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Local film festival touts bigger-than-ever lineup

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Sarnia’s South Western International Film Festival is gearing up for a benchmark November, buoyed by a lineup more extensive and diverse than any other in the event’s five-year run.

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The weekend-long event will include 14 feature films and a dozen short films, from critically acclaimed director Bong Joon-ho’s latest success Parasite to the darkly relevant Castle in the Ground, a Sudbury-shot foray into the depths of the opioid crisis circa 2012. The festival starts Thursday, Nov. 7, and runs through Sunday at the Imperial Theatre and the Judith and Norman Alix Art Gallery.

“We’re really excited,” Ravi Srinivasan, the executive director of the festival, said. “This is the best lineup by far that we’ve had in the last five years.”

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The South Western International Film Festival started in 2015, blending Canadian content with international films. Each year, those feature films have a local twist or two, notably in 2018 with acclaimed Sarnia director Patricia Rozema’s latest project, Mouthpiece.

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The 2019 lineup – announced this week – does not have as strong a Sarnia offering but makes up for it with some of the most noteworthy movies in the festival’s short history. Joon-ho’s Parasite won the top award at the Cannes Film Festival in May, while others like The Peanut Butter Falcon have won critical praise via A-list Hollywood actors Shia LaBeouf and Dakota Johnson.

As with other festivals in Canada’s film circuit, the South Western International Film Festival will feature talks with some directors and others who collaborated on the films.

“We’ve been adding content every year,” said Srinivasan, noting movies like Parasite are “perfect for what we’re trying to do with SWIFF, with the international component of the film festival.”

Also featured this year is a virtual reality simulation and music at the nearby Alt Space. Tickets for the weekend-long festival will go on sale Tuesday and can be purchased online or at the Imperial Theatre box office.

lpin@postmedia.com

If You Go

What: South Western International Film Festival

Where: Downtown Sarnia

When: Nov. 7 to Nov. 11

Tickets: All access pass for $99

Others: Go to swiff.ca

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