Connect with us
Israel Bonds RRSP

Features

Film producer Corey Marr’s new release draws inspiration from Leonard Cohen

Corey Marr

By MYRON LOVE Filmmakers Corey Marr and Matthew Bissonnette have just released their newest production, “Death of a Ladies’ Man” to general acclaim. Former Winnipegger Marr reports that the film – which was unveiled in Canada on March 12th has garnered several positive reviews, is currently #6 on the iTunes charts, and has a 100% score on the popular ratings site Rotten Tomatoes.

The movie, starring internationally acclaimed star Gabriel Byrne (“The Usual Suspects”, “In Treatment”) and Canadian actress Jessica Paré (who may be best known for her role as Mrs. Don Draper in “Mad Men”) tells the story of a carousing college professor whose life takes a series of unimaginable turns when he begins to have surreal hallucinations and learns he may not be long for this world. “Death of a Ladies’ Man” is a Canadian-Irish co-production inspired by the work of great Canadian poet Leonard Cohen, and notes Marr, features some of his best known songs. Cohen gave Marr his blessing to use the music in the film before his death in 2016.

“We actually finished filming in 2019,” Marr says. “Our initial plan was to unveil the film at the annual Toronto International Film Festival last September, and follow it with a large theatrical release. The pandemic had other plans for all of us.”
To help promote “Death of a Ladies’ Man”, Marr, a former ad man and a musician himself (guitar and piano) contacted a number of leading Canadian recording artists about doing covers of their favourite Cohen songs. “We have been releasing one video a day since the movie’s release,” he says. “The artists have tens of thousands of followers on their platforms. This has really helped to raise awareness about the film. The response has been fantastic.” The series includes covers of Cohen songs by Ron Sexsmith, Whitehorse, Jenn Grant, Dan Mangan, and others, andn can now be viewed on the YouTube channel for “Death of a Ladies’ Man”.

The Toronto-based Marr launched Corey Marr Productions about 15 years ago after transitioning from advertising into film production. The son of David and Terri Marr and father of two boys notes that he always had a creative bent, starting with music and acting while growing up in Winnipeg. The Grant Park High School grad first left Winnipeg in 1993, after a couple of years of study at the University of Manitoba, to finish his B.A. in Toronto and study Creative Advertising. He returned to his hometown in ’97 for a couple of years before relocating permanently to Toronto.

Before hooking up with Matthew Bissonnette, Marr learned the ropes of filmmaking through development positions at Water Pictures and Heroic Film Company and as the assistant to Academy Award-winning producer Craig Zadan. He has also made a couple of short films.
Marr and Bissonnette met at a film festival. “We spoke about doing a feature film together,” Marr recalls. “Matthew sent me a script and we were on our way.”
Marr notes that their first collaboration – “Who Loves the Sun” – which was released in 2006 – was filmed in Winnipeg Beach and Kenora.
“We did some of the filming on an island in Kenora,” Marr recalls. “We actually hired B’nai Brith Camp staff to ferry cast and crew to and from the island.”
Marr himself is a Massad graduate and he attributes a lot of his creative drive to his years spent at the camp. “Massad is a place where the creative spirit can flourish.” He served as camp director for one summer in 1996 and is looking forward to attending Massad’s 70th anniversary reunion next year.
The award-winning “Who Loves the Sun” played numerous film festivals before being released theatrically and selling internationally.

The second collaboration between Marr and Bissonnette was the Los Angeles-set indie road trip film “Passenger Side”, starring Adam Scott. The movie was described by L.A. Weekly as “a thinking man’s Judd Apatow flick” and by The Hollywood Reporter as “a poignant portrait of sibling rivalry and affection”. The film premiered at the Los Angeles Film Festival. “Passenger Side” won the City TV Award for Best Canadian Film at the Edmonton International Film Festival and was named to “Canada’s Top Ten” by the Toronto International Film Festival. Following a successful theatrical run in Canada, the film was released internationally.
“Death of a Ladies’ Man” has its U.S. premiere on March 20th. The film has been given the prestigious opening night slot at the Cinequest Film and Creativity festival in California. The virtual screening will be accompanied by a live introduction with star Gabriel Byrne and a live Q+A with writer/director Bissonnette, producer Marr and actor Jessica Paré.
Marr reports that the film is currently playing in select theatres across Canada and is available on Apple TV/iTunes, GooglePlay, and everywhere you rent and buy movies.

