The Boy in the Woods

Tuesday, September 19, 2023 7:45 PM ADT
Theatre 5

Based on A True Story


The Boy in the Woods follows the true story of Max (Jett Klyne), a Jewish boy escaping Nazi persecution in Eastern Europe. After he is separated from his family, Max finds refuge with a Christian peasant Jasko (Richard Armitage) who hides him in plain site until a tense stand-off with some Nazi police. Afraid for his own family's life, Jasko sends Max to live in the woods where he learns to survive alone. With echoes of a Grimm's Fairy Tale, Max's experience is both terrifying and magical. He inhabits a landscape crawling with Jew-hunters, partisans and haunted by ghosts. Then everything changes when he meets another boy in hiding, Yanek (David Kohlsmith). Their extraordinary adventure culminates in the heroic rescue of a baby girl, but it comes at a tragic price. Based on the best-selling memoir by Canadian Holocaust survivor Maxwell Smart and inspired by the award-winning documentary Cheating Hitler: Surviving The Holocaust.

The Boy in the Woods

Rebecca Snow, Canada
Myriad Pictures
September 9 | Scotiabank 5 | 12:10 PM | Buyers Only

Jett Klyne stars in the remarkable true-life story of Maxwell Smart, a Jewish boy who survived the Nazi occupation of Eastern Europe by hiding out in the forests of Poland.

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I’m very excited to share, my latest feature film “The Boy In The Woods” was selected as one of twelve films screening in the “industry selects” program at TIFF this year.

Thank you to @tiff_net to director @snowdocs, producers @joelreilly, @pdpatt, @robertbudreau, Jonathan Bronfman, @andrew_bronfman, @planetofcraig, our incredible cast @jettklyne, @richardcarmitage, @davidkohlsmith, @katherine_fog + our wonderful northern production team.

It truly takes a village to make a film.

I couldn't be more grateful for my keys on this film @_adrian_anton_, @spennicam, our production designer @helciopugliese and my incredible North Bay camera team.

Special shout out to my whole team at @seslercompany and to my partner @torriwebster for the love, support and guidance.

The screening will be reserved for press and buyers during the fest, however I'll be sure to share the details on the films public screening in the future!

Es ist ja nicht das erste Mal, dass sich Termine bei Richard überschneiden, trotzdem finde ich es - vorsichtig ausgedrückt - interessant, dass die 'Geneva'-Promo dafür nicht pausiert. Zumal wenn man bedenkt, dass Richard für 'Into the storm' während 'Crucible' zwischen London und NY hin und her düste.

Forest City Film Festival: 9 days, 70 films, and a Labatt Park documentary
A Canadian children's entertainment icon, a global showcase, local talent and more.

Author of the article:
Beatriz Baleeiro
Published Sep 14, 2023 • Last updated 1 day ago • 3 minute read


The Forest City Film Festival will feature 70 productions, many of them connected to Southwestern Ontario, as the festival returns for its eighth annual run next month with a wide array of feature films, narrative shorts, documentary features and shorts and animated and experimental works.

Organizers of the London festival on Thursday unveiled the lineup for this year’s event that opens with a screening of Mr. Dressup: The Magic of Make-Believe, a documentary about the life and work of the late Ernie Coombs, star of the long-running CBC children’s television series of the same name.

For 29 years until 1996, before the digital revolution hit, Coombs was an entertainment and educational staple for kids, his Mr. Dressup program — with its songs, stories, and a cast of puppets including a child named Casey and a dog named Finnegan — as much a part of childhood as school and playing outdoors.

The documentary, directed by Londoner Rob McCallum, with fellow Londoner Jordan Morris the writer-producer, premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) to sold-out audiences and standing ovations.

This year’s festival includes 12 films from big-name showcases around the world. Besides TIFF and Hot Docs, another Toronto festival, they include the Cannes Film Festival and the Berlin International Film Festival.

Many of this year’s offerings at the London festival that runs from Oct. 14 to 22 include touchstones to London and Southwestern Ontario, giving audiences a chance to see home-grown talent at home and even segments of some productions shot in the region.

The Boy in the Woods, for example, a Holocaust survival story set in the mythical haunting forests of Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe, was produced by London-born Robert Budreau. Entered in the competition for narrative features, the film’s cinematographer and two actors also have personal ties to the region.


Cereal, a narrative short also in competition, about a challenging child who gets an ominous message from her cereal, stars Trinity Kaylani-Sieling, from London, as its lead actor.

London’s storied baseball stadium, Labatt Park, is the subject of a documentary short called Home Plate.

From London to Windsor, Kitchener-Waterloo and more, Southwestern Ontario cities and smaller centres abound behind the scenes in many of the productions that will be shown at the festival’s two venues at the Citi Plaza downtown mall, the Wolf Performance Hall at the London public library’s Central location and Imagine Cinemas.

