Capping off a great 2007, Spinning Reels is proud to present My Kid Could Paint That, a documentary nominated for the 2007 Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, at the Norwood Cinema 3 on Dec. 10 at 7 p.m.

At just four years of age, Marla Olmstead became an art world sensation when in 2004 a gallery in her hometown of Binghamton, NY, devoted a solo show to her abstract paintings. Soon collectors were lauding her talent and paying up to $15,000 a canvas.

Enter documentary maker Amir Bar-Lev, who won the trust of Marla’s father Mark, a night manager at a Frito-Lay plant, and mother Laura, a dental hygienist, to follow their story wherever it would go. None of them expected the twists it would take, however.

For a year, Bar-Lev had unprecedented access to the eye of the media storm and critical backlash as the world debated whether this “pint-sized Pollock” was a genuine prodigy or just a pawn of a manipulative market.

Spoiler alert: we never really find out, but Bar-Lev uses simple storytelling to explore complex and universal questions like: What defines the value of a painting? The value of news? The value of friendship? My Kid Could Paint That is bound to spur vigorous debate, just as any good art should.

Spinning Reels is a Bracebridge-based non-profit volunteer organization affiliated with The Film Circuit, a division of the Toronto International Film Festival Group dedicated to bringing alternative films to smaller communities across Canada and around the world.

This is the group’s last film for the year. The first film of 2008, unspooling on Jan. 14, is La Vie En Rose, a dramatization of the life of French songstress Edith Piaf, starring Marion Cotillard.

The sponsor for the Dec. 10 viewing is Nelsons Winery. Tickets available at Readers’ World or at the door. Cash only please.