2025/26 Best of the Fests
HOME IS THE OCEAN
[Dir: Livia Vonaesch, 2024, Switzerland, 94 min.]
Wednesday October 1 2025
Artspring at 7:30pm
Sail away with Dario & Sabine Schwörer, an adventurous mountain-climbing couple living aboard their sailboat for the past 25 years, sailing over 100,000 nautical miles and visiting over 100 countries. Founders of the Swiss-based TOPtoTOP Global Climate Expedition – whose mission is to inspire young people to save the planet – the Schwörers conduct field-based research on climate change & microplastics. Along the way they’ve raised six precocious, multilingual children, all born in different time zones. Sharing 20 square meters of living space, each family member plays an important role in this well-coordinated team, with the intrepid and seemingly fearless kids confidently handling themselves on the high seas…until a storm forces them all to rethink their life choices. Filmed over seven years, this stunningly beautiful film features gorgeous cinematography. Co-presented by the Salt Spring Island Sailing Club, it was named Best Documentary at Italy’s Riviera International Film Festival.
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Watch The Trailer Here
HAVE YOU HEARD JUDI SINGH?
[Dir: Balji Sangra, 2024, Canada, 79 min.]
Wednesday October 29 2025
ArtSpring at 7:30pm
Trailblazing jazz singer Judi Singh defied expectations as a Canadian artist of mixed Black & Punjabi heritage in the 1950s and ‘60s, playing to sold-out crowds in Edmonton. Though her ethereal, pitch-perfect voice captivated adoring audiences, the music industry failed to support her career – an all-too-familiar story for women and artists of colour – although her 1970 album “A Time for Love” with Tommy Banks is still highly prized. In this lively and deeply-felt portrait, award-winning filmmaker Baljit Sangra retraces Singh’s life through the places she lived – including Winnipeg, Toronto and Victoria, where Singh died in 2021 – and the intimate recollections of the family & friends who loved her, including world-renowned Indigenous actor Tantoo Cardinal. Weaving together moments of brilliance and resilience, this crowd-pleasing film reintroduces a gifted artist to the spotlight she so richly deserves.
Co-presented by Salt Spring Music Events and the Salt Spring Jazz & Blues Society.
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Watch The Trailer Here
ART OF THE ADVENTURE
[Dir: Alison Reid, 2025, Canada, 86 min.]
Wednesday November 12 2025
Two showings at ArtSpring at 3pm and 7:30pm
Filmmaker in attendance: Alison Reid
In 1957, wildlife artist Robert Bateman and biologist Bristol Foster set out on a global expedition in a rugged Land Rover they named the Grizzly Torque – never imagining the extraordinary encounters that lay ahead. As their exhilarating road trip takes them to the far corners of the globe, Bateman draws & paints the people and the wonders they encounter, while Foster films their adventures on a 16mm Bolex camera – footage which has miraculously survived for almost 70 years. Decades later, the abandoned & long-lost Grizzly Torque is surprisingly rediscovered. As its hidden history emerges and a new owner restores it to its former glory, the tale unfolds of a remarkable friendship between two men across eight decades and their lifelong commitment to environmental activism through art & science. From award-winning filmmaker Alison Reid (THE WOMAN WHO LOVES GIRAFFES), this unmissable around-the-world journey is both an endearingly entertaining buddy film and an environmental love letter.
Co-presented by Salt Spring Arts, with a pre-show reception at 6:30 pm in the ArtSpring lobby, generously sponsored by Country Grocer and Voyage Liquor Merchants.
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Watch The Trailer Here
LOVE+WAR
[Dir: Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi & Jimmy Chin, 2025, USA, 95 min.]
Wednesday December 3 2025
ArtSpring at 7:30pm
Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist Lynsey Addario struggles to maintain family life in London while repeatedly risking her life on the frontlines, focusing on how women around the world are affected by war, disaster, political conflict & oppressive regimes. Heart-stopping scenes and astonishing front-page photos are highlights of this National Geographic film, featuring moving accounts of the profound impact of Adarrio’s work to improve the lives of millions of women, a deep dive into what drives war reporters to put themselves in mortal danger in order to shine a light on injustice, and an unflinching examination of how women are judged far more harshly than men for prioritizing their careers over their families. Having been kidnapped twice while on assignment, Addario is torn between her unwavering commitment to the essential work of journalism and the competing demands of motherhood, grappling with what it truly means to follow your calling when it threatens everything you love.
Co-presented by the Salt Spring Friends of Ukraine Committee.
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Watch The Trailer Here
EVEREST DARK
[Dir: Jereme Watt, 2025, Canada, 90 min.]
