The inaugural Nova Scotia Retro Film Festo takes place at Carbon Arc from January 30 - February 2, 2025. We will unearth a few classics of Nova Scotian cinema that haven't been seen on the big screen in years. More updates to come!
Saturday, December 14, 5:30 PM - SOLD OUT
Saturday, December 14, 7:45 PM - SOLD OUT
Paul Schrader | USA | 2024 | 90m
Aging filmmaker Leonard Fife (Richard Gere), still fiery despite his battle with illness, wants to tell his life story, unfiltered, before it’s too late. Leonard sits for an extended interview, relating candid stories about his younger self (Jacob Elordi) in the tumultuous 1960s and beyond.
Thursday, December 12, 6:30 PM - SOLD OUT
Friday, December 13, 6:30 PM
Andrea Arnold | UK, USA, France, Germany | 2024 | 119m
12-year-old Bailey lives with her single dad Bug and brother Hunter in a squat in North Kent. Bug doesn’t have much time for his kids and Bailey, who is approaching puberty, seeks attention and adventure elsewhere.
Sunday, December 8, 6:30 PM - SOLD OUT
Wednesday, December 11, 6:30 PM - SOLD OUT
Gints Zilbalodis | Latvia, Belgium, France | 2024 | 84m | No dialogue
Cat and his fellow animals must work together if they're to survive a flood that threatens to drown them and erase the last vestiges of human civilization.
Friday, December 6, 6:30 PM
Saturday, December 7, 6:30 PM - half-capacity screening
Shiori Ito | Japan, USA, UK | 2024 | 103m | Japanese with English subtitles
Journalist Shiori Ito embarks on a courageous investigation of her own sexual assault in an improbable attempt to prosecute her high-profile offender. Her quest becomes a landmark case in Japan, exposing the country’s outdated judicial and societal systems.
Thursday, December 5, 6:30 PM
Ben Petrie | Canada | 2024 | 87m
Fleapit Presents! A neurotic couple is brought to the edge of calamity or commitment by the arrival of a traumatized rescue dog.
Friday, November 29, 6:30 PM - SOLD OUT
Sunday, December 1, 2:00 PM - SOLD OUT
Sunday, December 1, 6:30 PM - SOLD OUT
Gints Zilbalodis | Latvia, Belgium, France | 2024 | 84m | No dialogue
Cat and his fellow animals must work together if they're to survive a flood that threatens to drown them and erase the last vestiges of human civilization.
Friday, November 22, 6:30 PM - SOLD OUT
Saturday, November 23, 6:30 PM - SOLD OUT
Payal Kapadia | France, India, Netherlands, Luxembourg | 2024 | 115m | Malayalam, Hindi, Marathi with English subtitles
A trio of nurses in Mumbai face the challenges of their class and a patriarchal system while they find solace and support in their friendship.
Thursday, Nov 21, 6:30PM - free event!
Journeys to a Promiseland: The Eccentricities of Gender & Sexuality is a program of short films that explore the strange journey of “becoming a woman” and the absurdities of heterosexual norms programmed and presented by students from Dalhousie University.
Friday, November 15, 6:30 PM - Q&A with Harley Chamandy after screening!
Saturday, November 16, 6:30 PM - Q&A with Harley Chamandy after screening!
Harley Chamandy | Canada | 2024 | 81m
A music mogul retreats to a remote cabin to mourn his famous wife’s suicide. Amid the solitude of the Canadian wilderness he struggles with grief, until an unexpected encounter ends his isolation.
Friday, November 8, 6:30 PM
Saturday, November 9, 6:30 PM - Half-capacity screening
Mika Gustafson | Sweden, Italy, Denmark, Finland | 2023 | 108m | Swedish with English subtitles
In a working-class community in Sweden, three young sisters living alone fight to survive and to avoid social services splitting them apart.
Monday, November 4, 6:30 PM - In partnership with the AfterWords Literary Festival
Laurie Townshend | Documentary | Canada | 2024 | 89m | English, German with English subtitles
An emotionally sweeping tale of healing and forgiveness, A Mother Apart accompanies powerhouse Jamaican-American poet and LGBTQ+ activist Staceyann Chin as she re-imagines the essential art of mothering having been abandoned by her own mother.
Carbon Arc is closed the first weekend in November. Hellifax Horror Fest is happening instead, from Thursday, October 31 - Sunday, November 2!
Friday, October 25, 6:30 PM - SOLD OUT
Sunday, October 27, 6:30 PM - SOLD OUT
Robert Frank, Rudy Wurlitzer | Switzerland, Canada, France | 1987 | 91m
New York City, 1980s. Julius, a struggling musician sets out to find a legendary luthier, but ends up stumbling down a winding road full of dead-ends and wrong turns towards a mythical destination: the wilderness of Nova Scotia.
Sunday, October 20, 7:00 PM
Malcolm MacMaster | Canada | 2024 | 31m
Hourglass: The Visual Album is a lo-fi, campy, love-filled celebration of Halifax’s rising ‘pier emo’ scene, featuring all 8 songs from idialedyournumber’s breakthrough album Hourglass. World premiere screening. There will be a Q&A and an acoustic performance by idialedyournumber to follow the film.
Saturday, October 19 - 6:00pm to 11:00pm (Studio) - 6:00pm to 12:00am (Screenings)
Come play in our studio! At this hands-on, drop-in animation event, you can create short animated clips and see them up on the big screen.
Friday, October 18, 6:30 PM
Robin Campillo | France, Belgium, Madagascar | 2023 | 117m | French and Malagasy with English subtitles
Living amidst a hedonistic group of French armed forces in 1970s Madagascar, ten-year-old Thomas discovers the tangled political and sexual lives of the colonizers and the colonized beneath his family’s blissful existence.
