Female sexual predator and child killer Karla Homolka

Karla The Movie

Homolka film out Jan. 20

The Toronto Star, Toronto, Ontario, by RICK WESTHEAD, STAFF REPORTER, Jan. 10, 2006.

Karla, the film depicting the murders of teenagers Kristen French and Leslie Mahaffy, will be released Canada-wide on Jan. 20, Montreal-based Christal Films announced this morning.

A spokesperson for Christal, a production and distribution company created in 2001 by former Lions Gate Entertainment executive Christian Larouche, wouldnt say which theatre chains have agreed to show the controversial movie.

Karla, which stars Laura Prepon of the TV comedy, That `70s Show, was made for about $5 million, less than one-tenth the budget of some of today's large-scale Hollywood blockbusters.

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CBC FILM Review "Karla" the movie

A First Look at Karla

An exclusive review of the contentious film

CBC, By Matthew Hays, August 12, 2005

Not many films have created as much of a furor in Canada as Karla. Nice, polite Canadians reacted with abject horror when it was announced last year that a Los Angeles-based film company had a movie about Karla Homolka in the works. Later, as questions about the films distribution surfaced, Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty urged Ontarians to boycott it. The project, it was assumed by many from the get-go, could amount to nothing but sheer exploitation in pursuit of profit.  Read More ..

Families step aside on Homolka film

'They are not the censor police' Distribution in Canada now likely

Toronto Star, RICK WESTHEAD,BUSINESS REPORTER, Oct. 13, 2005

The families of Kristen French and Leslie Mahaffy won't try to block the release of Karla, a film about the slayings of the teens, paving the way for the film's Canadian distribution.

"The families recognize that they are not the censor police," Tim Danson, a lawyer for the French and Mahaffy families, told the Toronto Star. "They understand that people have a constitutional right to make a movie or write a book."

The Hollywood film company behind the controversial movie, depicting the horrific murders by Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka, says it's close to signing a contract with a distributor that would get the picture into Canadian theatres. Read More ..

Demande d'ordonnance de sauvegarde rejetée

Karla Homolka est libre

Presse Canadienne, Sainte-Anne-des-Plaines, 04 juillet 2005

peine sortie de prison, lundi, après avoir purgé une peine de 12 ans pour sa participation aux meurtres de deux adolescentes ontariennes, Karla Homolka a jugé qu'elle devait s'expliquer publiquement plutôt que de chercher se cacher.

TOKEN BLOC LIEN

La femme de 35 ans, nerveuse et l'air contrit, s'est rendue la Maison de Radio-Canada Montréal moins de deux heures après avoir quitté le pénitencier de Sainte-Anne-des-Plaines pour y offrir une entrevue exclusive, a affirmé sur les ondes de RDI la journaliste Joyce Napier, de l'mission Le Point. [cliquez ici]

Canadian Officials Fear Convicted Murderer

By Associated Press, Various newspapers around the World and in particular the U.S.A.,  June 2, 2005

JOLIETTE, Quebec -- Canadian authorities fear a convicted murderer may commit new crimes when she is released from prison, and authorities were seeking a court order requiring her to submit a DNA sample for a criminal database, officials said.

Karla Homolka pleaded guilty in 1993 to the sex slayings of two southern Ontario teenagers, Leslie Mahaffy and Kristen French. She has served her 12-year manslaughter sentence and is set for release from a Quebec prison July 5, though she could be freed as early as June 23. Read More ..

Media circus descends on sleepy town

Joliette, Que.

Katherine Wilton, CanWest News Service, Thursday, June 2, 2005

JOLIETTE, Que. - As a courthouse clerk, Annie Gallant normally spends her days sifting through divorce papers.

But those duties were shelved yesterday as Ms. Gallant was instructed to give courthouse tours to dozens of journalists who have descended on this sleepy town in anticipation of Karla Homolka's first courtroom appearance in 10 years.

"This is a lot of fun," said Ms. Gallant, who admits to being caught up in the Karla-mania that is sweeping through Joliette. "We are all talking about her at work. Everyone knows what she did." Read More ..

Canada's largest national newspaper

Her very last day in jail will be July 5, 2005. She'll be 35 years old then. And she badly, badly wants to be a mother.

The new and self-improved Karla Homolka

The Globe and Mail, MARGARET WENTES, November 6, 1999

It would be nice to know that Karla Homolka will roast slowly for eternity in the fires of Hell. Alas, even the Pope has now declared that Hell is only a state of mind. In the absence of Hell, Ms. Homolka is serving a much more contemporary penance: a few years of soft time at Joliette, Quebec, where the rooms look like the students' dorm on any modern campus.

