Fourteen documentary features will screen at this year’s Atlantic International Film Festival (AIFF). The festival announced its full line-up today, which includes the world premiere of Michèle Hozer’s The Pitch. AIFF describes the doc as “a David vs Goliath story about the creation of Canada’s first women’s professional soccer league.”
The festival will also screen Hot Docs’ Best Canadian Feature winner Agatha’s Almanac, directed by Amalie Atkins. The doc offers an artful portrait of a nonagenarian gardening enthusiast. Other Canadian docs include Ally Pankiw’s Lilith Fair: Building a Mystery about the landmark festival devoted to women in music, Virginia Tangvald’s acclaimed family saga Ghosts of the Sea, and the co-pro Another Light on the Road: Robert Frank & June Leaf’s Canadian Home from directors Katrina Whalen and John Parlante.
AIFF also marks an Atlantic homecoming for native son Ben Proudfoot. The Halifax-born director and two-time Oscar winner will screen his new feature The Eyes of Ghana shortly after kicking off the TIFF Docs line-up in Toronto on September 4. The festival also spotlights late Canadian icon John Candy with a screening of Colin Hanks’ doc John Candy: I Like Me, which features Ryan Reynolds as producer, while Lisa D’Apolito tells the story of a beloved children’s TV personality and the woman behind it in Shari & Lamb Chop.
International docs screening at the festival include Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady’s coming of age story Folktales, Reid Davenport’s deeply personal consideration of disability and assisted suicide in Life After, Alex Ross Perry’s ode to physical media in Videohaven, Violet Du Feng’s rom-doc The Dating Game, Kani Lapuerta’s portrait of a woman in transition in Niñxs, and Richard Ladkani’s Yanuni about an Indigenous chief in Brazil fighting to protect her land while facing the prospect of motherhood.
This year’s AIFF kicks off with the drama Skite’kmujue’katik (At the Place of Ghosts), directed by Bretten Hannam, and closes with Bill Condon’s Kiss of the Spider Woman, which is already earning Oscar buzz for star Jennifer Lopez, while the Atlantic Spotlight screening presents Andy Hines’ Little Lorraine. The Atlantic International Film Festival runs Sept. 10 to 17.
