to confront complex family dynamics to avoid deportation.”

Tickets are available online.

After these screenings, DRIFF will present the awards for Best Student Film, Best Short Film, Best International Film, Best Documentary Film, and Best Regional Film. These awards are decided by a six-member panel. Following the festival, DRIFF will later announce the People’s Choice Award.