Celluloid Dreams, which handles international sales on the Gabriel Byrne-starring film, negotiated deals with Transmission Films in Australia and DDDream in China. The project was also picked up in Germany (MFA), Austria (Polyfilm and MFA), Switzerland (MFA), Russia (Kinologistika), China (DDDream), Middle East (Front Row), and the Balkans (Cinemania). In Australia and Zealand, the film will be released theatrically on May 20.
It was financed by Telefilm Canada, Monte Rosso Productions, SODEC, Fís Éireann/Screen Ireland, The Canada Media Fund, Ontario Creates, Bell Media’s Crave and the Harold Greenberg Fund, CBC Films and the Western Regional Audiovisual Producer’s Fund (WRAP Fund), and developed with the assistance of Telefilm Canada and the Harold Greenberg Fund.
In addition to his feature films, Marr over the years has produced content for Nike USA and worked on various television projects. He has also been associated with Canadaland, a news site and podcast network, funded by its audience, which focuses on Canadian media, news, current affairs, and politics.

Continue Reading
Click to comment

You must be logged in to post a comment Login

Leave a Reply

Features

How to Protect Your Finances When Playing in Online Casinos 

Online casinos are a thrilling form of entertainment that a lot of adults enjoy in their free time. While it can be a great way to kick back and relax, it’s also important that you’re safeguarding your finances too. From the risk of gambling to cyber attacks and scams, here are some simple guidelines to follow that can help to ensure the safety of your money, so you can fully enjoy your favourite casino games. 

Choose Good Quality Casinos

This is the only way you can fully safeguard your finances. Choosing a reputable online casino that is fully licensed and regulated is crucial. Not only does this ensure that the casino is running legally and adhering to strict standards, but also the protection of your personal and financial information. Reading online reviews can be a great way to decipher the quality of a casino. Previous customers can tell you about any issues they’ve experienced, as well as providing insight into other aspects, such as customer service or the user-friendliness of the platform. 

A good quality casino will also have an impact on your experience. Be sure to look out for a wide variety of games and check out the different promotions and bonuses that a casino offers. With some bonuses, you can get spins on your favourite games. Taking advantage of bonuses and promotions can be a great way to safeguard your finances too. Instead of using your own money, you can use promotional funds to try out new games and experiment with different strategies. Just be aware that most promotions and bonuses come with wagering requirements, so make sure to read the terms and conditions before signing up. 

Protect Yourself

Another important factor of protecting your finances when playing in online casinos is learning how to protect yourself. This is essential for any online activity. When creating any online account, make sure to use strong and unique passwords. It’s also essential to never share this information with anyone else. Be aware and learn how to identify scams. Usually, if an offer is too good to be true, it usually is. In particular, be aware of phishing attempts and scams landing in your email inbox. It’s all about protecting yourself, like you would take supplements to aid your fitness, in this case, you apply yourself with knowledge to protect yourself and keep safe online. 

When depositing and withdrawing money, make sure to only use secure payment methods, this could include cryptocurrency, credit/debit cards or Apple Pay for example. You should use casinos that offer encrypted transactions. These precautions are essential when it comes to reducing the risk of your financial information falling into the wrong hands.

Gamble Responsibly

And finally, it’s not just about protecting yourself through security measures, it’s also important to be sensible with your money too. Gambling responsibly is essential when it comes to safeguarding your finances. A good way to do this is by setting limits and creating a budget for yourself. This will help to prevent you from overspending. 

