FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Toronto, ON – October, 2019 – Following World Premiere screenings at the Vancouver International Film Festival and Edmonton International Film Festival in September and the recent screening at the 2019 ImagineNATIVE Festival in Toronto, Canadian distributor A-71 has acquired Canadian theatrical distribution rights to acclaimed Métis-Dene playwright/director/producer/ screenwriter Marie Clements’ narrative feature debut Red Snow.  A71 will bring the film to Canadian screens for a nation-wide sneak peak on November 4th with a Northern communities tour and additional release dates planned for January, 2020.

Filmed on location in Canada’s Northwest (Yellowknife and Dettah) and the desert interior region of British Columbia (the Ashcroft Band Lands, Cache Creek and Kamloops), Red Snow is the powerful story of Dylan, a Gwich’in soldier from the Canadian Arctic, who is caught in an ambush in Panjwayi, Afghanistan. His capture and interrogation by a Taliban Commander release a cache of memories connected to the love and death of his Inuit cousin, Asana, and binds him closer to a Pashtun family as they escape across treacherous landscapes and through a blizzard that becomes their key to survival.

Featuring the talents of Tantoo Cardinal, Asivak Koostachin, Mozhdah Jamalzadah Samuel Marty, Miika Bryce Whiskeyjack, Ishaan Vasdev, Shafin Karim and Kane Mahon, Red Snow was shot in four languages including Gwich’in, Inuvialuktun, Pashto and English.

The Far North meets the Middle East in a journey of loss and rebirth that lays bare the land, blood ties, and two ancient cultures that collide to re-imagine a future born of 10,000 words for snow.

Red Snow is written and directed by acclaimed playwright, director, producer, and screenwriter, Marie Clements.  The film is Clements’ narrative feature debut. In 2017 she made the feature documentary The Road Forward, an innovative musical documentary that looked at the history of First Nations activism in Canada.  The Road Forward premiered at Hot Docs, opened the 2017 DOXA Documentary Film Festival, and closed the 2018 ImagineNATIVE Film Festival. The film screened at over 300 venues in North America, receiving five Leo Awards including Best Production, Best Director, and Best Screenwriter and also receiving a Best Director Award at the American Indian Festival in San Francisco, a Writer’s Guild Nomination for Best Documentary Screenplay in 2018, the WFF Women on Top Award, and the WIFTV Spotlight Impact Award 2018.

The film features an original soundtrack composed by Juno awarding winning Metis composer Wayne Lavallee featuring vocalists Mozhdah Jamalzadah, Tiffany Ayalik, Stephen Kakfwi, DIGA, Amanda Lee Murray, Cheri Maracle and musicians Marina Hasselberg, Edris Fayaz, Majiid Qiya, Niko Friesen and Wayne Lavallee. With a sound that fuses Dene, Inuvialuit,and Afghanistani sounds and voices.

Clements’ fifteen plays have been presented on some of the most prestigious stages for Canadian and international work garnering numerous awards and publications, including the 2004 Canada-Japan Literary Award and two prestigious Governor General’s Literary Award nominations.  In September of this year, her critically acclaimed play The Unnatural and Accidental Women was re-mounted to open the first-ever Indigenous Theatre season at The National Arts Centre in Ottawa.

“Marie Clements is an incredibly important and powerful artistic voice in this country whose accomplishments speak for themselves”, says A71 Chief Operating Officer, Susan Curran.  “With Red Snow she has crafted a moving and thought-provoking drama that searches for human commonality amongst chaos, and that takes a very original approach to these themes. We are very proud to bring the film to Canadian audiences. In an effort to bring Red Snow to many remote Indigenous communities across Canada and to other parts of the world, we are also proud to announce a partnership with Elite Vision Communications and the I Love First Peoples organization who will launch a special humanitarian project around the theme of allyship & elevating the voices of women.”

Red Snow is produced by Marie Clements, Lael McCall and Michelle Morris, with co-producer Jonathan Tammuz, executive producers Carol Whiteman and Giuliana Bertuzzi. The film is photographed by cinematographers Robert Aschmann (the desert) and Roger Vernon CSC (the arctic), with production design by Michael Diner and art direction by James Boatman; edited by Jamie Alain and Rafi Spivak, sound design by Craig Berkey (Darkest Hour), music composition by Wayne Lavallee (The Road Forward) with primary casting by Judy Lee and Rhonda Fisekci. Red Snow was made possible with the support of CBC Films, Canada Media Fund, Telefilm Canada, the Women In the Director’s Chair Feature Film Award, Harold Greenberg Fund, APTN, Creative BC, the Canada Media Fund, APTN, the Harold Greenberg Fund, Creative BC, Film Incentive B.C., CAVCO, and the Northwest Territories Film Rebate Program.

For more information, screeners and stills, or to request interviews please contact:

Suzanne Cheriton, RedEye Media, suzanne@redeyemedia.ca, 416-805-6744

Jenn Perras, RedEye Media, jenn@redeyemedia.ca, 416-525-7625

A71 Entertainment is a dynamic boutique distributor on the Canadian Feature Film landscape that focuses on acquiring award-winning and festival selected feature films applying high level strategic thinking to all acquisitions from the earliest stages of a film’s development. The company sets itself apart by virtue of a commitment to marketing titles on all levels, from industry to audience, with a specific commitment to reaching and building broad audiences across Canada.

Previous A71 releases also include WIDC alumnae-directed films An Audience of Chairs and Into Invisible Light.

About WIDC
Women In the Director’s Chair (WIDC) is an internationally respected Canadian professional development offering, founded in 1997 through an initial collaboration among ACTRA, the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity and Women In Film and Television Vancouver. WIDC is specially designed to advance the skills, careers and fiction screen projects of women directors. With 260 director alumnae across Canada who have directed 100’s of hours of quality screen entertainment, WIDC is presented with major support from Telefilm Canada, CBC Films, and appreciates the participation and support of ACTRA National, UBCP-ACTRA, Actra Fraternal Benefit Society, and ACTRA Alberta, Creative BC, Independent Production Fund, as well as in kind support from, Panavision Canada, SIM Group, Poste Moderne, Keslow Camera Film and Digital, William F. White Intl., Walters Lighting & Grip, North Shore Studios, Encore Vancouver, Technicolor Toronto, Skylab Vancouver, White Hart Productions, The Bridge Studios, Vancouver Film Studios, The Research House Clearances Inc, Descriptive Video Works, Front Row Insurance, National Captioning Canada; Line-21, and community collaborations with 1st Weekend Club, WIFT Vancouver’s International Women In Film Festival, Female Eye Film Festival, St John’s International Women’s Film Festival, and the Whistler Film Festival.

Contact: enquiries@widc.ca | www.widc.ca | facebook.com/widc.ca | @WIDC_ca | #WIDC