Cellar Door Film Festival

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OTTAWA, ON – Cellar Door Film Festival (CDFF) returns for a second year of strange and unusual cinema. After a successful first year featuring a sold-out opening night and enthusiastic audiences, Ottawa’s first film festival devoted to films in the speculative genres is opening up the cellar again to showcase sinister and supernatural films to Ottawa audiences. Advance tickets and festival passes are now available through Universe at a discounted price. Things go bump in the night Nov. 5-7 when CDFF opens at the historic Mayfair Theatre and then moves to Live! On Elgin Nov. 6-7.

This year’s festival is a speculative showcase of world cinema with films coming from Ottawa and around the world. This year, CDFF opens with Liza, The Fox Fairy (dir. Károly Ujj Mészáros), an enchanting Hungarian fantasy/comedy that’s been winning acclaim on the festival circuit with prizes from festivals including Fantastic Fest, Fantasporto, Seattle, and Madrid’s Nocturna Festival where it won every prize in the Official Selection competition. Other features at CDFF include the Greek horror film Norway (dir. Yannis Veslmes), which is a feverish disco vampire flick in the vein of alternative horror films like Only Lovers Left Alive that take back the vampire after the glut of YA movies sucked the life out of them. The Russian/German co-pro III (dir. Pavel Khvaleev) offers a head-trip into the subconscious as it plunges a young woman into layers of the mind to save her sister from their darkest fears. Finally, the closing night selection of The Incident (dir. Isaac Exban) offers an exciting and trippy time loop for audiences with a selection of Mexican sci-fi. CDFF also includes the short film programme “We All Go a Little Mad Sometimes,” which explores the roots of madness and features everything from adaptations of Henry James and Stephen King to farting ghosts.

CDFF 2015 includes four films that showcase the talent of the Ottawa film scene. CDFF screens the local horror/comedy Boots (dir. Magill Foote) and the sci-fi film Odd One Out (dir. Christopher Rohde), the latter of which won the prize for Best Experimental Film at the inaugural Ottawa Independent Video Awards earlier this year. The shorts selection also includes the Toronto-made horror film George (dir. Jullian Ablaza), which boasts writing and producing credits from Ottawa native/Algonquin grad Alix Van Pelt and the South African experimental horror film Curl Up and DYE! directed by current Algonquin student Duduzile Chinyenze. The filmmakers of all four films will attend the festival and engage audiences in post-screening Q&As.