*Atlantic fest ramps up

The 17th annual Atlantic Film Festival will see local Halifax filmmaker Thom Fitzgerald’s The Hanging Garden open this year’s slate of gala feature films. Atom Egoyan’s The Sweet Hereafter has been chosen to close the nine-day film fest.

Opening the children’s and young people’s ScreenScene program will be Whiskers, the family feature from Montreal’s La Fete, starring Brent Carver as a cat who is transformed into a man and gets into a series of funny adventures with his young friend Jed (Michael Caloz).

The total number of films for this year’s Atlantic fest will be 208, with 63 coming from the Atlantic region. The festival runs Sept. 19-27. AH

*Brown Bagging it

Canadian filmmakers whose work did not make the Perspective Canada program cut at tiff are showing their stuff at the first annual Brown Bag Film Festival.

From Sept. 9-13 the Brown Bag fest is showcasing six short films, rotating daily between 11 a.m. and 7 p.m. at tiff sponsor Bay Bloor Radio.

While it may not be the usual popcorn-scented fest-type venue, the second-floor Home Theatre Room features a 60-inch tv, Dolby Pro-Logic Surround Sound, and seating for 30.

Toronto filmmaker Jim Blokland planned the alternative shorts fest which includes:

* Eric Wiegand’s premiere drama Good Night Friend, budgeted under $10,000, about a struggling artist and his model and muse who is experiencing a recurring nightmare;

* Kleen X, produced, directed and edited by Sara Cadeau, a Super 8 street doc chronicling the lives of Toronto’s squeegee kids;

* Gerry Quigley’s directorial debut The Poet, a darkly humorous melodrama about a reclusive scribe who meets up with a deeply disturbed character and finds himself immersed in a world of sex, betrayal and murder;

* First-time director Paul Wensley’s The Ride, the story of a stranded man who accepts the help of a passing driver only to find out his new friend has an agenda of his own;

* The Apprentice from the founder of the Canadian Independent Film Series at the Bloor Cinema, Rob Cosgrove, is about a young immigrant working as an usher in a Toronto cinema and his struggle to be social in a conservative environment; and

* Blokland’s alt.rec.death, the story of a computer whiz who gets seduced by a suicidal Webmistress. The director is currently marketing his film online at www.blokland.com.

Brown Bag screenings take place every hour on the hour, cost $3, and come with a snack.