The 36th annual Atlantic Film Festival proudly launches its program of Atlantic Canadian film selections, including the much-anticipated Opening Night Gala, to be presented over eight days in Halifax, September 15-22.

"This year’s Atlantic Canadian productions feature many well established filmmakers alongside new voices, with stories that will entertain and inspire the Festival’s audience," said Jason Beaudry, Program Director. "If you’ve never been to the Atlantic Film Festival, this is the year to take the plunge. The breadth and depth of this year’s program is phenomenal and each and every film on offer is world class."

The Atlantic Film Festival’s Opening Night Gala returns to the Dalhousie Arts Centre’s Rebecca Cohn Auditorium on Thursday, September 15 at 7 p.m. Sponsored by Bell Media - CTV Atlantic, RBC, Telefilm Canada and the Canada Media Fund, this star-studded evening will feature the Opening Night Gala presentation of Maudie, based on the life of Nova Scotia folk artist, Maud Lewis. Directed by Aisling Walsh (Song for a Raggy Boy) and written by Sherry White (Crackie, Relative Happiness), Maudie features spectacular performances from Academy Award nominees Sally Hawkins (Happy-Go-Lucky, Blue Jasmine) and Ethan Hawke (Training Day, Boyhood).

Maudie is an unlikely romance in which the reclusive Everett Lewis (Ethan Hawke) hires a fragile yet determined woman named Maudie (Sally Hawkins) to be his housekeeper. Maudie, bright-eyed but hunched with crippled hands, yearns to be independent, to live away from her protective family. She also yearns, passionately, to create art. Unexpectedly, Everett finds himself falling in love. Maudie charts Everett’s efforts to protect himself from being hurt, Maudie’s deep and abiding love for this difficult man and her surprising rise to fame as a folk painter. Produced by Bob Cooper, Mary Young Leckie, Mary Sexton and Susan Mullen, Maudie is distributed in Canada by Mongrel Media.

“I am so delighted to come back to Halifax to screen Maudie on the opening night of the Atlantic Film Festival. I cannot think of a better place to celebrate Maud Lewis' life and work. Nova Scotia is where Maud Lewis' story lives and breaths. It is where she is from,” commented Aisling Walsh, Director. “Halifax is particularly special for me as The Art Gallery of Nova Scotia is where I started my journey on this film. I remember being so moved standing in front of Maud's painted house for the first time.”

Following the Opening Night Gala film presentation is the Opening Night Party. Penned as one of Halifax’s ‘most anticipated parties of the year’, the red-carpet event is sponsored by Bell Media – CTV Atlantic, RBC, Telefilm Canada and Canada Media Fund and will take place at the spectacular Art Gallery of Nova Scotia on Thursday, Sept. 15.

This year’s Friday Night Gala: Atlantic, presented by Bell Aliant, features the Atlantic Canada premiere of Weirdos, a coming of age tale set in 1970’s Nova Scotia. Written by Daniel MacIvor (Wilby Wonderful, Whole New Thing) and directed by Bruce McDonald (Hard Core Logo, The Tracey Fragments), Weirdos screens at Cineplex Cinemas Oxford Theatre on Friday, Sept. 16 at 7 p.m., with a celebration to follow at Casino Nova Scotia’s Compass Room. Weirdostakes place the weekend of the American Bicentennial in 1976. Enlisting the help of his girlfriend Alice (Julia Sarah Stone), 15-year-old Kit (Dylan Authors) hitchhikes through the stunning Cape Breton landscape towards a new home with his glamorous, artistic mother Laura (Molly Parker). However, as Kit and Alice near their final destination they find their relationship tested as Kit approaches a realization that will change his life forever. Produced by Marc Almon and Mike MacMillan, Weirdos is distributed in Canada by Films We Like.

“It’s like coming home. Most excited about this screening as the film takes place in beautiful Nova Scotia and it’s made by a stellar crew and cast from there. I’m extremely pleased by the big embrace from the Atlantic Film Fest and we hope to make all their dreams come true!” shared Bruce McDonald, Director.

