from ampr

Academy Award-winning actress Olympia Dukakis and director Thom Fitzgerald will be in Toronto to introduce two showings of the film CLOUDBURST at the Carlton Cinema on Friday, March 8, 2013, at 7:00 PM and 7:20 PM, which will be followed by question and answer sessions.

Written and directed by Thom Fitzgerald, one of Canada’s most highly respected feature film directors, CLOUDBURST will have its theatrical run in Toronto from March 8 – April 1 at the Carlton. It will also open in Ottawa, Edmonton, Sudbury and Yarmouth on March 8; in Victoria on March 10; in Vancouver on March 15, and in Peterborough on March 18.

Cloudburst is a romantic road movie starring Oscar®-winning actresses Olympia Dukakis and Brenda Fricker as Stella and Dot, an aging couple who escape from a nursing home in Maine and drive to Nova Scotia on a quest to be legally married. The feisty crowd-pleaser has earned rave reviews and numerous top film awards at film festivals across Canada and around the world.

Stella and Dot have been together for 31 years and have faithfully accompanied one another through life’s ups and downs. Now in their seventies, Stella is hard of hearing and Dot is legally blind. Dotty’s prudish granddaughter, Molly (played by Genie Award-winner Kristin Booth), decides the best place for Dot is a nursing home that will provide all the necessities. This forces Stella and Dot to make a bold decision: they will leave their hometown and drive to Canada, where same-sex marriage is legal. It’s a last-gap bid to stay together.

En route to Canada, they pick up a young hitchhiker, Prentice, played by newcomer Ryan Doucette. A small-town boy turned modern dancer, he is returning to Nova Scotia to visit his dying mother. Despite his bravado, Prentice is a confused and wounded soul who has much to learn from Stella and Dot as they wage their own unexpected battle: after three decades, can they keep their family together?

Fitzgerald’s feature film credits include 3 Needles, The Event, The Wild Dogs, Beefcake and The Hanging Garden. Stage works include Bed and (maybe) Breakfast and Cloudburst. His film work has garnered numerous awards, including prizes from The U.S. Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, Toronto International Film Festival, Berlin international Film Festival, Seattle International Film Festival, and the Vancouver International Film Festival, among others. Three of his features have debuted at the Sundance Film Festival. His films have been nominated for 19 Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television Awards. His work has recently been the subject of retrospective series in Milan and Athens, and he is the winner of the 2012 Portia White Prize, Nova Scotia’s highest award for a career in the arts.

Fitzgerald recently executive produced Jason Buxton’s soon-to-be released Blackbird, which won the Best Canadian First Feature Film at the Toronto International Film Festival as well as the Canadian Screen Claude Jutra Award. Fitzgerald is currently shooting Forgive Me, an original 12-episode TV series for Super Channel, about a young Priest grappling with his own secrets and the ever growing weight of a small town’s whispered sins.

CLOUDBURST is distributed in Canada by Halifax-based eMotion Pictures.