Below the Belt | |
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Directed by | Dominique Cardona Laurie Colbert |
Written by | Dominique Cardona Laurie Colbert |
Produced by | Kate Gillen |
Starring | Nathalie Toriel Cara Pifko Tanja Jacobs |
Cinematography | Derek Rogers |
Edited by | Paul Fox |
Release date |
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Running time | 12 minutes |
Country | Canada |
Language | English |
Below the Belt is a Canadian short drama film, directed by Dominique Cardona and Laurie Colbert and released in 1999. [1] The film stars Nathalie Toriel and Cara Pifko as Oona and Jill, two young lesbian amateur boxers who fall in love, and then discover that one of their mothers (Tanja Jacobs) is also having an extramarital affair with another woman. [1]
The film premiered in the Panorama program at the 1999 Berlin International Film Festival, as the opening film to Anne Wheeler's lesbian romantic comedy feature Better Than Chocolate . [2] It was subsequently screened at the Inside Out Film and Video Festival in 1999, where it was co-winner of the Audience Award for Best Short Film, and at the 1999 Toronto International Film Festival. [3]
The film was a Genie Award nominee for Best Live Action Short Drama at the 21st Genie Awards in 2000. [4]
Helen Shaver is a Canadian actress and film and television director. After appearing in a number of Canadian movies, she received a Canadian Screen Award for Best Actress for her performance in the romantic drama In Praise of Older Women (1978). She later appeared in the films The Amityville Horror (1979), The Osterman Weekend (1983), Desert Hearts (1985), The Color of Money (1986), The Believers (1987), The Craft (1996),Tremors 2: Aftershocks (1996) and Down River (2013). She received another Canadian Screen Award for Best Actress nomination for the 1986 drama film Lost!, and won a Best Supporting Actress for We All Fall Down (2000). Shaver also starred in some short-lived television series, including United States (1980) and Jessica Novak (1981), and from 1996 to 1999 starred in the Showtime horror series, Poltergeist: The Legacy, for which she received a Saturn Award for Best Actress on Television nomination.
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Dominique Cardona is an Argentinian-born Canadian film director, producer, and screenwriter. She works primarily but not exclusively in collaboration with Laurie Colbert. The duo are most noted for their 1999 short film Below the Belt, which was a Genie Award nominee for Best Live Action Short Drama at the 21st Genie Awards in 2000, and their feature film Margarita, which won the Audience Award for Best Feature Film at the Inside Out Film and Video Festival in 2012.
Laurie Colbert is a Canadian film director, producer, and screenwriter. She works primarily but not exclusively in collaboration with Dominique Cardona. The duo are most noted for their 1999 short film Below the Belt, which was a Genie Award nominee for Best Live Action Short Drama at the 21st Genie Awards in 2000, and their feature film Margarita, which won the Audience Award for Best Feature Film at the Inside Out Film and Video Festival in 2012.
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