The Atlantic Film Festival is very pleased to have Bell Aliant be the presenting partner for the Friday Night Gala: Atlantic.

“We are proud to sponsor the Atlantic Film Festival again this year and showcase full festival coverage on TV1,” said Dan McKeen, Bell Senior Vice President and Vice Chair Atlantic. “The festival celebrates and brings together talented artists from across Atlantic Canada - a goal we also share at TV1.”

Each year, TV1 webcasts more than 28,000 hours of community content such as local events and live music. It also offers 15 unique shows, featuring colourful regional programming created to celebrate local current affairs, Atlantic University Sport games, lifestyle, technology, pop culture and more. TV1 is available on Fibe TV channels 1 and 401, online at tv1.bellaliant.ca and on the Fibe TV app.

The Atlantic Film Festival’s Wednesday Night Gala will also feature the World Premiere of an Atlantic Canadian production. In Perfume War, director Michael Melski crafts an inspiring documentary film that explores the extraordinary friendship between two best friends whose shared mission of peace has made an enormous impact on countless lives. Captain Trevor Greene joins the military to fight the oppression of women in Afghanistan. Barb Stegemann is a single mom who is moved to take on her best friend’s mission after he is brutally axed in the head by the Taliban. Stegemann works with Afghan farmers to grow legal flower crops instead of the illegal heroin poppy--the Taliban’s chief income source--and creates an unlikely weapon in the fight for world peace. And it’s perfume. Perfume War screens at Cineplex Cinemas Oxford Theatre on Wednesday, Sept. 21 at 7 p.m.

“Premiering Perfume War at the Atlantic Film Festival is really important to me because our global story of improving lives from Afghanistan to Rwanda began right here in Halifax where I met my best friend, Trevor Greene, in university”, said Barb Stegemann, author & founder The 7 Virtues. “Perfume War tells the story of how we must stop monetizing war and start monetizing peace, as told through the voices of the people on the frontlines of nations rebuilding after war and strife. It’s time their voices are heard.”

This year’s Essential Presentations program, presented by Bell Aliant, will provide high-profile premiere screenings of four Atlantic Canadian films. A World Premiere, Justin Simms’ Away From Everywhere is a moving and provocative story about a struggling writer (Shawn Doyle) who emerges from rehab and reunites with his estranged brother (Jason Priestley). An Atlantic premiere from one of Canada’s most prolific and respected documentary filmmakers is John Walker’s Quebec My Country Mon Pays, charting the aftermath of Quebec’s Quiet Revolution in the 1960s. An Atlantic Premiere from an Academy Award winning documentarian, Brigitte Berman’s The River of My Dreams: A Portrait of Gordon Pinsent tells the life story of one of Canada’s most beloved performers, Gordon Pinsent, through interviews with the man himself which reminisce on a six-decade-long career. And the Atlantic premiere of Ashley McKenzie’s feature debut, Werewolf, tells the story of of a young, methadone-dependent Cape Breton couple, played by Andrew Gillis of New Waterford and Bhreagh MacNeil of Big Pond. All screenings in the Atlantic Focus Program take place at Cineplex Cinemas Park Lane.

Bell Aliant also continues its support of the Atlantic Focus Program this year, spotlighting diverse feature-length films from across Atlantic Canada. Seeing their Atlantic Premieres at the 2016 Festival are: Risteard Ó Domhnaill’sAtlantic; Paul Kimball’s Exit Thread; Michael Fuller and Neil Rough’s Myrtle Beach; and Ben Proudfoot’s Rwanda & Juliet. Having their World Premieres in this year’s Atlantic Focus Program are: Neal Livingston’s 100 Short Stories; Koumbie’s Ariyah & Tristan’s Inevitable Breakup; Nicole Steeves’ Head Space; Martine Blue’s Hunting Pignut; Justin Oakey’s Riverhead; Catherine Bussiere’s self portrait in may; Harmony Wagner’s Singing to Myself; and Amanda Dawn Christie’s Spectres of Shortwave.

All screenings in the Atlantic Focus Program take place at Cineplex Cinemas Park Lane.