Set limits for yourself in terms of how much money you are willing to spend and stick to these limits. Avoid chasing losses and never gamble with money that you can’t afford to lose. Make use of the deposit limit feature that most online casinos offer. If you ever find that you’re struggling, then it’s important to seek help and support. A lot of online casinos will be able to offer support and links to organisations that can help you. Gambling should always be a fun activity and nothing else. It’s definitely not a way to make money or solve financial problems.

In summary, these simple guidelines can help you to safeguard your finances when playing online. Remember that it’s not just about security, it’s also about being responsible with your money too. However, by choosing good quality casinos, learning how to protect yourself and gambling responsibly, you can enjoy your experience, all while ensuring your money stays safe. 

Continue Reading

Features

Kosher agencies make no bones about ‘flawed’ Canadian slaughter laws

oung Jewish children watch the Kaparot ceremony before Yom Kippur in September 2010 in Ashdod, Israel. Credit: ChameleonsEye/Shutterstock.

“When the Jewish community is being treated differently than other communities in Canada because of our religious beliefs, that is discrimination,” said Richard Rabkin, managing director of the Kashruth Council of Canada.

By DAVE GORDON (March 15, 2024 / JNS) Two kosher certifying agencies and two meat processors have a big beef with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, which suddenly changed the rules and made kosher slaughter a longer and more burdensome procedure.

CFIA has begun in recent months to enforce regulations it enacted in 2018 “with vigor,” Rabbi Saul Emanuel, executive director of Montreal Kosher, told JNS. It appears to be doing so “on a whim,” the rabbi said.

The government agency’s actions have already resulted in a 60% drop in domestic kosher meat production, facility closures, higher prices and larger shipments of imported meats from other countries, according to Emanuel.

An independent organization that oversees Canadian slaughter procedures, CFIA mandates that cows be shot in the head with a bolt gun, to avoid causing pain to the animal. Kashrut laws require that an animal be killed with a single, rapid motion with a sharp knife that instantly kills the animal by severing the primary blood supply to the brain. Kosher laws preclude the use of bolts, as Canadian law requires. 

CFIA requires that Jewish ritual slaughterers conduct a series of bodily checks in between each shechita to ensure that the animal is “insensible,” which means that slaughter houses must wait up to three minutes rather than 15 seconds between each slaughter. At an industrial scale, the three minutes add up.

Emanuel’s employer MK, the Kashruth Council of Canada in Toronto—known as COR—and the country’s two largest kosher meat producers, Shefa Meats and Mehadrin Meats, sued CFIA on March 8.

The plaintiffs allege that the government agency infringes on the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which guarantees freedom of religious practice, according to Richard Rabkin, managing director of the Kashruth Council.

“I don’t want to speculate about the motivations of the CFIA and we have no indications that antisemitism is at play here, but when the Jewish community is being treated differently than other communities in Canada because of our religious beliefs, that is discrimination,” Rabkin told JNS.

‘Discrimination by effect’

Rabkin told JNS that the ideal would be a negotiated solution, and the four entities opted to sue only as a last resort and because the agency is independent and unbeholden to elected officials.

Continue Reading

Features

Is a New Black African-Jewish Alliance Emerging in the United States?

Thousands of Africans are stil being sold into slavery each year.

