| Opening film | Sharp Corner by Jason Buxton |
|---|---|
| Closing film | Anora by Sean Baker |
| Location | Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada |
| Founded | 1980 |
| Festival date | September 11–18, 2024 |
| Website | atlanticfilmfestival |
The 2024 edition of the Atlantic International Film Festival , the 44th edition in the event's history, took place from September 11 to 18, 2024 in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. [1] The first films in the program were announced on July 25, [2] with the full program announced on August 14. [1]
The event was scaled back to an extent from previous years, with a program of 96 features and shorts compared to almost 200 in the years prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. [3] Festival chief Martha Cooley attributed this decision both to residents of the Halifax area still having a greater reticence in returning to large scale public events after the pandemic than people in other parts of Canada, and to the perception that as Halifax has a smaller population than cities like Toronto or Vancouver, audiences were being "pulled too thin" by past programs that were approaching the size of TIFF or VIFF. [3]
The festival opened with Jason Buxton's film Sharp Corner , and closed with Sean Baker's Anora . The Atlantic Gala slot featured Melanie Oates's film Sweet Angel Baby .
Award winners were announced on September 17, 2024. [4]
| Award | Film | Recipient |
|---|---|---|
| Gordon Parsons Award for Best Atlantic Canadian Feature | Sharp Corner | Jason Buxton |
| Best Atlantic Canadian Director | ||
| Joan Orenstein & David Renton Award for Outstanding Performance in Acting | The Kitchen Sink | Mary-Colin Chisholm |
| Skeet | Sean Dalton | |
| Monica's News | Polly Gallant-McLean (honorable mention) | |
| Best Atlantic Documentary | Seguridad | Tamara Segura |
| Best Atlantic Short Documentary | welima’q | shalan joudry |
| Best Atlantic Short Film | Pearls | Mike Simms |
| Best Atlantic Short Animation | Bloody Mess | Megan Wennberg |
| Michael Weir Award for Best Atlantic Screenwriting | Sweet Angel Baby | Melanie Oates |
| Best Atlantic Cinematographer | Skeet | Nigel Markham |
| Best Atlantic Editor | Monica's News | Kimberlee McTaggart |
| Best Atlantic Original Score | Lakeview | Siobhan Martin |
| English title | Original title | Director(s) | Production country |
|---|---|---|---|
| Anora | Sean Baker | United States | |
| Sharp Corner | Jason Buxton | Canada | |
| Sweet Angel Baby | Melanie Oates | Canada | |
| English title | Original title | Director(s) | Province |
|---|---|---|---|
| Back to Camp 41 | Greg Hemmings | Canada | |
| Bedlamer | Alexa Jane Jerrett | ||
| Hairy Legs | Andrea Dorfman | ||
| An Impression of Everything | Millefiore Clarkes | ||
| The Kitchen Sink | Olivia King | ||
| Paper | Charles Wahl | ||
| Permit Garden | Jenny Yujia Shi | ||
| welima'q | shalan joudry | ||
| English title | Original title | Director(s) | Production country |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bird | Andrea Arnold | United Kingdom | |
| Can I Get a Witness? | Ann Marie Fleming | Canada | |
| Caught by the Tides | 风流一代 | Jia Zhangke | China |
| The Count of Monte Cristo | Le Comte de Monte Cristo | Matthieu Delaporte, Alexandre de La Patellière | France |
| Darkest Miriam | Naomi Jaye | Canada | |
| Flow | Straume | Gints Zilbalodis | Latvia, France, Belgium |
| Grand Tour | Miguel Gomes | Portugal, Italy, France, Germany, Japan, China | |
| Lakeview | Tara Thorne | Canada | |
| Matt and Mara | Kazik Radwanski | Canada | |
| The Outrun | Nora Fingscheidt | United Kingdom, Germany | |
| Paying for It | Sook-Yin Lee | Canada | |
| Presence | Steven Soderbergh | United States | |
| Reinas | Klaudia Reynicke | Switzerland, Peru, Spain | |
| Rumours | Guy Maddin, Evan Johnson, Galen Johnson | Canada, Germany | |
| The Seed of the Sacred Fig | Mohammad Rasoulof | Iran, France, Germany | |
| Skeet | Nik Sexton | Canada | |
| To the Moon | Kevin Hartford | Canada | |
| Universal Language | Une langue universelle | Matthew Rankin | Canada |
| When the Light Breaks | Ljósbrot | Rúnar Rúnarsson | Iceland, Netherlands, Croatia, France |
