(December 9, 2015 – Toronto, Ontario) – The Toronto production company Inflo Films, which has released a string of successful shorts, can claim another success with the news their 2015 film, Winter Hymns, has been selected to screen at the 2016 Slamdance Film Festival in Park City Utah. Slamdance was founded in 1995 by filmmakers Dan Mirvish, Jon Fitzgerald, Shane Kuhn, Peter Baxter and Paul Rachman. Their films didn’t make it into Park City’s more famous festival, Sundance, and being both miffed and creative, they decided to start their own annual alternative to Robert Redford’s prestigious fest. Over the years, Slamdance has reached its own level of prestige and has been considered an important, if not vital, stepping stone for emerging filmmakers and low-budget independent films.
Inflo was founded by writer/director/producer Dusty Mancinelli and producer Harry Cherniak. Their latest short, Winter Hymns is a drama that explores the question of whether damaged relationships can be repaired, and if so, at what cost. It had its World Premiere at the Vancouver International Film Festival earlier this year and was awarded the Golden Egg at the 2015 Reykjavik International Film Festival. It will screen as part of Telefilm Canada’s Canada: Not Short on Talent program during the 2016 Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival in France.
What’s next for Cherniak and Mancinelli? They have spent much of 2015 developing their first feature film, Little Kings, through the National Screen Institute’s Features First program, TIFF’s STUDIO program (Cherniak), and TIFF’s Talent Lab (Mancinelli). Which gives us all something to look forward to.