By HENRY SREBRNIK As we know, the historic Black American-Jewish alliance in the United States, so prominent during the civil rights movement of the 1940s-1960s, has frayed in recent decades. Many Black American organizations have become anti-Zionist.
Black Lives Matter, for example, has even defended Hamas and sees an affinity between American Blacks and Palestinians, considering both ethnic groups as people of colour oppressed by a white society that includes Jews.
The historic Black American community comprises the descendants of the people from the west coast of Africa who were brought to and enslaved in the United States. The Atlantic slave trade was outlawed in the early 19th century, but slavery remained legal until the American Civil War that ended in 1865.
However, in recent decades, thanks to liberalized immigration laws, there are increasing numbers of new Africans in the U.S., who have come as immigrants to the country, from nations such as Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, and South Sudan.
They remain concerned with slavery – but as it currently exists on the African continent. And most of it is carried on by Arabs. Along the east coast of Africa, this has been the case for centuries. Exports of slaves to the Muslim world from the Indian Ocean coast began after traders won control of the coast and sea routes during the ninth century.
The island of Zanzibar was an Omani-ruled sultanate that served as a notorious entrepot for slaves sent to the Arab Middle East. And across the Sahel, particularly in Sudan, raids to capture Black African people were routine.
According to the NGO Walk Free, an international human rights group focused on the eradication of modern slavery, an estimated seven million men, women, and children are living in modern slavery in Africa. Contemporary reports of slavery exist in Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Chad, and Sudan, where people, often from minority ethnic groups, are born into slavery and bought, traded, and sold.
Poverty and economic inequality drive vulnerability in the Africa region. About 35 per cent of people in Sub-Saharan Africa live in poverty. Perpetrators of slavery-related abuses were largely members of armed groups who deliberately exploit populations displaced by conflict.
Boko Haram in northern Nigeria periodically kidnap Christian schoolgirls for ransom or to become sex slaves. In early March, over 280 students were abducted in an assault on a school. More than 4,000 Christians were murdered in Nigeria last year. Africans are sold in slave markets in Libya and Mauritania. There are an estimated 47,000 enslaved Africans in the former and 149,000 in the latter.  
Most North Americans know little of this. But maybe this is now changing. Some in the American Jewish community are forging ties with African Blacks, to create a new Black-Jewish alliance. Created this past February in Washington, a coalition of groups came together to educate the public about the mass murder, kidnapping, and enslavement of Africans, and to campaign for their liberation.
The members of this African-Jewish Alliance (AJA) represent victims, along with their allies and champions. One prominent activist, Simon Deng, is a former slave from South Sudan, who works to raise awareness of Khartoum’s jihad, which killed more than three million Black Africans, mostly Christians, between 1955 and 2005. While South Sudan is now a sovereign country, an estimated 35,000 enslaved Africans remain in the north of Sudan.
The alliance includes the Damanga Coalition for Freedom and Democracy, which supports Black Muslims from Darfur in Sudan, whom Arab Muslims have victimized through rape, massacre, and slavery. The world has acknowledged this as a genocide.
The International Committee on Nigeria (ICON) educates and advocates for the victims of Boko Haram raids in Nigeria where Christian villagers are attacked and women and children abducted. Many Americans were first alerted to terrorist attacks on Nigerian villages in 2014 by Michelle Obama, who briefly led the well-advertised “#BringBackOurGirls” campaign. ICON is now reviving the hashtag.
Also focused on Nigeria are the LEAH (Leadership Empowerment Advocacy and Humanitarian) Institute, which advocates for the freedom of Leah Sharibu and other Nigerian women and girls held in captivity, and American Veterans of Igbo Descent (AVIDUSA). The Igbo of southeastern Nigeria are a largely Christian people.
The Institute for Black Solidarity with Israel (IBSI), under Pastor Dumisani Washington, condemns the “Zionism is racism” ideology; defends Israel’s right to live in peace with its Arab neighbors; and seeks to help cultivate a mutually beneficial Israel-Africa alliance.
Finally, the alliance includes the American Anti-Slavery Group (AASG), and the Jewish Leadership Project (JLP). All these groups make it clear that what happened in Israel last Oct. 7 is in some parts of Africa an almost daily occurrence.
The AJA, following meetings with government officials in Washington, launched its first public campaign on March 1, with jumbotron truck messages bearing graphics about attacks against Africans. They drove along a major thoroughfare in Cambridge, Massachusetts, from Harvard Square to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
Various newspapers have featured stories about the alliance, and a Jewish News Service (JNS) podcast hosted an interview in February with activists Ben Posner and Charles Jacobs of the AASG about the new coalition, entitled “Why the World Cares About Gaza and Not About Africa.” Awareness about this issue is finally spreading.
Henry Srebrnik is a professor of political science at the University of Prince Edward Island in Charlottetown, PEI.

Continue Reading

Copyright © 2017 - 2023 Jewish Post & News