The 2014 edition of Cinequest has emphasized comedy, and that has paid off with some of the festival’s biggest hits:
- The Grand Seduction: Cinequest’s opening night film was this uproarious Canadian knee-slapper – a Waking Ned Devine with random acts of cricket.
- Friended to Death: this sharply funny idie satirizes our obsession with social media. TMI becomes LOL.
- Heavenly Shift: the hilariously dark (very dark) Hungarian comedy about a rogue ambulance crew with a financial incentive to deliver its patients dead on arrival.
- Hunting Elephants: an Israeli caper comedy with Patrick Stewart (as you’ve never seen him).
The other most popular Cinequest hits have been the exquisite Polish drama Ida and the Canadian weeper Down River. I also particularly like the Slovenian class room drama Class Enemy.
Most of these films are still scheduled to play in the last half of the festival. Subject to Cinequest’s exhibition rights, I’m guessing that the most likely candidates for Cinequest’s Encore Day on Sunday, March 16 are Ida, Friended to Death, Down River, Hunting Elephants and Class Enemy.