The curriculum is about the same, too. In order to graduate, the clients at Joliette are expected to take a full course load of Women's Studies. The courses include Improving Your Inner Self, Self-Esteem, and Survivors of Abuse and Trauma. These courses are designed to put you completely in touch with your inner feelings and turn you into a stronger, more assertive person. You will shed your self-doubt and shame, and learn to speak up. You may feel really bad about yourself now. But, pretty soon, you'll feel really good. Read More ..

Please ignore Karla movie

Toronto Star, JENNIFER HOLLETT, GUEST COLUMN, Jan. 23, 2006

It's official. Karla is a one-name celeb. You know, like pop stars Britney and Beyonc and Madonna. Only the first name is needed.

But Karla is not a pop star.

She's a serial killer. And on Friday, Karla was released in Canadian theatres.

I was hoping that the movie premiere about the schoolgirl killings by Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka would just keep getting delayed, and that maybe the film would never reach an audience. No such luck, but at least it won't appear in Niagara; theatre owners there know better.

I refuse to see the movie, with its playful Internet Movie Database tagline, "Until death do us partake." I'm not even tempted to see the trailer. I believe in boycotts and I don't think I could actually watch it.

I went to high school with Kristen French, Holy Cross Secondary School. I knew of her. That's the real shame as I didn't have the chance to get to really know her. I'll never forget the rainy Holy Thursday when she was abducted from the church parking lot on her way home from school. Read More ..

New film serves no one, except perhaps Homolka

The Toronto Star, ROSIE DIMANNO, Jan. 23, 2006

There is a discomfort in contributing further to the dunghill that is Karla.

At least I know why I'm here, in a theatre, watching Karla, the movie to see if maybe, just maybe, they got it right, or at least more right than I did, than anyone else did, because the blunt enigma that is Karla Homolka defeated us.

It's everybody else in attendance that I wonder about.

It's reasonable, I suppose, for the public to be curious about this film, certainly that segment of a Canadian public that would come to this movie with a great deal of pre-existing knowledge about these dreadful events, gleaned from extensive media coverage of the crimes and the revolting couple that committed them. Read More ..

Movie Review: Karla just doesn't wash

The Toronto Star, GEOFF PEVERE, Movie critic, Jan. 20, 2006

Presumably operating on the assumption that what's good for the courts is good for drama, the fleetingly (and locally) sensational low-budget true-crime movie Karla tells the story of the 1990 St. Catharines "schoolgirl killings" from its infamously dead-eyed namesake's point of view: a more honest title would be Karla's Case.

But what worked for the real Homolka, who managed to negotiate one of the most outrageously light sentences in Canadian legal history in exchange for testifying against her multiple rapist-murderer ex-husband Paul Bernardo, doesn't necessarily float in terms of movie logic.

While the legal professionals who bought Homolka's story of coerced domestic victimhood may have had ulterior motives for doing so, disinterested movie audiences will probably just look on in stupefied disbelief. You mean, we're really supposed to buy this? Read More ..

Bernardo Lead Defends Role

The Globe and Mail, By GAYLE MACDONALD, Tuesday, January 17, 2006 Page R1

The American actor recruited to play Paul Bernardo in the controversial film Karla compares the making of this movie to "going to a loved one's funeral every day."

For weeks after wrapping the film, Misha Collins -- who co-stars alongside That '70s Show's Laura Prepon, who plays Karla Homolka -- said he had difficulty sleeping. "I've heard some professional actors never take their work home. But for me, this role was impossible to leave it at work," says the 31-year-old from Massachusetts.

"It took weeks to shake it after we stopped shooting. I was trying to stay away from my friends as much as possible because I didn't want to poison any of those relationships. It was a lot of responsibility to play the most hated person in the country."

In Toronto yesterday to promote the upcoming film (it debuts Friday) about one of Canada's most notorious rapists and murderers, Collins says he prepared for the role by pulling up media clippings on line and then watching countless serial-killer films. Read More ..

Homolka portrayed as 'enigma' in new movie

Canadian Press, The Toronto Star and various other newspapers across Canada, Jan. 16, 2006

Karla Homolka is portrayed as a desperate and pathetic woman knowingly involved in an escalating series of murderous acts in the controversial new film Karla, arriving in Canadian theatres this week.

Still, Hollywood has avoided branding Canadas most notorious female offender as evil.

Instead Homolka is presented as an enigma for her role in the deaths of three Ontario schoolgirls, including her younger sister Tammy, during her ill-fated relationship with Paul Bernardo.

On Monday, the people behind that decision screened their film for the media in Toronto and argued its merits keenly aware of the firestorm ignited here by committing Homolkas sordid tale to celluloid. Read More ..