Presented by The Confederation Centre of the Arts and City Cinema. Author Miriam Toews will be presenting the 2025 Symons Lecture at Confederation Centre of the Arts on Friday October 3rd. Dir: Michael McGowan, Canada, 2021. Alison Pill, Sarah Gadon, Mare Winningham. Awards include Best Canadian Film (Vancouver Film Critics) and Best Feature (Writers Guild of Canada). "All My Puny Sorrows is a mature and beautiful story, the union of a celebrated author with a filmmaker in his creative prime. It’s ultimately about the way grief sneaks up on us, the way death sneaks up on us and the way, sometimes, life and light sneak up on us." - Chris Knight, The National Post. "I love this movie like a person. It pierced my heart the way certain paintings or pieces of music do… The story, briefly: Lottie and her daughters Elfrieda, known as Elf, a world-renowned concert pianist, and Yoli, a recently divorced mother and burgeoning novelist, are living with the after-effects of the suicide of their husband and father 12 years ago. Now, as Elf’s own depression closes in, Yoli has to fight to give her reasons to live. That sounds bleak, but mysteriously, it’s the opposite. What the screenwriter and director Michael McGowan pulls off here is a miracle of tone – the same tone that Miriam Toews established in her source novel, whose title comes from a Coleridge poem: 'I too a Sister had… To her I pour’d forth all my puny sorrows.' It’s that juxtaposition of puny and sorrow, that heightened awareness of the bitter-sweetness of being human, that slays me. Our individual sorrows, when we are suffering them, are everything. But in the collective scheme of things, they are nothing. We go on. Life is funny because it is so sad, beautiful because it is ephemeral. Getting that tone right is how a story about grief turns into one of the most life-affirming things you’ll ever see." - Johanna Schneller, the Globe and Mail

Dir: Embeth Davidtz, US, 2025, Drama. Lexi Venter, Embeth Davidtz, Zikhona Bali. In English and Shona with English subtitles. “Alexandra Fuller’s bestselling 2001 memoir of growing up in Africa is so cinematic, full of personal drama and political upheaval against a vivid landscape, that it’s a wonder it hasn’t been turned into a film before. But it was worth waiting for Embeth Davidtz’s eloquent adaptation, which depicts a child’s-eye view of the civil war that created the country of Zimbabwe, formerly Rhodesia, a change the girl’s white colonial parents fiercely resisted... Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight is set in 1980, just before and during the election that would bring the country’s Black majority to power. Bobo is a raggedy kid with a perpetually dirty face and uncombed hair, who’s seen at times riding a motorbike or sneaking cigarettes. She runs around the family farm, whose run-down look and dusty ground tell of a hardscrabble existence. The film was shot in South Africa, and Willie Nel’s cinematography, with glaring bright light, suggests the scorching feel of the sun. Much of the story is told in Bobo’s voiceover and in another daring and effective choice, all of it is told from her point of view… Davidtz’s screenplay deftly lets us hear and see the racism that surrounds the child, and the ideas that she has innocently taken in from her parents. And we recognize the emotional cost of the war, even when Bobo doesn’t. There is more of Fuller’s memoir that might be a source for other adaptations. But it is hard to imagine any would be more beautifully realized than this… It’s an extraordinary adaptation.” —Caryn James, The Hollywood Reporter

Dir: Jon Glassberg, Austria/US, 2025. Emily Harrington, Adrian Ballinger, Alex Honnold Professional climber Emily Harrington has summited Everest, 8000-meter peaks, and dominated the competition circuit but, her greatest challenge extends beyond the physical. To cement her legacy in the world of elite rock climbing, she sets her sights on a career-defining 24-hour ascent of Yosemite’s El Capitan. Caught between the pursuit of personal ambition and the ticking biological clock of life, a near-fatal fall forces Emily to reckon with what she’s willing to risk. Equal parts gripping survival story and intimate portrait, Girl Climber isn’t just about breaking records, it’s about breaking barriers. Amongst Yosemite’s legendary boy’s club, Emily isn’t proving she is the best Girl Climber - she is proving she is one of the best.

