Sled Island

Join us for an afternoon patio party with DJ Gary Powers before the screening of Hanly Banks’ concert documentary Apocalypse: A Bill Callahan Tour Film with great music and the great folks at Broken City!!!!

Director Hanly Banks’ poetic experiments provide intimate portrayals of songwriter Bill Callahan’s life on the road, his band (guitarist Matt Kinsey and drummer Neal Morgan), and the music he brings with him in this rare collection of live performances from Callahan's American leg of the 2011 Apocalypse tour.

Opening Night Screening Presented by Sled Island and The Glenbow Museum

Canadian music icon Mary Margaret O’Hara stars as Anne in this latest feature length film by director Jem Cohen (Instrument). A guard at Vienna’s Kunsthistorisches Art Museum befriends an enigmatic visitor, sparking an exploration of their lives and the ways in which artworks reflect and shape the world.

After film screenings, head over to the Official Film After Party venue and filmmaker’s artist lounge Milk Tiger Lounge (1410 - 4 St SW) for drink specials, food, and music.

SUUNS Europe 2011 is rumination on the themes of spectacle, voyage and identity. Inspired by the Montreal based band Suuns, and compiled from footage shot and recorded by one girl, on tour in Europe in 2011, throughout the promotion of their debut album Zeroes Qc. Original Music by Suuns.

A documentary about the craft of hand-lettered sign making, a once widespread trade that has come close to obsolescence thanks to the proliferation of computer designs, die-cut vinyl lettering and inkjet printers. In 2010 Directors Faythe Levine and Sam Macon, with Cinematographer Travis Auclair, began profiling two dozen sign painters dedicated to preserving this time-honoured tradition.

After film screenings, head over to the Official Film After Party venue and filmmaker’s artist lounge Milk Tiger Lounge (1410 - 4 St SW) for drink specials, food, and music.

Sled Island and the Calgary Society of Independent Filmmakers are pleased to announce our 2013 Secret Cinema Bike-In! Bring your ride, your honey, and your blanket for this mystery film curated by Sled Island. The film will not be announced until the night of the screening.

A feature-length documentary about the fascinating Ondes Martenot instrument, its history and contemporary revival. Wavemakers tracks an ensemble of characters in their quest to re-invent and revive sophisticated early electronic music instrument that is anything but obsolete: the Ondes Martenot. Featuring reckless engineers, rock stars (such as Radiohead's Jonny Greenwood), repairmen and Martenot legend raconteurs.

Amongst the hundreds of keyboard instruments, electronic instruments, and sound equipment in the National Music Center lies the mysterious Ondes Martenot, an early electronic instrument and the focus of Canadian director Caroline Martel's documentary Wavemakers [Le Chant Des Ondes] (2012). Join the expert staff of NMC for a demonstration of this fascinating and extremely rare instrument.

After film screenings, head over to the Official Film After Party venue and filmmaker’s artist lounge Milk Tiger Lounge (1410 - 4 St SW) for drink specials, food, and music.

Sled Island Music Alumni/Guest Curators (2010) Quintron & Ms. Pussycat (Director Panacea Theriac) present their latest totally fantastical magical and mysterious puppet adventure of their ongoing series, Trixie and the Treetrunks, that originally aired on Vice’s VBS channel.

Personal Filmmaking: Art and Industry in Contemporary Canadian Film

Sled Island & North County Cinema Present an Artist Talk and Workshop by Sled Island guest film curators Alexander Carson and Kyle Thomas. In their talk, Carson and Thomas will discuss their methodology in terms of balancing creative goals and financial restraints while building a body of work. Carson and Thomas will discuss the significance of regional filmmaking practices, as well as the challenges and advantages to building an art-cinema scene in Calgary. Q & A will follow the presentation. Registration includes admission to North Country Cinema's International Shorts Program.

Join us for a very special night of karaoke with a focus on soundtrack classics! Come on down and belt out your faves: from Pretty In Pink to Rushmore and more.

Guest Curated by Kyle Thomas and Alexander Carson

For Sled Island’s 2013 Film Program, Carson and Thomas have curated a selection of innovative shorts from the biggest film festivals around the world, including films from Canada, the United States, England, Iceland, Sweden, and the Ukraine. These films reflect the grit and personal vision that define North Country Cinema, and the curators are proud to bring this content to Calgary audiences for the first time.

A dramatic portrayal of a young Northern Irish runaway Taryn (played by Canadian actress Deragh Campbell), who finds herself lost and in trouble in the United States. Finding herself in Ocean City, she seeks refuge with her aunt Kim and uncle Bill (singer/songwriters Kim Taylor and Ned Oldham) in Baltimore, though the couple face their own struggles amidst the collapse of their marriage and return home from college of their their daughter Abby (played by fellow Canadian Hannah Gross). Porterfield deftly interweaves the trajectory of his characters with live performance from Taylor and Oldham, as well as Jack Carneal and Dope Body, creating something entirely unique and captivating.

After film screenings, head over to the Official Film After Party venue and filmmaker’s artist lounge Milk Tiger Lounge (1410 - 4 St SW) for drink specials, food, and music.

The debut feature from Toronto's Kazik Radwanski, Tower is a stylistically rigorous and captivating character study of Derek, a loner who still lives at home and seems unable to leave the world he’s constructed around him. Having already garnered hype from screenings at Locarno, Telluride, and TIFF, we’re happy to present it at this year’s Sled Island.

A true Sci-Fi classic and one of the genre's most touching works. The Day the Earth Stood Still is, on the surface, the story of an alien visitor and his robot companion, yet is quickly brought down to a human level as we see the way such an event reverberates through society. 

After film screenings, head over to the Official Film After Party venue and filmmaker’s artist lounge Milk Tiger Lounge (1410 - 4 St SW) for drink specials, food, and music.

Closing Gala Presented by Sled Island and Commonwealth Bar and Stage

Follow avant-garde musician, artist, writer, director, and actor: Vincent Gallo (Buffalo ’66, The Brown Bunny) as he plays The Pusher/Sherriff DJ in this black-and-white surrealist Techno Western twist on Werner Herzog’s The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser (1974). Set to the rhythms of Vatlic, Manuli’s version of this classic folklore is a totally bonkers cinematic experience.

The music video remains the most immediate vehicle for synthesis of music and film. Toronto-born Emily Kai Bock and native Edmontonian Evan Prosofsky have collaborated on several videos for artists such as Toro Y Moi, Grimes, and Majical Cloudz, as well as Sled Island 2013 performers Mac Demarco and festival alumni Grizzly Bear. Their work, both together and with other collaborations, is unique in it's remarkablely sure vision and dedication to the dying art of shooting on actual film. In addtiion to selected videos we are happy to present Kai Bock's documentary short about New York underground rap, Spit Gold Under An Empire, and Prosofsky's directorial debut, Waterpark, a documentary about the much loved Edmonton wave pool.