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TORONTO – The Niagara Region isn’t just home to some of the world’s most avid film buffs. It’s a shooting location for Hollywood stars, a home base for movie dealmakers and the breeding ground for some of the most creative film talent working today. Sons and daughters of the Niagara Region have been in front of and behind the camera on everything from super-hero blockbusters to critical-darling Cannes winners.

So Niagara Integrated Film Festival (NIFF) is proud to shine an annual spotlight on the Region’s finest with its NIAGARA RISES program. This year, that program includes The Hotel Dieu, a sensitive drama from St. Catharines’ production house Fourgrounds Media, about a troubled teen coming to terms with blindness following a drunk-driving accident. The Garden City was also home to the filming of Lost Penny, a mind-bending part-whimsy part-horror film starring Rachael McOwen (The Amazing Spider-Man 2) about a young girl who turns to black magic to find her long-lost father.

The Winnebagos and camera trucks fanned out across the Niagara Region for The Colossal Failure Of The Modern Relationship, a romantic drama about a woman (Krista Bridges) who breaks off an affair with her husband’s boss (David Cubitt) and tries to repair her marriage with a romantic trip to wine country, with mortifying complications. And the heart of rock ‘n’ roll beats in The Cocksure Lads Movie, a light-hearted, pop-musical, produced by the Niagara Region’s Darren Portelli and written, directed and co-produced by Murray Foster (Moxy Fruvous, Great Big Sea). It’s a Hard Days Night-ish tale of a British bar band looking for their big break and weathering a break-up in Toronto.

NIAGARA RISES screenings will take place at the Landmark Cinemas (Pen Centre) in St. Catharines and the Seneca Queen Theatre in Niagara Falls.

For more info on NIAGARA RISES or the Niagara Integrated Film Festival (NIFF) please visit website.