Boston-based trombonist Michael Prentky<\/strong><\/a> will tour his debut album, sad boy:ADD:apocalypse,<\/em> across the Northeast U.S. and Canada, including a Sat. Jan 17\u00a0 (9 pm) at La Sotterenea (4848 Boulevard Saint-Laurent) with Montreal-based band Kallisto.<\/p>\n Prentky\u2019s orchestra includes a string quartet, four trombones, tuba, and rhythm section. Prentky will conduct, play trombone, sing, and recite original poetry. In addition to performing the entire album, Prentky will be premiering new original Klezmer compositions. He\u2019s bringing a fresh perspective to Klezmer music with his high-energy trombone band and harmonically-rich compositions while staying rooted in Klezmer traditions. He’ll be teaching audiences traditional corresponding Yiddish line dancing, such as the zhouk (aka hora) and terkisher, with the intention of reviving endangered dance steps.<\/p>\n Six years in the making, sad boy:ADD:apocalypse, is an epic, Zappa-esque suite for small orchestra \u2013 string quartet, four trombones and rhythm section. This mammoth odyssey is Prentky\u2019s unwavering commitment to authenticity. The writing is lush, emotive and cathartic. Prentky\u2019s sonic worlds showcase his eclectic interests: dreamy Beach House guitar riffs, avant-pop orchestral strings, breakbeat klezmer, pacific brass chorales, confessional poetry and raucous instrumental frenzies. Prentky conducts the orchestra, plays trombone, sings, and recites original poetry.<\/p>\n Prentky\u2019s freelancing on trombone can be summarized in three words \u2013 chameleon, omnivore and polyglot. Navigating performances with rapper 50 Cent, Mozambican Funk band Kina Zor\u00e9 (featured on NPR Tiny Desk), avante-garde jazz with the Walking Clich\u00e9 Sextet, or Balkan Romani music with Sarma Brass Band requires an adventurous and flexible musicianship.<\/p>\n Ticket info here<\/a><\/p>\n MONTREAL CRITICS\u2019 WEEK:<\/em><\/strong> The second edition of Montreal Critics\u2019 Week is scheduled for Jan. 12 to 18. Building on the success of its first edition, which achieved 98 percent occupancy, this year’s event will be held in a venue that can accommodate nearly 300 filmgoers per screening: Cin\u00e9ma du Mus\u00e9e. A selection of 26 films \u2013 short, medium, and feature length \u2013 from 14 countries is bundled together over the course of seven distinct and complementary days. Each program will be followed by in-depth conversations between filmmakers, writers, critics and the public.<\/p>\n The Critics\u2019 Week celebrates local cinema, with several world premieres by renowned Canadian filmmakers. On opening night, Renaud Despr\u00e9s-Larose<\/strong> and Ana Tapia Rousiouk<\/strong> (The Dream and the Radio) will present their sophomore effort, Cauchemar Conseil, a dazzling sleight of hand in which Lucie, a PhD candidate, seeks to break free from the physical and psychic grip of her thesis and its supervisor. On Tuesday will be held the world premiere of the new fable by Olivier Godin<\/strong> (Il n\u2019y a pas de faux m\u00e9tier), the bawdy and unpredictable Oublie pas le gruau starring Jean Marc Dalp\u00e9<\/strong>. Toronto filmmaker Christopher Beaulieu<\/strong> will also unveil Otium, an insightful foray into liminal urban spaces and the economic dispossession of younger generations. The duo formed by Ariane Falardeau St-Amour<\/strong> and Paul Chotel<\/strong> (Douce prisonni\u00e8re), Samuel Terry Pitre<\/strong> (D\u2019\u00e9poques), as well as Portuguese director Nuno Pimentel<\/strong> (I\u2019m Feeling Something) will also world premiere their work.<\/p>\n The festival will conclude with an encounter between two seasoned documentarians: Nicolas Wadimoff,<\/strong> a UQAM-educated Swiss filmmaker whose Qui vit encore (North American Premiere) gathers the testimonies of Palestinian exiles as they rehearse a play based on their experience of genocide; and Robert Morin<\/strong>, whose Six portraits n\u00e9or\u00e9alistes (World Premiere) chronicles the daily lives of six African migrants in Rome while also questioning the heritage of post-war Italian cinema in a world fraught with alienating screens. That evening, the Montreal Critics\u2019 Week will also host the Luc-Perreault-AQCC prize, an annual Canadian film award presented since 1974 by the Quebec Critics\u2019 Association, awarded by its members to a Quebec film deemed exemplary that year.<\/p>\n This edition will also feature a spotlight on Filipino cinema and its lasting political ethos. The focus will include two short films from emergent filmmakers: Water Sports by Whammy Alcazaren and Objects Do Not Randomly Fall From the Sky by Maria Estela Paiso, as well as the 4K restoration of Kisapmata, the 1981 masterpiece by the late Mike De Leon, who unfortunately left us in the summer of 2025. It will also include a special screening of Lav Diaz\u2019s<\/strong> Magellan to coincide with its theatrical release at Cin\u00e9ma du Mus\u00e9e.<\/p>\n An initiative of the Montreal-based online magazine Panorama-cin\u00e9ma, the Montreal Critics\u2019 Week returns with its annual event which extends the online magazine\u2019s critical lens offline by fostering a space for discourse and discovery in cinema. This non-competitive festival promotes emerging filmmakers through thematic, formal and political pairings designed to encourage inquisitive spectatorship that considers the thematic, political and formal ramifications of the chosen works.<\/p>\n \u201cThis edition takes the form of a journey through a succession of landscapes, alternately deserted and fertile: an ambiguous space from which life and invention nevertheless emerge,\u201d says a statement from Director of Programming Ariel Esteban Cayer<\/strong> and General Manager Mathieu Li-Goyette<\/strong>. \u201cIn a radical inversion of the principles of austerity, it aims to present a lush vision of cinema worthy of the imagination of its artists; a series of films that navigate between liberating dreams and distressing reality, via bodies and minds whose epic and intimate geographies remain to be mapped. Conceived as playful and confrontational, this new Week aims to flow like sand through fingers, to strike like a wave crashing on the rocks, to inspire critical discourse with images that transcend mere representation.\u201d<\/p>\n The programming committee of the Montreal Critics\u2019 Week is composed of Ariel Esteban Cayer, Mathieu Li-Goyette<\/strong>\u00a0and Olivier Thibodeau<\/strong> (Panorama-cin\u00e9ma), M\u00e9lop\u00e9e B. Montminy<\/strong> (24 images), Justine Smith<\/strong> (CultMTL, Roger Ebert.com<\/a>) and Richard Bolisay<\/strong> (Break It to Me Gently: Essays on Filipino Film).<\/p>\n