A Cambridge director is about to have his films shown locally on the silver screen.
Kris Langford is showing his directorial debut short films at the Grand River Film Festival starting on May 9.
Heartache(2021) and Unsolicited(2022) are Langford's first films behind the camera, calling the shots. These films were shown in festivals from Texas to Toronto and are now going to be shown here in Waterloo region.
“We are super excited to bring these films to Waterloo region and show them to a local audience,” said Langford.
Langford makes these movies through his production company AvaMac. He and his business partner Nuno Ferreira, met in high school when Langford's nose was broken in a wrestling match between the two.
"It all started when he broke my nose," Langford recalls. "Like, where do we go from there besides being best friends?"
The two quickly became close friends and started to bounce ideas off each other. Their first endeavour together was a clothing brand making their own clothes to go clubbing.
After high school, the two lost touch when Langford joined the Canadian Navy and Ferreira stayed in Cambridge.
The two reconnected and again started to build on their creative ideas.
Langford started acting, immersing himself in the world of theatre as well as performing on the screen.
With Langford's background in acting and Ferreira's ideas, the two came up with a plan to get behind the camera and start producing films.
“Why can't you just make your own movies and come up with different story ideas? From just spit-balling we thought, why pay somebody to do it? Why not just do it ourselves?” Ferreira said.
Their first film, Heartache, started as a concept Ferreira had come up with. They decided to write a script for it and it became AvaMac's first film.
The film follows a man who is about to set out on a date with a love interest. All of the scenes were shot in Cambridge.
The film has been shown at festivals all over Canada and continues to win awards.
So far the film has won Best Visual Storytelling at the Kitchener- Waterloo Film Fest and at the Lake View International Film Festival where it won Best Director.
Unsolicited, released in 2022 is Langford's second film as a director and centres around a group of friends at a dinner party.
One of them receives an unsolicited photo that can only be described as “fishy.”
It went on to win Best Short Short & Audience Award at Toronto Short Film Festival, Best Cast and Best Director at the Alternative Film Festival Spring 2022 in the Ultra Short Category, and Best Micro Short at the Toronto Independent Film Festival of Cift.
AvaMac’s goal is to become the central place for writers, directors and anyone with a creative idea to get their story told.
“We are like the hub. So, we find the contractors. We don't have a brick-and-mortar building that has a camera crew or anything, but what we are is the roster,” Langford explained.
AvaMac also takes pride in casting and hiring local talent.
Langford says that Cambridge and Waterloo region has some of the best untapped talent around. They don’t feel the need to rely on big markets like Toronto, when their own community has so much to offer.
Aside from acting, directing, and producing, Langford also co-hosts a weekly podcast alongside friend Scott Veiga called, ‘How’d You Like That Movie?’ They review and talk about recent and cult classics alike.
Both of Langford's films will be played at the GRFF in their virtual showings starting May 9.
To learn more about the films and others playing at the festival click here.
