Launched in 2014, National Canadian Film Day (aka CanFilmDay) is a country-wide celebration of Canadian cinema and filmmakers that takes place every April. The organizers of CanFilmDay help to organize and promote free screenings of Canadian films across the country to make this content as accessible as possible to all Canadians.
Bay of Blood participates each year by organizing screenings of Canadian horror films at our local movie theatre, Galaxy Cinemas North Bay. You can find out more about our CanFilmDay events below.
National Canadian Film Day 2024
For 2024’s CanFilmDay on April 17th, Bay of Blood responded with a free screening at Galaxy Cinemas in North Bay of David Cronenberg’s 1979 feature film The Brood! The film invites you to "Explore shocking and unexpected twists as a man tries to uncover an unconventional psychologist's therapy techniques on his institutionalized wife, amidst a series of brutal murders” and features Oliver Reed as Dr. Hal Raglan, Art Hindle as Frank Carveth, Samantha Eggar as Nola Carveth and Cindy Hinds as Candice Carveth.
Cindy Hinds was on-site to open the film with a few words and celebrate its 45th anniversary with us. I wonder what we’ll program next year…
National Canadian Film Day 2023
For Bay of Blood’s inaugural festival we kicked things off with CanFilmDay at Galaxy Cinemas in North Bay on April 19th at 7 pm. First up on the schedule was “This Theatre is Haunted”, a series of shorts (mostly from Canada) programmed by Clayton Windatt. The series included Exercised (USA), GAMERBOY (Canada), PERFECTION (Mexico), TERROR ON TWIN MOUNTAIN (USA), THE TOWNSEND MANSION (Canada), In The Shadow Of God (Canada), The Spooky House (Canada), The Djinn (Canada), BESTIE (Italy), The Valravn (Canada), and DEATH BY... (UK).
Then at 9 pm we screened Slash/Back, a 2022 horror/sci-fi/action feature directed by Nyla Innuksuk in her directorial debut and based on a screenplay written by her and Ryan Cavan. Set in Pangnirtung, Nunavut, the film centres around Maika and her ragtag group of friends. When they discover an alien invasion in their tiny arctic hamlet, it's up to them to save the day. Utilizing their makeshift weapons and horror movie knowledge, the aliens soon realize you don't mess with girls from Pang.