Language International | Website www.bloodinthesnow.ca | |
Location Toronto, Ontario, Canada | ||
Blood in the Snow Canadian Film Festival (BITS) was first founded in 2012 with the aim of promoting contemporary genre film making in Canada.
Contents
Late Night Double Feature
In 2014, many of the team behind the Blood in the Snow Canadian Film Festival made an anthology film called Late Night Double Feature. The film project was developed by Festival Director Kelly Michael Stewart and directed by three BITS alumni directors Navin Ramaswaran (One More For The Road), Zach Ramelan (Dead Rush) and Torin Langen (Malleus Maleficarum). The film also features acting roles from Kelly Michael Stewart and BITS Senior Programmers Jason Tannis (who was also an Executive Producer), Kirk Haviland, BITS team members Jen Gorman & R.X. Zammit. To avoid a conflict of interest, the film didn’t play BITS and the film had its Canadian Premiere at the 2015 Canadian Film Fest on March 26, 2015 instead.
BITS TV
Blood in the Snow started its own spin-off TV series on Bell tv1 in early 2016. This series is free on demand for Bell subscribers on Channel One. This interview style TV series is hosted by Festival Director Kelly Michael Stewart and was shot at the Carlton Cinema (where the festival took place between 2013 and 2015). Its guests for season one included Ryan M. Andrews, Brigitte Kingsley, Chris Alexander, Justin McConnell, Tricia Lee and Christopher Grioux.
2012
The first year of the festival began as spinoff of the monthly film night hosted and programmed by Kelly Michael Stewart called Fright Nights at the Projection Booth. Stemming from the amount of Canadian content he was receiving he created its inaugural year at the Projection Booth theatre in the east end of Toronto November 30 to December 2, 2012. Titles that year included the World Premieres of Sick: Survive the Night and In The House of Flies, along with screenings of Beyond The Black Rainbow, Devil’s Night, Famine and the Canadian Premiere of Blood for Irina.
2013
The festival moved to the Carlton Cinemas for year two November 29 to December 1, 2013, where they added the yearly primetime shorts program called the BITS Short Film Showcase and created a vendor village of merchants in the lobby. Films that year included Evangeline, Thanatomorphose, Ghostkeepers, Blood Riders: The Devil Rides with us, Clean Break, Criminal and Discopath.
2014
Continuing at the Carlton in its third year on November 28 to 30th, 2014, the festival screened the world premieres of Teddy Bomb and Heinous Acts along with Canadian and Toronto premieres of Berkshire County, Queen of Blood (starring Skinny Puppy’s Nivek Ogre), Ejecta, Bloody Knuckles, Black Mountain Side and Kingdom Come.
2015
Year four ran from November 27 to 29th, 2015 and hosted the world premieres of Night Cries, Secret Santa and White Raven along with local and Canadian premieres of Farhope Tower, The Dark Stranger, Save Yourself, Bite and Larry Kent’s controversial She Who Must Burn, which won best picture that year.
2016
The 2016 Blood in the Snow Canadian Film Festival] will be at Cineplex Cinemas in Toronto from November 24–27, 2016. The lineup will include filmmaker seminars, networking events and a program of features and shorts that are all world, Canadian or Toronto premieres.