The Boy in the Woods

Audience Choice Award Winner

THE BOY IN THE WOODS follows the true story of Max (Jett Klyne), a Jewish boy escaping Nazi persecution in Eastern Europe. After he is separated from his family, Max finds refuge with a Christian peasant Jasko (Richard Armitage) who hides him in plain site until a tense stand-off with some Nazi police. Afraid for his own family’s life, Jasko sends Max to live in the woods where he learns to survive alone.

With echoes of a Grimm’s Fairy Tale, Max’s experience is both terrifying and magical. He inhabits a landscape crawling with Jew-hunters, partisans and haunted by ghosts. Then everything changes when he meets another boy in hiding, Yanek (David Kohlsmith). Their extraordinary adventure culminates in the heroic rescue of a baby girl, but it comes at a tragic price. Based on the best-selling memoir by Canadian Holocaust survivor Maxwell Smart and inspired by the award-winning documentary Cheating Hitler: Surviving The Holocaust. 

96 mins
Canada, 2023
Dir. Rebecca Snow
Language: English

For Roy

Canadian Short Showcase Winner

Inspired by true events, an imaginative Asian-Canadian girl attempts to fold a thousand cranes as she learns to lose her father during his final days in the hospice.

10 mins
Canada, 2022
Dir. Vivian Cheung
Language: English

Adore

Student Short Showcase Winner

Luci, a queer Peruvian-Canadian woman, gives her beloved nephew the Christmas gift of his dreams: a beautiful sequined dress. But when he tries to show the rest of the family, Luci finds herself enacting the same restrictions and shaming she hoped to protect him from.

11 mins
Canada, 2022
Dir. Beth Warrian
Language: English, Spanish