Ottawa-based Apt. 9 Press published this past fall Five, a poetry collection by five different poets. With the start of VERSeFest this week, we thought this would be a great opportunity to profile each of the writers featured in this poetry collection.  Today we conclude our look at all five wordsmiths by reviewing the work of Cameron Anstee, the founder […]

Ottawa-based Apt. 9 Press published this past fall Five, a poetry collection by five different poets. With the start of VERSeFest this week, we thought this would be a great opportunity to profile each of the writers featured in Five.  Today we look at the work of Rachael Simpson, whose poetry has appeared in print and online throughout Canada and the United […]

Ottawa-based Apt. 9 Press published this past fall Five, a poetry collection by five different poets. With the start of VERSeFest this week, we thought this would be a great opportunity to profile each of the writers featured in Five.  Today we look at the work of Justin Million.  (See also part 1, part 2, part 4 and part 5 of this series of […]

This past fall,  Apt. 9 Press published Five, a poetry collection by five different poets. With the start of VERSeFest this week, we thought this was be the perfect opportunity to profile all five writers featured in this collection.  Today we look at the work of Jesslyn Delia Smith, an Ottawa-based author whose work has appeared in ottawater, the […]

Ottawa-based Apt. 9 Press published this past fall Five, a poetry collection by five different poets. With the start of VERSeFest this week, we thought this would be a great opportunity to profile each of the writers featured in Five.  Today we look at the work of Jeff Blackman.  (See also part 2, part 3, part 4 and part […]

Nicole Crozier’s paintings and portraits are fascinating meditations on identity and gender production. Leaping off Judith Butler’s Gender Trouble, Crozier’s work could be summed up by the words, “Identity Trouble.” Through the visual medium of oil painting and photography, Crozier troubles the notion that we have a stable, unique, inner identity. As Butler opens up […]

Danish film by acclaimed director, musician and song-writer Søren Kragh-Jacobsen, The Hour of the Lynx bears his signature. This dark and complex drama centers on teenager Drengen (Frederik Christian Johansen), who for no apparent reason savagely kills two seniors and stages their corpses in a perverse, yet aesthetically tender way. Institutionalized in a high-security facility, […]

Director Zaida Bergroth’s second feature is a must-see. Cinematographically stunning, this is a complex drama about family life, focusing on a mutually destructive relationship between a mother and her oldest son. Leila is an actress that compulsively seeks attention, positive or negative. Always entertaining, she is surrounded by scandal. Accompanied by her two sons, she […]

The Canadian Film Institute brings international contemporary cinema to town in partnership with Winterlude and the Baltic and Nordic countries. This year marks the 5th Baltic-Nordic Film Festival. Eight countries will be showcasing their best features from Friday, February 6 to Saturday, February 14 at Carleton University’s River Building. One movie per night will play […]

350 Foods is my kind of bakery. It brings back certain nostalgic memories, of the cinematic and imagined kind since I am not old enough to have experienced the milkman: fresh bread and cookies delivered at your doorstep every Sunday evening. They deliver at a reasonable cost (they are competitive to your average bakery, not […]

As the European Union film festival comes to a close, I highly recommend Thursday night’s animated feature, Rocks in My Pockets. The artist-director Signe Baumane says, “I sometimes call it ‘a funny film about depression’ but it is not always funny and not always about depression. It is a family’s history of mental breakdowns from […]

It’s rare to see dramas incorporate metaphysical elements of the kind that remind me of the Mexican-Spanish film by Inarritu, Biutiful, whose main character was a sick, poor and desperate man with a gift: seeing the dead and helping them transition to the other side. Here, in Mon âme par toi guérie, the main character, […]

This 2012 film co-written and directed by Patrice Toye is so much more than a coming of age story. Set in the late seventies in Belgium, the film follows Katja, whose real name is Katerina, a 17-year old orphan who is pregnant and living in hiding with other teenage moms-to-be in the attic of a […]