Mitchell “Menace” Dubois, a Métis slacker with a heart of gold, attempts to achieve his dreams of becoming a big time rapper in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan with some help from his cuzzin & ragtag group of friends, lovers, and enemies. Join us on April 26 for a post-screening Q&A with filmmakers Gavin Baird, Jacob Farrell, Kayla Peters and Ryley Konechny, moderated by Oliver King!

Magnus and Julia Lofting suffer a tremendous shock one morning when their daughter Kate begins choking at breakfast. Unsure of what to do, Julia attempts a tracheotomy, inadvertently causing Kate's death. Reeling from the death of her daughter, Julia leaves her husband and moves into a large old house in London. But as Julia becomes convinced that her new home is haunted by the spirit of a young girl, Magnus begins to question her fragile sanity. Mia Farrow (Rosemary’s Baby) and Keir Dullea Black Christmas) star in this chilly supernatural fable based on the novel 'Julia' by Peter Straub. Bikini Drive-In is a semi-monthly screening series examining horror films through a feminist lens curated and introduced by Cinematheque Film Programmer Olivia Norquay. Generously sponsored by IATSE 856 Manitoba.

Notorious Baltimore criminal and underground figure Divine goes up against Connie & Raymond Marble, a sleazy married couple who make a passionate attempt to humiliate her and seize her tabloid-given title as “The Filthiest Person Alive”. Welcome to Cult-O-Rama, our brand-new monthly screening series exploring beloved sleaze, trash, and cult cinema! A celebration of bad taste curated and introduced by Cinematheque Film Programmer Olivia Norquay. Generously sponsored by IATSE 856 Manitoba.

Middle-class Karli (Tracy Mann, Hard Knocks), alcoholic Jane (Vera Plevnik, Monkey Grip), unemployed Jackie (Julie Barry, Hell Hole), and square Ellen (Moira MacLaine-Cross, Tender Hooks) are four friends living together and barely scraping by in suburban Sydney. But when Karli’s father offers her a little money and a one-way ticket to New York, she finally sees a way out of her dead-end life—that is, until the money goes missing, kickstarting a final night out on the town that none of them will ever forget. With a screenplay written by and based on the lives of two of its stars, performances from local Sydney bands Pel Mel and the Dynamic Hepnotics, and supporting appearances by a handful of beloved Ozploitation regulars—including David Argue (BMX Bandits) and Hugh Keays-Byrne (Mad Max)—Haydn Keenan’s debut feature Going Down is an underseen landmark of Australian cinema and a vivid portrait of Sydney in the early 80s. Existing somewhere between Susan Seidelman’s Smithereens and Juliet Berto and Jean-Henri Roger’s Neige in its depictions of the thrills and dangers of urban life, Going Down is a visceral testament to friendship and making it at any cost.

An intimate journey through the life of singer Diane Luckey aka Q Lazzarus, narrated through her own words, lyrics and music. The exceptionally talented but vastly underappreciated Q, who sang the cult hit song “Goodbye Horses”, reveals the reason behind her mysterious 25-year long disappearance and paves the way towards her re-emergence, with stories sad, funny and moving.

The ultimate disaster film parody. A nuclear-powered bus is making its maiden non-stop trip from New York to Denver. The journey is plagued by disasters due to the machinations of a mysterious group allied with the oil lobby. Will the down-on-his-luck driver, with a reputation for eating his passengers, be able to complete the journey? Join us for McDonald at The Movies, where comedian, star and co-founder of Kids in the Hall, comic Kevin McDonald will present a film handpicked from the archives of comic history. Generously sponsored by IATSE 856 Manitoba.

When struggling, out of work actor Michael Dorsey secretly adopts a female alter ego – Dorothy Michaels – in order to land a part in a daytime drama, he unwittingly becomes a feminist icon and ends up in a romantic pickle. Join us for McDonald at The Movies, where comedian, star and co-founder of Kids in the Hall, comic Kevin McDonald will present a film handpicked from the archives of comic history. Generously sponsored by IATSE 856 Manitoba.

A couple heads to a remote cabin during a pandemic but a new variant throws the world into chaos, leaving them to reconcile their marriage and themselves, all while trying to outrun a survivalist intent on being the last man standing.

First-ever North American release of Robina Rose's masterwork of surreal, somnambulant cinema! Over the course of a single nightshift, a West London hotel clerk (U.K. counterculture icon Jordan) plays mute witness to a nocturnal constellation of guests ranging from punk rockers and scenester magicians to seemingly staid businessmen and old-world gentry. As the hours drift deeper into night and the varied clientele depart the waking world, the hotel transforms into an otherworldly, liminal space swaying between the everyday and the enchanting. Gorgeously photographed by Jon Jost (All the Vermeers in New York) with a soundtrack by Simon Jeffes of the legendary Penguin Cafe Orchestra, Nightshift is both a potent snapshot of London’s early-‘80s art scene (actor/poet Heathcote Williams and filmmaker Anne Rees-Mogg also star) and a bold, instantly engrossing artistic statement from director Robina Rose. A masterwork of surreal, somnambulant cinema, the film casts a resonant spell audiences won’t soon forget. Essentially unseeable for decades, Arbelos is proud to bring Nightshift to North American audiences in this rich new 4K restoration courtesy of Lightbox Film Center.