| English title | Original title | Director(s) | Production country |
|---|---|---|---|
| 40 Acres | R. T. Thorne | Canada | |
| All We Imagine as Light | Payal Kapadia | France, India, Netherlands, Luxembourg | |
| Boxcutter | Reza Dahya | Canada | |
| Do I Know You from Somewhere? | Arianna Martinez | Canada | |
| Girls Will Be Girls | Shuchi Talati | India | |
| Monica's News | Pamela Gallant | Canada | |
| Pierce | Nelicia Low | Taiwan | |
| Seeds | Kaniehtiio Horn | Canada | |
| To a Land Unknown | Mahdi Fleifel | United Kingdom, Greece, Netherlands, France, Germany, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia | |
| Young Werther | José Lourenço | Canada | |
| English title | Original title | Director(s) | Production country |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Girl with the Needle | Pigen med nålen | Magnus von Horn | Denmark, Poland, Sweden |
| My Mother's Eyes | Maimazāzuaizu | Takeshi Kushida | Japan |
| The Substance | Coralie Fargeat | United Kingdom, United States, France | |
| English title | Original title | Director(s) | Production country |
|---|---|---|---|
| Heartbeat | Andrea Dorfman | Canada | |
| How to Be Alone | Andrea Dorfman | Canada | |
| English title | Original title | Director(s) | Production country |
|---|---|---|---|
| 7 Beats per Minute | Yuqi Kang | Canada | |
| Any Other Way: The Jackie Shane Story | Michael Mabbott, Lucah Rosenberg-Lee | Canada | |
| Black Box Diaries | Shiori Itō | Japan, United Kingdom, United States | |
| Curl Power | Josephine Anderson | Canada | |
| Dahomey | Mati Diop | France, Senegal, Benin | |
| Disco's Revenge | Omar Majeed, Peter Mishara | Canada | |
| Grand Theft Hamlet | Pinny Grylls, Sam Crane | United Kingdom | |
| Luther: Never Too Much | Dawn Porter | United States | |
| Made in England: The Films of Powell and Pressburger | David Hinton | United Kingdom | |
| Never Look Away | Lucy Lawless | New Zealand | |
| A Photographic Memory | Rachel Elizabeth Seed | United States | |
| Seguridad | Tamara Segura | Canada | |
| Standing Above the Clouds | Jalena Keane-Lee | United States | |
| The Tragically Hip: No Dress Rehearsal | Mike Downie | Canada | |
| English title | Original title | Director(s) | Production country |
|---|---|---|---|
| 8 Times | Adam Mbowe | Canada | |
| 73 Seconds | Stacy Gardner | Canada | |
| Bloody Mess | Megan Wennberg | Canada | |
| Bust | Angalis Field | United States | |
| Cart Girls | Katelyn McCulloch | Canada | |
| Carved from Stone | Tyler Burr | Canada | |
| Circle | Yumi Joung | South Korea | |
| Cold Soup | Sopa Fria | Marta Monteiro | Portugal, France |
| The Distance Between Us | Qu'importe le distance | Léo Fontaine | France |
| Every Other Weekend | Mick Robertson, Margaret Rose | Canada | |
| Eye Piece | Kate Solar | Canada | |
| Freedom | Scott Jones | Canada | |
| Gaslit | Anna MacLean | Canada | |
| Gigi | Cynthia Calvi | France | |
| Good Grief | Megan Chumbley | United States | |
| Hello Stranger | Amélie Hardy | Canada | |
| Himalia | Clara Milo, Juliette Lossky | Canada | |
| Holiday House | Alex Heller | United States | |
| Inkwo for When the Starving Return | Inkwo à la défense des vivants | Amanda Strong | Canada |
| Julian and the Wind | Connor Jessup | Canada | |
| Maybe Elephants | Kanskje det var elefanter | Torill Kove | Norway, Canada |
| Mother Tongue | Lea Tupu'anga | Vea Mafile'o | New Zealand |
| Motorcycle Mary | Haley Watson | United States | |
| Moving Water | Kaia Singh | Canada | |
| Nola | Aisha Evelyna, Natalie Novak Remplakowski | Canada | |
| On a Sunday at Eleven | Alicia K. Harris | Canada | |
| Panadrilo | Marcela Heilbron | Panama | |
| Pearls | Mike Simms | Canada | |
| Percebes | Alexandra Ramires, Laura Gonçalves | France, Portugal | |
| perfectly a strangeness | Alison McAlpine | Canada | |
| Santa Maria Kyoko | Guil Sela, Felix Loizillon | France | |
| Terminally Ill | Chris Cole | United States | |
| Things Behind the Sun | Giran Findlay | Canada | |
| What Good Canadians Do | Stephanie Joline | Canada | |
| Where My Branches Stem | Teresa Kuo | Canada | |
| The Wolf | Le Loup | Theodore Ushev | Canada |
| Wouldn't Make It Any Other Way | Hao Zhou | United States | |