Bob Kotyk

A submarine crew, a feared pack of forest bandits, a famous surgeon, and a battalion of child soldiers all get more than they bargained for as they wend their way toward progressive ideas on life and love.

A border guard at the US-Canada crossing of Tolstoi, Manitoba falls victim to the effects of a strange weapon that separates her mind from her body.

Seances, co-created with the National Film Board of Canada, presents a wholly new way of experiencing film narrative. By dynamically generating a series of film sequences in unique configurations, potentially hundreds of thousands of new stories are conjured by code. Each will exist only in the moment—no pausing, scrubbing, or sharing—offering the audience one chance to see the generated film. This project, co-created by the ever imaginative Guy Maddin, is a visual discourse on the impact of loss within film. All the sequences pay homage to lost silent films from the early day of cinema. Seances is nostalgic but it is also frequently hilarious. Part of the joy and sadness of Seances is that many possible narratives are created but they can be only viewed once before they disappear forever.

At a subway station in Toronto, two people meet and make a connection.

Guided by the spirit of “The Cuadecuc Manifesto” (coined by co-director Evan Johnson and inspired by Pere Portabella’s 1970 experimental cult documentary, Cuadecuc, vampir), Bring Me the Head of Tim Horton is a strange, stirring behind-the-scenes look at Paul Gross’s new feature, Hyena Road. Shot on location at CFB Shilo near Brandon, Manitoba, and in Aqaba, Jordan, the film mixes deep contrast black-and-white expressionism with wry and raw western revisionism reminiscent of Sam Peckinpah, as it summons unwieldy, psychedelic energy from the main event. [TIFF]

A modern-day silent film, a city symphony and a surreal odyssey into the numbing world of work, Bob Kotyk's I'll Be reflects life as it's lived today.

A nameless narrator, new to Toronto, wanders the streets and reflects on the history and reality of the city, while wrestling with the demons of the past.

A short film by the co-writer of The Forbidden Room, Spirit Workers Union features a cast made up of numerous Winnipeg rail workers playing a group of ghosts who decide to form a union.

A living portrait of the filmmaker's grandparents visiting the Plains of Abraham, the historic battleground where the English defeated the French to claim Canada for the British Empire.