Pass the popcorn! The 2019 Kamloops Film Festival takes place from March 7 to 16. With everything from Oscar contenders to extraordinary British Columbia adventures to family sing-alongs, the fest is about enjoying great films the way they’re meant to be seen--on the big screen. Here are some highlights.

Cold War

Nominated for three Oscars, including Best Director, Cold War is hot, hot, hot. According to Rolling Stone, “Pawel Pawlikowski's savagely sexy spellbinder burns with a fever that won't quit.” Set during the Cold War in the 1950s in Poland, Berlin, Yugoslavia, and Paris, the film tells the passionate love story of two mismatched people fated to each other. Pawlikowski earned Best Director for this Polish film at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival.

Shoplifters

Nominated for a Best Foreign Language Film Oscar, this is an “eerily moving piece, masterfully blurring the divide between the unforgivable and understandable,” writes the UK Observer. In Japanese with English subtitles, the film centres on a dysfunctional band of outsiders united by fierce loyalty.

Roma

With an impressive 10 Oscar nominations, this film recalls director Alfonso Cuarón’s youth in Mexico. The story follows a year in the life of a middle-class family's maid in the Colonia Roma neighborhood of Mexico City in the early 1970s.

This Mountain Life

The festival’s opening film is a documentary about an epic ski journey through British Columbia’s Coast Mountains. Martina Halik and her 60 year-old mother, Tania Halik, embarked on a six-month expedition that had only been completed once before, and never by two women. Tania Halik will attend the screening for what promises to be a fascinating Q&A after the film.

Kayak to Klemtu

Also set in BC, this fictional story follows a 14-year-old Indigenous girl determined to kayak the length of the Inside Passage, alongside the Great Bear Rainforest, in order to testify against a proposed pipeline. Hollywood North Magazine calls this family-friendly film “a triumph for Canadian Indigenous filmmaking”.

Suspiria

Fantasy, mystery, and supernatural horror…Suspiria is a hybrid that has been winning awards across the world. Dakota Johnson and Tilda Swinton star in a nightmarish story set in a Berlin dance school.

Frozen Sing-Along Edition

You’re probably familiar with Frozen, which The Sunday Times calls “simply the best children’s film in ages”. This March 9 showing doubles the fun with a sing-along. Check the fest’s website for details to come on a family-friendly party before the screening. The fest is partnering with the Kamloops Art Gallery and the Thompson-Nicola Regional Library for the event.

All films will be screened at the Paramount Theatre (503 Victoria Street).