Wednesday January 21 2026
ArtSpring at 7:30pm
Behold the breathtaking beauty of Mount Everest as you‘ve never seen it before – through the eyes of the Sherpa people who worship the mountain as Chomolungma, the sacred Mother Goddess of the World. In the seven decades since Edmund Hillary & Tenzing Norgay first summited the world’s highest peak, Everest has become a frozen graveyard, with over 200 bodies trapped in ice & snow – one third of them Sherpas. As climate change reveals the location of some of the previously missing human remains, Nepalese national hero Mingma Tsiri Sherpa – considered one of the best high-altitude climbers of all time – leads an elite team of fellow Sherpas into the Death Zone, repeatedly risking their lives to sanctify the mountain by retrieving one body at a time, so that they can be repatriated and laid to rest. Featuring spectacular aerial cinematography & reverential respect for a distinctly non-European worldview, don’t miss this jaw-dropping, award-winning film from Vancouver filmmaker Jereme Watt.
Co-presented by Salt Spring Search & Rescue.
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Watch The Trailer Here
MARLEE MATLIN: NOT ALONE ANYMORE
[Dir. Shoshannah Stern, 2025, USA, 97 min.]
Wednesday, February 11, 2026
ArtSpring at 7:30 pm
If you’ve ever made use of closed captioning on TV, you can thank Oscar-winner Marlee Matlin. After her groundbreaking performance in the 1986 film Children of a Lesser God, Matlin became a tireless champion of accessibility rights for the hearing-impaired.
Directed by deaf filmmaker Shoshannah Stern, this immersive, crowd-pleasing film explores Matlin’s trailblazing career, including iconic roles in The West Wing and Seinfeld. Speaking almost entirely in ASL, Matlin reflects on her difficult childhood, her struggle with addiction, her abusive relationship with William Hurt, and her fight for equality in Hollywood.
Decades after making history as the first deaf person to win an Oscar, Matlin was back at the Academy Awards with the film CODA. Having insisted that deaf actors be cast to play deaf characters – leading to Troy Kotsur becoming only the 2nd deaf actor to win an Oscar – Matlin was able to share a deceptively simple message from the Oscar stage: “I’m not alone anymore.”
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Watch The Trailer Here
BETWEEN THE MOUNTAIN AND THE SKY
[Dir: Jeremy Power Regimbal, 2024, USA/Nepal, 94 min.]
Friday, March 6, 2026
ArtSpring at 7:30 pm
Celebrate International Women’s Day with The Circle Education Society & the Salt Spring Film Festival!
After graduating from high school in 2005, Maggie Doyne embarks on a gap year, where she meets Tope Malla, a now-grown Nepalese orphan caring for orphaned children. Pooling their resources, Maggie & Tope create the community-led nonprofit BlinkNow, establishing an orphanage, school and women’s empowerment centre.
In 2015, Maggie is honoured as the CNN Hero of the Year, but tragedy strikes only days after the awards ceremony. By then guardian to 50 Nepalese orphans, Maggie is suddenly plunged into grief & despair. After a chance encounter, she allows filmmaker Jeremy Power Regimbal to document her life – with unexpected results.
Filmed around the world and edited by Salt Spring’s own Piet Suess, this astonishing true story about an open-hearted, resilient young woman reflects this year’s International Women’s Day theme (“Give to Gain”), illustrating how acts of care, courage and generosity – both from and for women – can transform lives and communities.
With editor Piet Suess in attendance.
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Watch The Trailer Here
GEORGIA O’KEEFFE: THE BRIGHTNESS OF LIGHT
[Dir: Paul Wagner, 2025, USA, 116 min.]
Friday, March 27, 2026
Mahon Hall at 7:00 pm
World-famous for her sensual paintings of flowers, animal skulls and the stark beauty of her beloved New Mexico, Georgia O’Keeffe is widely revered as one of the greatest visual artists of the 20th century.
From her early struggles and artistic awakenings to her rise as a globally recognized cultural force, O’Keeffe emerged from under the shadow of her older lover, photographer Alfred Stieglitz, to become a feminist icon who insisted on living life on her own terms.
With unprecedented access to O’Keeffe’s groundbreaking body of work – and narrated by acclaimed actors Claire Danes and Hugh Dancy – this award-winning film offers an in-depth, cinematic portrait of the artist known as the Mother of American Modernism.
Directed by Oscar-winning filmmaker Paul Wagner, this spellbinding journey through love, loss and the radical independence that shaped O’Keeffe’s life won the Founders Award at the Virginia Film Festival.
Co-presented by Salt Spring Arts and the Salt Spring Film Festival.