“Being able to gather a collection like this is a hallmark of the Forest City Film Festival,” said Dorothy Downs, the festival’s founder and executive director. “Having arrived as a player with two big festivals in Canada, we’re really proud of this program. I’m really thrilled to be able to share it with London.”

The festival includes question-and-answer sessions with key players after screenings, giving audiences an opportunity to delve deeper into the films they’ve watched, a youth film festival for Southwestern Ontario high school students, with screenings of the Top 5 films, and a collection of Indigenous screenings during two programs curated and hosted by Judith Schuyler, an Oneida filmmaker.

“At a time when human creativity is threatened by artificial intelligence, we are thrilled to have a film festival that is 100-per-cent AI-free and celebrates the brilliant creatives from Southwestern Ontario,” said Downs.

IF YOU GO

What: Forest City Film Festival

When: Oct. 14-22

Where: Downtown London, at the Wolf Performance Hall at the Central Library and at Imagine Cinemas.

Tickets, times and film profiles: Go to the festival’s website, fcff.ca

Vielleicht hören wir von dieser Veranstaltung mehr: Der Film läuft auch im Rahmen des Cinefest Sudbury am 22.09.23.

https://tix.cinefest.com/websales/pages/ticketsearchcriteria.aspx?evtinfo=820978~f430924d-9e88-455e-a7aa-d4128dfc8816&

Cinéfest: North Bay doubles as war-torn Europe in powerful film
‘The Boy in the Woods,’ based on the survival story of Canadian holocaust survivor Maxwell Smart, was shot in the North Bay area in 2022

Heidi Ulrichsen

The North Bay area doubles for Second World War-era, Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe in the film “The Boy in the Woods,” which screens at Cinèfest Sudbury International Film Festival on Sept. 22.

The film’s director, Rebecca Snow, said she’s previously done documentaries for the History Channel, including the 2019 documentary “Cheating Hitler: Surviving the Holocaust.”

“The Boy in the Woods” is based on the true-life survival story of Maxwell Smart, one of the subjects of the 2019 documentary.

He is one of just 100 Jews from his hometown of Buczacz/Buchach, Poland (in modern-day Ukraine) to survive the Holocaust.

When Snow was filming the documentary, she remarked that Smart’s story should be turned into a feature film.

She said when she visited the woods of Ukraine where Smart hid from the Nazis, “it struck me that it was very similar-looking to parts of Northern Ontario.” (The documentary filming took place prior to the current war in Ukraine).

It turned out, however, to be challenging to find enough old-growth trees in this part of the province for her 2022 shoot of “The Boy in the Woods,” which she needed, as logging is not common in that part of Europe.

It was also difficult to find urban buildings that could pass for 1940s Europe.

If you’re familiar with the North Bay area, Snow said the scenes in the woods were all filmed on private property in Callander. They also shot at a cemetery in Powassan and a factory in North Bay.

Film shoots in Northern Ontario are not a new concept to Snow. The film’s producer, Robert Budreau, who is also Snow’s husband, filmed the 2015 movie “Born to Be Blue” starring Ethan Hawke in Sudbury. That film also screened at Cinéfest.

“The Boy in the Woods” follows Max (Jett Klyne), a Jewish boy hiding in the forests of Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe during the Second World War.

Max is an aspiring artist who escapes death when his selfless mother tells him to run away from the Nazi trucks that they are about to board.

He befriends a farmer, Jasko (Richard Armitage), and his family, who take him in. But with mounting pressure from the police and fear for his own family’s life, Jasko is forced to turn Max away.

With echoes of a Grimm's Fairy Tale, Max's experience is both terrifying and magical. He inhabits a landscape crawling with Jew-hunters, partisans and haunted by ghosts.

Then everything changes when he meets another boy in hiding, Yanek (David Kohlsmith). Their extraordinary adventure culminates in the heroic rescue of a baby girl, but it comes at a tragic price.

“The Boy in the Woods” is based on a memoir of the same name written by Maxwell Smart, who is now in his nineties and lives in Montreal, Que.

Snow said Smart visited the film shoot last year, watching the actors play out scenes from his early life. In a touching moment, Smart comforted the actor playing the young Max after a particularly emotional scene.

“They basically both just collapsed into each other's arms in tears,” she said. “And so Maxwell said to Jett, ‘You just became me, I just saw you become me.’”

Smart has also since seen the finished product.

“He was pretty overwhelmed, but in a good way,” said Snow. “He's very grateful that his story is hopefully going to be reaching a very wide audience, because as someone who survived these events, he wants to make sure that it's never forgotten.”

“The Boy in the Woods” is currently making the rounds on the festival circuit, screening at the Toronto International Film Festival Sept. 9 and at the Atlantic International Film Festival on Sept. 19.

Snow will be on hand for the film’s screening at Cinèfest Sudbury on Sept. 22. The film fills the festival’s 7 p.m. gala slot that day.

“I’m excited for people to see the film,” Snow said.

Heidi Ulrichsen is Sudbury.com’s associate content editor. She also covers education and the arts scene.