For half a decade, Basel Adra, a Palestinian activist, films his community of Masafer Yatta being destroyed by Israel's occupation, as he builds an unlikely alliance with an Israeli journalist who wants to join his fight. No Other Land is an unflinching account of a community's mass expulsion and acts as a creative resistance to Apartheid and a search for a path towards equality and justice.

Inspired by Kensuke Ide’s 2021 concept album Strolling Planet ’74 – for which Kensuke Ide’s band transformed into the fictitious 70s glam rock group Exne Kedy and the Poltergeists – Plastic tells the story of teenagers Jun and Ibuki’s search for the legendary rock band 40 years after their farewell concert. As teenage Jun arrives in Nagoya as a transfer student after failing to sign a record deal, his busking of his favorite Exne Kedy song catches the eye of fellow fan Ibuki. The pair soon fall in love over their shared taste, but as adult responsibilities mount, they drift apart… until Exne Kedy announces a reunion tour.

In Secret Cinema, our all-celluloid film series, films from our own archive of 16mm film prints are selected by guest curators. The film titles are kept secret until the night of the screening. This month’s selection was made by multidisciplinary artist Meganelizabeth Diamond. Meganelizabeth Diamond is a multidisciplinary artist, curator, and programmer that lives and works in Winnipeg, on Treaty 1. Her practice spans photography, collage, moving image, and new media, with a focus on emotional resonance, perception, and the layered relationship between nature and constructed environments. Diamond is the Executive & Artistic Director at PLATFORM centre for photographic + digital arts and previously of the Winnipeg Underground Film Festival. She is always cloud watching and misses her dog Skye. Admission is by donation and the event will take place at the Winnipeg Film Group’s Black Lodge Studio (3rd floor of 100 Arthur St). Generously sponsored by IATSE 856 Manitoba.

In 2003, eight Rhode Island artists created a secret apartment inside the busy Providence Place Mall and lived there for four years, filming everything along the way. They snuck in furniture, tapped into the mall’s electricity, and even constructed a wall, smuggling in more than two tons of cinderblock. Far more than just a wild prank, the secret apartment became a deeply meaningful place for its inhabitants. It was a personal expression of defiance against local gentrification, a boundary-pushing work of public/private art, a clubhouse in which large-scale charitable art projects were planned, and, finally, a 750 square-foot "F you" to The Man. Featuring never-before-seen footage of the space and revealing the identities of all the participants for the first time, Secret Mall Apartment is more than just a bonkers true story. Director Jeremy Workman, whose Lily Topples The World won the Grand Jury Prize at SXSW 2021, delivers a poignant exploration of a group of artists who discovered their purpose within the most commercial and improbable places.

Aloof teenage Japanese tourists, a frazzled Italian widow, and a disgruntled British immigrant all converge in the city of dreams—which, in Mystery Train, from Jim Jarmusch, is Memphis. Made with its director’s customary precision and wit, this triptych of stories pays playful tribute to the home of Stax Records, Sun Studio, Graceland, Carl Perkins, and, of course, the King, who presides over the film like a spirit. Mystery Train is one of Jarmusch’s very best movies, a boozy and beautiful pilgrimage to an iconic American ghost town and a paean to the music it gave the world. Join us for our Staff Picks series, where our Winnipeg Film Group staff select and introduce new and old favourites. This month’s selection was chosen by Cinematheque Head Projectionist Eric Peterson. Generously sponsored by IATSE 856 Manitoba.

Dah and Jocelyn come from Benin, Africa, to coach their rooster, "S'en fout la mort", for an illicit cock-fight in the basement of a restaurant. Join us for our Staff Picks series, where our Winnipeg Film Group staff select and introduce new and old favourites. This month’s selection was chosen by Cinematheque projectionist Jonathan Lee-Wing. Generously sponsored by IATSE 856 Manitoba.

Nestled deep in the suburban San Fernando Valley, legendary musician Jerry Williams, aka Swamp Dogg, has turned his home into a creative playground, where he and his equally iconic housemates, Moogstar and Guitar Shorty, blaze a wildly unconventional path through the music industry’s ups and downs. Together, they’re navigating life, art, and the absurdities of fame with humour, grit, and relentless originality. Filmed over six years, directors Isaac Gale, Ryan Olson, and David McMurry dive into the madcap world of these prolific musicians whose unique talents and boundary-breaking spirit have influenced fans and artists for decades. This film is a hilarious, heartfelt journey through the lives of music’s true originals.

