at the Cannes Court Métrage.

ABOUT THE CANNES SHORT FILM CORNER

Cannes Court Métrage reflects the Festival de Cannes’ desire to develop initiatives. encouraging emerging talents as well as the particular format of short films.
Inventive, often incredibly gifted, free and without constraints, shorts have forever carried high the values of Cannes. Providing a space in which upcoming generations can emerge is essential and is also one of the very purposes of the Festival. Short films explore the present and prepare the future. They showcase a variety of styles, identities, cultures and geographies.

ABOUT THE FILMS

FADING

DIRECTOR/WRITER: KOBINA NTIRI

Seventeen-year-old Brooke is loud, vulgar and rebellious and despises every man her mother brings home. When her mother’s new boyfriend seems like a keeper, Brooke’s rebellion increases and she finds herself in a situation beyond her experience and forced to confront her own anger.

FATAL ESCAPE

DIRECTOR/WRITER: GEBRIEL DENEKE

Michael is a thoughtful twenty-year-old poet who lives in the projects of Toronto. After losing his family, his best friend is his girlfriend Renee. Together they escape reality and ignore their dreams, until Renee decides to break free and leaves Michael devastated and alone. The events of that evening change Michael’s life forever as deals with his loneliness and tries to regain hope.

POST-PARTUM

DIRECTOR/WRITER: KIM MILLER-PRICE

Fourteen-year-old Amanda recently gained a new baby brother. But since the birth her mother hasn’t been the same. When her mother accuses her of being raped by her step-dad and rushes her to the hospital for tests, it becomes unclear who is telling the truth. Slowly things between the family begin to unravel as Amanda tries to find stable ground.

In its second year, the program seeks to provide talented youth from priority
neighbourhoods with the unique opportunity to achieve artistic excellence through
filmmaking.

In these neighbourhoods, over 30% of high school students are not expected to
graduate. With higher unemployment, increased crime rates and deeper social divisions
within our city, City Life trains talented youth and gives them the chance to tell their
stories. Top filmmakers from the Toronto film industry act as mentors to the youth
helping them to articulate their experiences and expand their education. This yearʼs
filmmakers and mentors are:

Gebriel Deneke “CUL-DE-SAC,” mentored by Leonard Farlinger (IʼM YOURS)
Kimberly Miller-Pryce “BABY HALF LIE,” mentored by Ruba Nadda (CAIRO TIME).
Kobina Ntiri “FADING,” mentored by David Weaver (THE SAMARITAN)

“We are thrilled the Toronto community has continued to show tremendous support for
this project. These filmmakers have very personal stories to share and to contribute to
the diversity of voices in Toronto. We know this yearʼs films will create a social dialogue
with audience members, and thatʼs one of the projectʼs main goals,” said Tara
Woodbury, Program Director.

City Life began when Calum deHartog, a city cop with a passion for filmmaking,
approached The Remix Project and Temple Street Productions with the idea of helping
Torontoʼs inner city youth tell their stories through film. Thus began an innovative
partnership that led to the creation of the City Life Film Project. Please see the
Filmmakers section at www.citylifefilmproject.com to learn more out the films, our finalist
and all of our participants.

For more information, please contact:
Tara Woodbury
CITY LIFE FILM PROJECT
tara@citylifefilmproject.com
www.citylifefilmproject.com
www.theremixproject.ca

These themes and more were explored last year in the City Life Film Project, a partnership between Temple Street Productions and The Remix Project and sponsored by the Harold Greenberg Fund. The ongoing project allows three young filmmakers to create short films about issues facing the urban, poverty-stricken communities in Toronto in which they live.

Created to train at-risk youth for careers in film and TV, the program is now in its second year and offering a new incentive to participants – a $10,000 HGF development loan to be awarded to the filmmaker whose project has the most potential to be turned into a feature film. In addition, the foundation also signed on as a City Life sponsor, to help with the overall costs of the program.

The top three finalists this year, whose short film will be competing for the $10,000 prize, include Kobi Ntiri, who is paired with David Weaver (Toronto Stories); Kimberly Miller-Price, who is partnered with Ruba Nadda (Cairo Time) and Gebriel Deneke, who is working with Leonard Farlinger (I’m Yours).

The chosen filmmaker will work with a story editor on writing a treatment, which will form the framework for a feature-length screenplay. The remainder of the $10,000 loan will help cover the filmmaker’s living costs during production, to be paid back after the film is made.

The finalist’s screenings will be take place in late January 2012 at TIFF Bell Lightbox.

“One of the soft things that’s kind of hard to measure in the program is how much confidence they’re building, in terms of their communication, interaction with other people, and also their belief in themselves and the stories from their neighbourhoods,” explains the program’s director, Tara Woodbury. “ I think (Astral’s Harold Greenberg support) is a mark of confidence from the film community in them, that in turn helps boost their confidence.”

One of the pillars of the Harold Greenberg Fund is to help aspiring artists, explains Galway, so the project’s mandate to help emerging artists who face extra challenges breaking into the industry falls in line with the organization’s mandate.

“It really, ultimately, comes down to filmmaking talent. They’re pretty rigorous in their selection criteria, and this is really [meant] to launch careers,” says the Fund’s president, John Galway, of why the organization chose to support the City Life Film Project. “That money goes to help run the program that gets them that first experience, that first calling card,” Galway says.

Read more: http://playbackonline.ca/2011/10/07/city-life-film-project-gets-new-funding-prize-from-harold-greenberg-fund/#ixzz1ll4iUdX6

Press Release: Download Here

DOWNLOAD APPLICATION HERE

Please send completed applications to: citylifeapplications@gmail.com

DEADLINE IS APRIL 1, 2012