“You can never be a real artist until you have made love to a woman.” So says a book that frustrated 13-year-old Jesse uncovers at his local library while preparing for a class assignment – a photographic self-portrait that doesn’t resort to literal representation. For a more mature mind, that advice would be questionable at best, even ignoring the gender politics. But to a bored teenager in a middle-class Toronto neighbourhood, it’s a call to arms.

Frustrated with the safe existence that his liberal, intellectual parents have carved out for him, Jesse sets out to embrace the call of the “real artist.” A swirling mix of hormones, ambition, expectations and rebellion all come to a head when Jesse meets his young neighbour, Amy, who may be the key to his erotic awakening. Filmed on a minimal budget by first-time filmmakers Yonah Lewis and Calvin Thomas, AMY GEORGE joins Canadian cinema’s long, proud tradition of off-kilter coming of age films. Already an award-winner at the 2011 Brooklyn Film Festival, this audacious debut presents a view of adolescent confusion that you won’t soon forget.

PRECEDED BY SHORT FILM:

TROTTEUR (dir. Arnaud Brisebois and Francis Leclerc, 2010, Canada, 8 MIN)

A metaphor for adversity, an infernal race against a merciless adversary. A duel to settle between a young man and a locomotive.