2016, Canada, Crime/Drama, 90 Minutes
Director: Justin Oakey
Starring: Lawrence Barry, Stephen Lush, Des Walsh
A blood feud divides a small town in rural Newfoundland.
As winter creeps toward his rural Newfoundland community, local widower and workhorse Patrick Whelan finds himself at odds with a violent young man returning home from a stint in the penitentiary, determined to breathe new life into his father’s bitter feud. As violence erupts, the community is divided – leaving Patrick with a fractured home and nagging guilt.
RIVERHEAD is the atmospheric debut feature from emerging Newfoundland filmmaker Justin Oakey, featuring strong turns from an all-local cast headed by Lawrence Barry (Maudie, The Grand Seduction), Stephen Lush (Cast No Shadow), and Des Walsh (Random Passage), with a seething breakout performance from Stephen Oates. Aggressive, profane, violent, with a stroke of naturalism – this is a raw portrait of secular rivalry in a small town.
Post Screening Q&A with Justin Oakey
Justin Oakey is an award-winning filmmaker from rural Newfoundland raised on hunting, fishing, and storytelling. He studied filmmaking at Ryerson University, earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts. His work is atmospheric, and aggressive, but maintains a quiet sense of naturalism. His short films The World Is Burning (2013) and Flankers (2014) brought his unique vision of Newfoundland to film festivals around the world – the latter earned a coveted Staff Pick badge on Vimeo, garnering hundreds of thousands of plays online. His feature-length debut, Riverhead – an arthouse drama about feuding families in Newfoundland – was completed in late 2016 and received two nominations at the Canadian Screen Awards. He has two features in development.
Trailer:
Buy Tickets NowSaturday, October 28, 2017
University of Waterloo School of Architecture
7pm
