Now Presenting: Our 2023 Programmers!
The 2023 Atlantic International Film Festival is just around the corner, and with it comes a new line-up of films across a fresh collection of streams.
This year, the films in our carefully curated program will fall into a wide array of streams that should offer something for everyone. Our Galas stream will exhibit hotly anticipated films from near and far. Narrative New Waves will provide an introduction to exciting emerging voices from Canada and abroad. For fans of weird, wild, wonderful films that dare to push the envelope, we have our Late Night Visions stream. Illuminating works of non-fiction will be showcased in Documentary. Our Short Films stream will present the sharp, versatile voices in short-form storytelling. We’ll be bringing some film classics back to the big screen with our Classics/Restored stream. Finally, we will spotlight the work of a cinematic icon with In Focus.
Our refreshed streams are packed to the gills with stellar movies, and we owe our team of Programmers for undertaking the near-impossible task of compiling a 2023 AIFF program that is as diverse, eccentric, and special as the audiences that come to watch with us. This year, we’ve been fortunate enough to have a passionate group of film-lovers, writers, performers, and producers from the film community put together our program – allow us to introduce them!
LISA HALLER
AIFF Director of Programming
Programming Focus: Galas, Atlantic Region, Narrative New Waves, Short Film
Lisa has worked in film festival programming and strategy for over a decade, most recently as Senior Short Film Programmer at the Whistler Film Festival and Film Programmer for Aspen Shortsfest. From 2010-2020 Lisa worked with the Festival Programming department at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF). Lisa holds a BAH in Film Studies and History from Queen’s University, and a Master’s in Communication and Culture from York University and Toronto Metropolitan University (formerly Ryerson).
KEVIN CHABOT
Programming Focus: World Cinema, Late Night Visions, Restored
A SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow at Dalhousie University, Kevin has a PhD in Cinema Studies from the University of Toronto, and his research concerns the relationship between media and the supernatural. Further research interests include film theory, horror film, documentary studies, and queer theory. Kevin’s writing has appeared in Canadian Journal of Film Studies and Film International, among others. Kevin is currently working on a book entitled Poetics of the Paranormal with McGill-Queens University Press.
FALLEN MATTHEWS
Programming Focus: Documentary, World Cinema
Fallen is an Afro-L’nu graduate candidate from Dalhousie University’s interdisciplinary doctorate program. Her thesis is anchored by psychoanalytic film theory in Cinema and Media Studies, but Fallen has further research interests in Africana Studies, Artificial Intelligence, Indigenous Studies, and Gender Studies. Her penchant for documentary, New Black Realism, Cinema Novo and sci-fi as well as her interdisciplinarity give her a unique and dynamic perspective to the sensibilities of various cinematic narratives.
SANDI RANKADUWA
Programming Focus: Narrative New Waves, Documentary, Short Film
A Sri Lankan-Canadian writer, filmmaker and sometimes performer, Sandi was chosen as a Hot Docs “Doc Accelerator” Fellow in 2020, and her most recent film – a short doc called ICE BREAKERS – was produced by the National Film Board and named a Vimeo Staff Pick. Her writing and cultural criticism has appeared in The Believer, Vulture and Rolling Stone, among others. She has also worked for 22 Minutes, performed at stand-up festivals around the US/Canada and trained improv at the iO, Annoyance Theatre and Second City.
SEÁN MAHEUX GALWAY
Programming Focus: Short Film
Seán is a trans-nonbinary film programmer who has worked previously with the Atlantic International Film Festival as well as with the Lunenburg Doc Fest, Fantasia Film Festival, the Toronto Irish Film Festival, Halifax Independent Filmmakers Festival, and the TIFF Next Wave Film Festival. She is the principal producer of Enodia Films, an award-winning film production company creating poetic and political shorts, features, and series.
Three Atlantic features have already been curated by this tenacious, multi-talented team and will be making their World Premiere at AIFF in September: Jeremy Larter’s crime-comedy film, WHO’S YER FATHER?, Sue Johnson and Eryn Foster’s documentary, CELESTIAL QUEER: THE LIFE, WORK AND WONDER OF JAMES MACSWAIN and Adrian Will’s documentary, A QUIET GIRL.
Our full Program Launch is scheduled for August 16th followed by the opening of our Online Box Office at 3PM, and you can rest assured knowing that this year’s line-up will serve as a glowing reminder of why we all #LoveFilm.