The 2016 Atlantic Film Festival marks the addition of a new category to the Festival’s lineup: the Strategic Partners Presentation. One of the worlds most established co‐production/co-financing markets, the 19th edition of Strategic Partners takes place from September 15 to 17 in conjunction with the Atlantic Film Festival’s opening weekend. The Strategic Partners Presentation will shine a spotlight on work that is filmed in Nova Scotia and reflects the world-class production possible in our region. And with Strategic Partners delegates visiting from all four corners of the globe, the film presented in this category will show the world what’s possible right here in Nova Scotia.

This year’s inaugural Strategic Partners Presentation is The Healer, written and directed by Paco Arango and produced by Paco Arango, Enrique Posner, and Nova Scotia’s Michael Volpe. The film follows Alec (Oliver Jackson-Cohen) who’s life in England is falling apart when a long-lost uncle (Jonathan Pryce) bribes him to move to Lunenburg, Nova Scotia for one full year. It is there where he discovers that his family may possess a secret gift. The Healer screens at Cineplex Cinemas Park Lane on Friday, Sept. 16 at 6:30 p.m.

Last year, the Atlantic Film Festival teamed with Founding Partner CBC to produce a broadcast television series called Reel East Coast. The series will see the debut of its second season in September across Atlantic Canada. Hosted by Jonathan Torrens, Reel East Coast presents four hour-long episodes of the best in Atlantic Canadian short films. After an extremely positive and warm reception to the first season’s broadcast, the Atlantic Film Festival incorporated this new brand within the Festival environment to encourage attendees and the general public to take a look.

The Sunday Night Gala: Reel East Coast Shorts, presented by CBC, features nine short films on Sunday, Sept. 18 at Cineplex Cinemas Oxford Theatre at 7 p.m. The evening will feature works by an impressive cast of Atlantic Canadian filmmakers, including: Teresa MacInnes and Kent Nason (Mabel); Struan Sutherland (Rubbed the Wrong Way); Moving On (Mike Fardy); Cory Bowles (Black Cop); Jillian Acreman (Marigolds); Millefiore Clarkes (September in Toronto); Jenina MacGillivray (The Tour); Leah Johnston (Ingrid and the Black Hole); and Jay Dahl (Throw Rock).

In addition to the Reel East Coast Shorts Gala, this year’s Festival will present six short film programs showcasing the best and brightest of Atlantic Canada’s emerging filmmakers, including a short program for filmmakers new to the Festival titled NextGen Shorts, a ViewFinders program of Atlantic Canadian short films for youth, and a special program of short films to celebrate the 40th Anniversary of the Writers Federation of Nova Scotia. From drama and comedy to documentary, the Reel East Coast Shorts programs are sure to be one of the most popular propositions of the Festival.

The Atlantic Broadcast Program returns for its third year showcasing the vitality of the region’s television production industry. The 2016 Atlantic Broadcast Program will feature eleven new works from such filmmakers as Andrew Killawee (Canada 360); William D. MacGillivray (Celtic Edge); Fabien Melanson (En Français svp); Christian Sparkes (Hors circuits); Tim Davidson (The Millennial Dream); John Rosborough (Music Profiles: Ben Caplan: The Second Album Story & Hillsburn: A Band Becomes); Alan Collins (My Life So Far); Brian McKenna (Newfoundland at Armageddon); Peter Murphy and Paul Hannon (Searching for Realism); Jacquelyn Mills (Celtic Colours: Spirit of the Festival); and Kent Martin and Salina Kemp (Wi’kupaltimk – Feast of Forgiveness).

"Last year’s crop of Atlantic films went on to acclaim throughout the world and this year’s would appear set to continue the trend. The breadth of stories and quality of presentations are epic and unforgettable; hitting the mark on every subject imaginable,” said Wayne Carter, Executive Director. “We cannot contain our excitement on welcoming “Maudie” as our Opening Night Gala. This film not only hits the mark on an emotional tie to the region but we are confident it is a film that will be a serious contender at awards time, early next year.”

A complete list of the Atlantic Canadian program with film selections, filmmakers and schedule of screenings can be found online at: atlanticfilm.com/media.