Friday, October 11, 6:30 PM
Saturday, October 12, 6:30 PM - Half-capacity screening
Victor Erice | Spain, Argentina | 2023 | 169m | Spanish, Catalan with English subtitles
An aging filmmaker recounts his memories of working on his unfinished film during which the lead actor vanished without a trace, leaving behind a mystery that would haunt the lives of everyone associated with the film.
Friday, October 4, 6:30 PM
Saturday, October 5, 6:30 PM - Half-capacity screening
Frauke Finsterwalder | Germany, Switzerland, Austria | 2023 | 132m | German, French with English subtitles
Countess Irma Sztáray becomes the lady-in-waiting for Empress Elisabeth of Austria, known as Sisi. Irma falls under her spell and the two become close during a summer retreat, beginning their turbulent relationship.
Sunday, August 18, 6:30 PM - Audience Poll Winner for Closing Night Film
Ryusuki Hamaguchi | Japan | 2023 | 106m | Japanese with English subtitles
Urban ambitions clash with nature in a quiet village close to Tokyo, where plans for a glamping site threaten the locals' lifestyle and the ecosystem around them.
Friday, August 16, 6:30 PM
Saturday, August 17, 6:30 PM - Half-capacity screening
Wei Shujun | China | 2023 | 101m | Mandarin with English subtitles
A woman’s body is found by the river in a town in rural China. Ma Zhe, Chief of the Criminal Police, leads the murder investigation that suggests it's the work of a serial killer.
Friday, August 9, 6:30 PM
Saturday, August 10, 6:30 PM - Half-capacity screening
Julian Brave NoiseCat and Emily Kassie | Documentary | United States, Canada | 2024 | 107m | English and Secwepemctsín with English subtitles
An investigation into abuse and missing children at an Indian residential school in British Columbia ignites a reckoning on the nearby Sugarcane Reserve. Winner of the US Documentary Directing award at this year's Sundance Film Festival.
Friday, July 26, 6:30 PM
Sunday, July 28, 6:30 PM - Half-capacity screening
Levan Akin | Sweden, Denmark, France, Turkey, Georgia | 2024 | 105m | Georgian and Turkish with English subtitles
Lia, a retired Georgian teacher and her unpredictable neighbour, Achi, travel from Georgia to Istanbul to find Lia's niece Tekla, a trans woman, who has vanished into the city on the Bosporus.
Thursday, July 25, 6:30 PM
Saturday, July 27, 6:30 PM - Half-capacity screening
Hannah Pearl Utt | United States | 2022 | 92m
Overbearing Los Angeles musician Cora flies back to her hometown of Portland, Oregon to find the people and life she left behind have gone on without her.
Friday, July 19, 6:30 PM
Saturday, July 20, 6:30 PM - Half-capacity screening
Estibaliz Urresola Solaguren | Spain | 2024 | 128m | Spanish, Basque, French with English subtitles
An eight-year-old child struggles with her gender identity. During a summer visit to Basque country she learns about beekeeping and seeks clarity alongside the women in her family.
Saturday, July 6, 9:00 PM
Sunday, July 7, 6:30 PM
Sunday, July 14, 6:30 PM - Additional screening added!
Pablo Berger | Spain, France | 2023 | 101m | no dialogue
A story about friendship; its importance, and its fragility. A love letter to the Big Apple. Nominated for Best Animated Feature at this year's Oscars.
Friday, July 12, 6:30 PM
Saturday, July 13, 6:30 PM - Half-capacity screening
Agnieszka Holland | Poland, France, Czech Republic, Belgium | 2023 | 153m | Polish, Arabic, English, and French with English subtitles
Unable to cross into the EU and unable to turn back, refugees from the Middle East and Africa find themselves trapped in a rapidly escalating geopolitical stand-off at the so-called “green border” between Belarus and Poland.
Friday, July 5, 6:30 PM - SOLD OUT - Artist Q&A!
Saturday, July 6, 6:30 PM - SOLD OUT
Thursday, July 11, 6:30 PM - Additional screening added!
Jennifer Wickham, Brenda Michell, and Michael Toledano | Documentary | Canada | 2024 | 125m | English and Witsuwit'en with English subtitles
Yintah, which means "land" in the Wet'suwet'en language, is an activist documentary that bears witness to the people's effort to protect their land across a decade and repeated encounters with law enforcement and resource management companies.
Friday, June 21, 6:30 PM - Half-capacity screening
Saturday, June 22, 6:30 PM - Half-capacity screening
Chris Wilcha | Documentary | USA | 2023 | 96m
Flipside documents filmmaker Chris Wilcha's tragicomic attempt to revive the record store he worked in as a teenager while revisiting other documentary projects he has abandoned over the years.
Friday, June 14, 6:30 PM - Half-capacity screening
Saturday, June 15, 6:30 PM - Half-capacity screening
Ramata-Toulaye Sy | France, Mali, Senegal, Qatar | 2023 | 87m | Pulaar with English subtitles
Banel and Adama, a young married couple living in a remote village, are fiercely in love but their love is on a collision course with the community’s customs. In this unforgiving world, there is no room for passion.
Friday, June 7, 6:30 PM - SOLD OUT
Friday, June 7, 8:50 PM - Half-capacity screening
Saturday, June 8, 6:30 PM - SOLD OUT
Ryusuki Hamaguchi | Japan | 2023 | 106m | Japanese with English subtitles
Urban ambitions clash with nature in a quiet village close to Tokyo, where plans for a glamping site threaten the locals' lifestyle and the ecosystem around them.
