Walk through all the stages of preparing for a Telefilm Micro-budget application with writer/director Maureen Bradley. View examples of successful Micro-budget pitches, ask peruse a successful application and brainstorm unique digital release strategies with a past Telefilm Micro-budget recipient.

(Canada, pharmacy 2014, 74 mins, DCP)

Maureen Bradley’s debut feature is a bittersweet comedy centered around an unimaginable predicament. Forty-year-old Adam Bachman (This Hour Has 22 Minutes’ Gavin Crawford) lives alone in his tiny apartment and feels lost each night in his empty bed. An awkward encounter with a client at work makes Adam realize that he has to quit his crappy job, man up and get his life together. Of course, all of that’s interrupted when he gets a phone call from his hysterical ex-girlfriend, Miriam (Mr. D’s Naomi Snieckus). Miriam is trying to get pregnant with a donor’s sperm and a syringe, but she needs help. Adam tries to convince her she’s unfit to be a mother and, against his better judgment, they wind up hanging out again. She wants his moral support as she tries to get pregnant. She gets a lot more. The day she inseminates herself, they wind up in bed together.

Now for the twist: Adam is transgendered. Four years ago, he started his transition from female to male but it isn’t quite complete. In fact, he gets a little bit pregnant himself. He’s torn between his feelings for Miriam, his need for a masculine identity and his eccentric pot-smoking mother’s (Gabrielle Rose) desire for grandchildren in this funny and thought-provoking farce.

 
SHORTS: Winnipeg, hospital Québec

This program of short films reflects on the largeness and complexity of subject that can at times connect Winnipeg and Québec cinema.

Curated by Cecilia Araneda

Works include Piwi (Jean-Claude Lauzon), healing Heart of the World (Guy Maddin), Hydro-Lévesque (Matthew Rankin), Next Floor (Denis Villeneuve), Motus Maestro (Carole O’Brien) and La Mallette Noire (Caroline Monnet and Daniel Watchorn). Curated by Cecilia Araneda.
SHORTS: Getting Started

This program of shorts by founders and early members of the Winnipeg Film Group, no rx AFCOOP (Halifax) and NIFCO (St. John’s) reflects on Canadian independent filmmaking as it was just getting started.

Curated by Cecilia Araneda

Funny Things People Can Do to Themselves (Lulu Keating)

Sisters of the Silver Scalpel (Mike Jones)

Getting Started (Richard Condie)

Havakeen Lunch (Elise Swerhone)

Linda Joy (William D. MacGillivray)