Lady Elisabeth Báthory lives a charmed life in a resplendent Romanesque castle, surrounded by Disney-esque wildlife and a colorful cast of obliging servants. Taking ill one day while traveling through the forest, she’s nursed back to health by a handsome woodsman, and in gratitude gifts him with her own heart. But upon returning home, Lady Báthory’s sunny disposition quickly turns murderous and vampiric once she discovers the secret to heart-less eternal youth lies in draining the blood of all the young women and men in her castle. Widely considered one of Slovak animation’s crown jewels, The Bloody Lady is an improbable and bewitching fusion of gothic horror and classic children’s animation, retelling of the infamous Čachtická castle and Báthory folk tale which is often cited as the inspiration for Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Recently treated to haunting live score by celebrated indie musician claire rousay, this underseen gem is a new cult classic in the making. Restorations courtesy of the Slovak Film Institute.

1984, Michael Larson, an unemployed ice-cream truck driver from Ohio, steps onto the game show "Press Your Luck" harboring a secret: the key to endless amounts of money. But his winning streak gets threatened when the executives in the control room start to uncover his real motivations.

In an eerie, deceptively placid near-future, a techno-entrepreneur named Karsh (Vincent Cassel) has developed a new software that will allow the bereaved to bear witness to the gradual decay of loved ones dead and buried in the earth. While Karsh is still reeling from the loss of his wife (Diane Kruger) from cancer—and falling into a peculiar sexual relationship with his wife’s sister (also Kruger)—a spate of vandalized graves utilizing his “shroud” technology begins to put his enterprise at risk, leading him to uncover a potentially vast conspiracy. Written following the death of the director’s wife, the new film from David Cronenberg is both a profoundly personal reckoning with grief and a descent into noir-tinged dystopia, set in an ominous world of self-driving cars, data theft, and A.I. personal assistants. Offering Cronenberg’s customary balance of malevolence and wit, The Shrouds is a sly and thought-provoking consideration of the corporeal and the digital, the mortal and the infinite. A Sideshow/Janus Films release.

Holly (Jenny Woo), Marvin (writer/director Jon Moritsugu), and Katzumi (Moritsugu again) are average Asian-American teenage siblings with not-so-average predilections for backstabbing, kinky sex, and drug-fueled freakouts. Neglected by their parents, the kids turn to outside “help” (including the scene-stealing Amy Davis, Moritsugu’s wife and longtime collaborator) in order to escape their bored existence. Naturally, this leads to gore killings, sex tapes, and the most hilarious phone conversations ever captured on 16mm film. A candy-colored hellscape that feels like an episode of Strangers With Candy that was filmed by Dario Argento during a three-day acid bender, Jon Moritsugu's Terminal USA is a crucial piece of 1990s alternative cinema—smart, shocking, and one of the most deranged films to ever be funded by American taxpayers. This is the film Heathers wished it could be.

It’s about teen love. It’s about teen dreams. It’s about digging your own grave with an electric guitar. An all-girl rock band sells out and becomes commercial pawns for the American beef industry in legendary underground filmmaker Jon Moritsugu's debut feature. A film so charged with punk rock energy that critic Roger Ebert had to walk out on it after seven minutes at its Sundance premiere, My Degeneration flows like a drunken semiotics presentation through a grainy sewer of filth and noise.

A young woman discovers that a sex tape made without her knowledge is circulating online. Paranoia takes over, along with a sense of injustice. Her sudden terror of video triggers a downward spiral where she loses all social bearings.

In the depths of the underground coal mines, where danger awaits and darkness prevails, Nam and Việt, both young miners, cherish fleeting moments, knowing that one of them will soon leave for a new life across the sea. Just before its premiere at Cannes, Việt and Nam was banned by Vietnam’s Cinema Department for its “gloomy, deadlocked, and negative view” of the country. Although it tells a story specific to the place and its history, the film’s ambiguity and artistic approach render it an emotional, universal, and timeless exploration of the senses. Beautifully shot on 16mm by filmmaker Trương Minh Quý, Việt and Nam is like panning for gold. Its true value surfaces after you dig and let the water wash away the dirt.

Sakura is a moody teenage girl who lives close to the US military base in the city of Yamato, Japan. She is struggling everyday to become a rapper like the American rappers she admires, but always gets stage fright when she sings in front of an audience. One day, her mother’s American soldier boyfriend’s daughter REI comes from California to visit her family.

With Toronto’s iconic modernist waterfront park, Ontario Place, set to close for redevelopment, an eccentric yet lovable group of park regulars and staff members live out its last year open to the public while confronting its controversial transformation into a private spa and waterpark.