Jess Blackwell –
Blood in the Snow (BITS) is aptly described by founder Kelly Michael Stewart as a “unique and imaginative showcase of Canadian horror, genre and underground cinema that exists to challenge social boundaries, explore artistic taboos, and support and exhibit independent Canadian genre media artists.”
This year’s edition of the festival – which exclusively screens Canadian projects – offered diverse genre films from across the country, including short films and feature-length works.
During the festival, I was impressed by several films that had flown under my radar while preparing my watchlist. Ryan Couldrey, director of Time Eater, identifies this as one of the main benefits of attending the festival: along with getting to see films months before others will, you get to watch films you might never have sought out or seen otherwise.
The short film that stood out most was Rémi St-Michel’s short film Zoé, which screened on opening night and took home two awards: best short film and best lead acting performance in a short film (awarded to Nisha Coleman). In this haunting, emotionally resonant film set in a zombie-laden world, shards of the title character’s mind cling desperately to fleeting memories of her previous life. With no concrete explanation for the world’s plight, the film’s focus remains on the characters’ (in)humanity, pulling viewers in visually and emotionally.
Pictured (left to right): Actor Katerina Kova; actor, writer, and filmmaker Jess Blackwell; writer Jezabel Bamberg; writer Jonathan Q. Hoidn. Photo by Colleen Yates.
The festival screened several features, including the premiere of Houston Bone’s Son of Sara. In this viscerally unsettling film packed with gruesome moments of body horror, a pregnant woman haunted by strange urges and visions accepts a dinner invitation that descends into a nightmarish spiral. For her performance as the title character, Chloe Van Landschoot took home the festival’s award for best lead acting performance in a feature film.
BITS also screened writer-director Ava Maria Safai’s feature film Foreigner. This film about a Persian teen struggling to fit in, which was acquired by Toronto’s Raven Banner Entertainment earlier this year, was pitched at BITS’s Horror Development Lab in 2023, making it the first completed production to emerge from the program.
Safai’s film exemplifies one of the unique benefits that BITS affords Canadian filmmakers. Through the festival’s incubator program and robust, multi-day schedule of industry events, filmmakers from around the country are brought together for the week, giving them an opportunity to grow professionally and develop their projects. It also creates a strong sense of community.
These industry events let filmmakers at different stages in their careers share knowledge and experiences, meet new collaborators, and nurture connections made through past editions of the festival. Attending the festival and participating in its industry programming can even lead to enduring friendships.
“It ends up feeling like an annual family reunion where new members of the family show up every year,” said Couldrey.
