International Women’s Day Film Screening Series
Date: Mar. 3, 2022 – Mar. 24, 2022
Time: 7:30 p.m. – 10:00 p.m.
Location: Online
Sheridan Alumni and Oakville Festivals of Film and Art are celebrating International Women’s Day all month long with the launch of the International Women’s Day (IWD) Film Series.
Every Thursday in the month of March, a different film will be screened at 7:30 p.m. either virtually or in person at Film.Ca in Oakville, ON. Please check below for full details. Our diverse lineup highlights Canadian and international films from Canada, the UK, and the USA. All films are directed by female directors with the thread of gender equality.
Each film will be followed by a Q&A with directors, screenwriters, actors, or others affiliated with the film production. We are thrilled to be offering a free, virtual screening of Quickening, directed and written by Sheridan graduate Haya Waseem on Thursday, March 10.
Film Screening: Mothering Sunday
Date: March 3
Time: 7:30 p.m.
Location: Live screening at Film. Ca.
171 Speers Road, Oakville, ON.
Cost: $12.99 + tax
Based on a novel by Graham Swift and directed by Eva Husson. Stars include Odessa Young, Josh O’Connor and Colin Firth. Screenplay by Alice Birch.
Class differences get in the way when a maid living in post-World War 1 England secretly plans to meet with the man she loves before he leaves to marry another woman. Pre-recorded Q&A with cast and crew to follow the film.
Rated R for nudity, sexuality.
Film Screening: Quickening
Date: March 10
Time: 7:30 p.m.
Location: Virtual (Available for seven days, 48 hours once you begin watching.)
Cost: Free
Quickening is directed and written by 2012 Media Arts grad, Haya Waseem. Few films examine the societal pressures and expectations faced by young women of colour in North America. Reconciling the divides between cultural tradition, personal independence and acceptance among white peers is an anxious, overwhelming experience that only those who have lived it are in a position to describe. In Quickening, her impressive debut feature, Pakistani-Canadian writer-director Haya Waseem explores the family dynamics in a new light. The result is personal and intimate, brought to life by an exciting new voice in Canadian cinema. Sheila (Arooj Azeem) is a Pakistani-Canadian teenager living in the suburbs. Nearing the end of first-year university and having fallen in love for the first time, with her classmate Eden, Sheila desires a freedom that her mother and father (played by Azeem’s real-life parents) are unwilling to offer. After Sheila has sex for the first time with Eden, he abruptly breaks up with her and her sense of reality begins to unravel, further alienating her from her friends, family and community. Azeem delivers an impressive breakout performance as a young woman finding autonomy and individuality while trying to simply belong. Quickening is a reminder that immigrants and their children, in particular people of colour, who are adjusting to a new life, new goals and new expectations, can also struggle with their mental health. With exquisite photography from Christopher Lew, Waseem has crafted a delicate yet triumphant portrayal of a young woman, through all obstacles, caught in the pursuit of happiness.
Join us after the film for a Q&A session with Sheridan grad, director, and writer of Quickening, Haya Waseem, along with other cast and crew from the film.
Please note this film is geoblocked to Canada.
Film Screening: Alice
Date: March 17
Time: 7:30 p.m.
Location: Virtual (Available for seven days, 48 hours once you begin watching.)
Cost: $12.99 +tax
Alice (Keke Palmer) yearns for freedom as an enslaved person on a rural Georgia plantation under its brutal and disturbed owner Paul (Jonny Lee Miller). After a violent clash with Paul, she flees through the neighboring woods and stumbles onto the unfamiliar sight of a highway, soon discovering the year is actually 1973. Rescued on the roadside by a disillusioned political activist named Frank (Common), Alice quickly comprehends the lies that have kept her in bondage, and the promise of Black liberation. Inspired by true accounts, Alice is a modern empowerment fable tracing Alice’s journey through the post-Civil Rights Era in American South.
Q&A with cast and crew to follow the film.
Please note this film is geoblocked to Canada and there’s a limit of 300 paid views.
Date: March 24
Time: 7:30 p.m.
Location: Virtual (Available for seven days, 48 hours once you begin watching.)
Cost: Free
Maltese-Canadian co-production (Comedy/Drama) by Maltese/Canadian Director Valerie Buhagiar. Inspired in part by the real experiences of Buhagiar’s own aunt Rita, the film stars Natascha McElhone as Carmen, a woman in Malta who has spent much of her adult life obeying a patriarchal tradition of serving as a caretaker for her brother after he joined the Roman Catholic priesthood, but who finds herself free to explore her own desires and goals in life as she nears age 50. Diego Guijarro won the award for Best Cinematography in a Borsos Competition Film at the Whistler Film Festival in December.
A pre-recorded Q&A to follow with cast and crew from the film.