Dir: Julie Delpy, France, 2024, Drama, Comedy. Julie Delpy, Sandrine Kiberlain, Laurent Lafitte. In French with English subtitles. “In the culture-clash comedy Meet the Barbarians, actor-director Julie Delpy lays bare a number of Western hypocrisies. The film follows several townspeople in the struggling French commune of Paimpont, who vote to welcome a handful of Ukrainian refugees, but are caught by surprise when a Syrian family shows up instead. The ensuing response runs the gamut from clumsy to hostile, which Delpy captures by applying a documentary-like lens to the town’s fabric, and to their Arab guests. The result is a movie that… proves eye-wateringly funny. The film flies out the gate with an energy reminiscent of “The Office,” as bumbling mayor Sébastien Lejeune regales a TV news crew with his plans to welcome a Ukrainian family. The city council votes overwhelmingly in favor. Even potential holdout Hervé Riou, the sour-faced town plumber, gives in after a slight nudge from his peers. A number of local interviews paint the issue of Russia’s invasion, and of welcoming Ukrainians with open arms, as one generally agreed upon, despite the fears and economic reservations folks like Hervé might harbor. However, these doubts come bubbling back to the surface when the town learns of the administrative switcheroo… The aforementioned Syrian family, the Fayads, are for the most part presented unremarkably, though this is part of Deply’s point… In what is perhaps the movie’s biggest strength, Delpy presents these apparent opposites as two sides of the very same coin, whose respective approaches stem from the same wellspring of prejudice and misunderstanding, even though they manifest differently… It’s a bright, sunny and immaculately entertaining story, despite its dark corners. However, Delpy never loses sight of the bigger picture, offering constant clues that the world continues to be harsh for Muslim refugees even outside this one hilarious story.” - Siddhant Adlakha, Variety

Dir: Joel Schumacher, US, 1995, Superhero/Action. Val Kilmer, Tommy Lee Jones, Jim Carrey. Interactive Screening! Join us at the City Cinema for a special screening of Joel Schumacher’s wild superhero sequel Batman Forever. Steeped in ‘90s excess and featuring Val Kilmer’s take on Batman. The cartoonish sequel has the caped crusader facing off against two foes: the schizophrenic, horribly scarred former District Attorney Harvey Dent, aka Two-Face (Tommy Lee Jones), and the Riddler (a truly unhinged Jim Carrey), a disgruntled ex-Wayne Enterprises inventor seeking revenge against his former employer. So Bad, it’s Good is a monthly interactive movie game series that brings a twist to the movie-going experience. With unique prompts to encourage participation, it promises to be a wild and fun night at the movies!

Dir: Various. International, 2025, Documentary. 10% of Box Office will be donated to the P.E.I. Humane Society. All the films are family-friendly and can be enjoyed by humans of all ages. The 7th annual NY Cat Film Festival is a delight! The 19 short films include documentaries, dramas, live action and animation. Mikey Hammer, Purrivate Eye is a humorous film noir spoof. Cat Advocacy follows a cat who shows little interest in the large variety of toys it is given. In Leonardo’s Last Luncheon by Academy Award winner Joan Carol Gratz Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper comes to life, with kitty apostles licking their chops at the tasty meal. The heartwarming doc Nine Lives is about a cat who has an entire neighborhood fooled, with several folks believing they are the only ones who love and look after her. There also are inspiring documentaries about cat rescuers. So It Began is about Calvin Tucker, who has single-handedly trapped, neutered, and released more than 600 animals. A New Home for an Old Cat chronicles the adventures of Gotelind, an older feline who narrates how he got a second chance when he was adopted from a shelter. One of the final shorts is the beautiful, dreamy narrative Cat Kingdom. It follows a young woman as she strolls through an ancient Italian hill town filled with cats, each seemingly transforming into a human as she walks by. These films and the rest inspire, educate, and entertain us with a wonderful evening of feline fun.

Presented by The Confederation Centre of the Arts and City Cinema. Author Miriam Toews will be presenting the 2025 Symons Lecture at Confederation Centre of the Arts on Friday October 3rd. Dir: Sarah Polley, US, 2023. Rooney Mara, Claire Foy, Jessie Buckley, Ben Whishaw, Frances McDormand, Sheila McCarthy. Academy Award Winner, Best Adapted Screenplay. “This is the kind of cinema that endures... For the past few years, the women in this isolated religious community have been drugged and assaulted in their sleep... It actually happened — Miriam Toews wrote a novel about it in 2018, on which this film is based... The women meet in a hayloft to talk about what to do: nothing, stay and fight, or leave... The subject matter is explosive. But Polley’s film is more like a hymn or a prayer, a gentle meditation on forgiveness, survival and how to make a better world... The trauma shows on the women’s bodies in different ways... And in the same way that the physical impact differs, so do each of these women in their responses... Salome has tried to kill one of the men. Ona is left with profound questions (if the women stay and fight, what are they fighting for?), while Mariche, whose husband is an abuser, doesn’t want to make a fuss. Lest it all sound too grim, Women Talking is actually very warm, with moments of humour and tenderness beaming through it... The women laugh, sing together and sometimes disagree... The journey to their trepidatious decision is propulsive and gripping... For those who want to listen—and those who need to hear it – this is a film full of hope.” —Jessie Thompson, The Independent