ScreenFish

where faith and film are intertwined

Podcast

teenFish#11 – Reading WORDS ON BATHROOM WALLS

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Welcome to teenFish, a podcast series that lets teenagers speak about media that matters to them in their own voice. Hosted by Daniel Collins (Infinity Warm-Up), teenFish airs every month and invites local youth to engage the truth and lies of the shows and films that excite them.

Based on the best-selling book, WORDS ON BATHROOM WALLS is a story about mental health, trust and loving others (and yourself). As he enters his senior year of high school, Adam Petrazelli’s (Charlie Plumber) world is turned upside down when he’s diagnosed with severe mental illness. As he struggles to keep his new reality a secret from those around him, he also falls in love with a brilliant classmate who shows him what it means to be honest about who you are. This month, Daniel welcomes Rebecca and (old timer) Steve Norton to talk about struggling with mental health, perspective and loving others.

You can also stream the episode above on podomatic, Alexa (via Stitcher), or Spotify! Or, you can download the ep on Apple Podcasts or Google Play!

Life at a Distance

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Mandy Polzin and Rob Shade join us for a roundtable discussion about our post-pandemic, more-distanced lives.

Questions include: How are we experiencing doing work, school, church and life-in-general more remote, digital and online? What are the pros and cons of technologies like Zoom? Is there some sense in which church specifically needs to be physically present and in-person? What does the pandemic teach us about what humans are like? What perspective can our faith give us?

Also, FYI, Laura was not mad about Matt’s bad joke. She says “I’ll talk about hairstyles anytime you want 😀”

Come along for Your Sunday Drive – quick conversation about current events, politics, pop culture and more, from the perspective of a couple of guys trying to follow Jesus.

Hosts: Matt Hill and Nate Polzin. Presented by the Church in Drive of Saginaw, MI, as often as possible. Please visit churchindrive.com and facebook.com/thechurchindrive

Silencing Stereotypes and Celebrating Singleness: 1on1 with Andrea Dorfman (SPINSTER)

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When the world insists that satisfaction only lies in romance, something is broken.

While it’s true that romantic relationships can be exciting and life-giving, there’s little doubt that the pressure to ‘find love’ is everywhere. But is that really necessary to live a full and meaningful life? In her latest comedy Spinster, director Andrea Dorfman explores and celebrates what it means to be single when those around you think you’re missing out. 

Starring Cheslea Peretti (Brooklyn Nine-Nine), Spinster tells the story of Gaby (Peretti), a woman on the brink of forty who is looking for love and struggling to find it. As all her friends seem focused on their marriages and children, Gaby’s greatest fear is that she’ll end up alone. After a string of bad dating experiences leaves her exhausted, Gaby realizes that something needs to change and she decides to focus on building a life of meaning and connectedness without focusing on romance. 

Involved in the project from the outset, Dorfman believes that the idea stemmed from her own life experiences and revelations about life. Having struggled within that moment where it felt like everyone else was getting married, she wanted to tell a story that pointed out that there’s more to life than settling down. 

“Every film is such a journey. It takes a long time to make,” she begins. “Spinster is my fourth feature film and it’s the second film I made with my creative collaborator, Jennifer Deyell, who wrote the film… We started working on it in 2014, and it’s been through many iterations of story and screen. Ultimately, at its heart, we wanted to tell the story of a woman who gets to a place where romance isn’t the solution to all of her problems and creates meaning in her life on her own terms. That is certainly based on my own experience in my 30s and people who Jennifer and I both knew who were single at a time when friends were all getting married and having kids and were really made to feel that maybe that life was not viable or lesser than. Then, getting to a point where it’s like, ‘No, actually what if this is the only life I have?’ So, I think the kernel or seed came from that time of life.” 

For the character of Gaby, Dorfman wanted a known actress and was thrilled when Brooklyn Nine-Nine’s Chelsea Peretti joined the cast. Though the actress’ age was important to Dorfman for this particular role, she knew that Peretti was perfect for the role because of her ability to balance deadpan humour and heartfelt delivery.

“The character in the film is 39 and we wanted her to be [that age] because it’s sort of an ominous [time] for people who [care] about age, I guess,” she explains. “It’s sort of the brink of middle age. If you want to have kids and you’re a woman, that biological window is closing so 39 was an important age. It just so happens that, at 39, for women actors (especially known women in Hollywood), there are a lot of them who are not working. So, we decided that we wanted to have a known actor to help sell the film and, when we were working with the casting agent, it turned out that there were a lot of women actors at [the age of] 39 who were available. That’s just the sad reality of Hollywood and women actors and film.“

“Aside from that, I had seen Chelsea’s stand-up special on Netflix, even before I saw Brooklyn Nine-Nine. I just loved it. I loved her writing, her delivery, and how deadpan and understated she was, and yet had something to say and a lot of gravitas. So, I think I just liked her as a human. I hadn’t seen her in much. When we were coming up with actors of that age, I was really interested in her. She was one of the few that we were thinking of. Then, she read the script and loved it and was game to come all the way across the continent from LA to Halifax to be in the film, which was wonderful… I think it’ll be interesting to see what she does as an actor, because she really does have this ability to tap into exactly who she is. That’s a huge asset because when she’s in front of the camera, you really believe her.” 

By following Gaby’s journey through relationships, Spinster seeks to expose stale stereotypes about settling down. For example, in one particularly interesting moment, her married friend insists that the problem is that Gaby needs to ‘choose [her mate], not be chosen’. Dorfman points out that, while Gaby’s friend may mean well, her comments expose flawed cultural ideas about the need for love.

“In some ways, it’s a little bit tongue in cheek because it’s a different way to put herself out on the market but to maybe have some perceived control,” Dorfman claims. “But I think where that’s coming from is this idea that women should be a certain something. You should do something. That you should actually be active out on the market at all. Why? Does it mean that life won’t be lived unless you’re in a relationship? No, of course not. Life doesn’t stop and start depending on your circumstances. So, that was coming from a place of her friend, just desperately wanting her to reflect the life that she’s already living in a way. Its disruptive when somebody does something completely different than us, and yet has found just as much meaning, love, life and inspiration than those others who’ve done the more sort of mainstream popularized ways of living life.” 

“You can decide to choose somebody and not be chosen, but we don’t have any control over what somebody else wants. Really all we can do is make choices in our own life and go from there and be active in how we want to live, imagine a new path that makes the most sense for us.” 

With that in mind, Dorfman also sees that the broader culture struggles to celebrate singleness as a valid (and important) life choice. Though she remains completely sympathetic towards those who struggle with loneliness, she believes that much of our culture’s emphasis on relationships stems from a larger system designed to make us feel insecure about being alone.

Says Dorfman, “I think that if you do anything that disrupts the capitalist channels of trying to sell us things to make ourselves happy, then you’re going to get pushback for it. One of those things is to be happy and single. If you’re women, to be happy and older. To be happy and not buy a lot of things to beautify ourselves. So, I think it actually is disruptive. There’s a lot at stake in making people believe that they need to be in relationships in order to be happy. We’re always telling people that you can attain happiness if you buy these things. (Usually, it’s about buying things, let’s be frank.) If you’re actually saying to people, there’s another way you can actually generate meaning in your life all on your own, I think that there’s something to lose. There are structures in place that will lose out on that.” 

“That being said, of course, loneliness is a huge issue in our society and something to be taken seriously,” she continues. “But I think there are ways to fight loneliness and to not actually have to be in a relationship. Probably the [loneliest that] I’ve ever been is in a dysfunctional relationship. We’ve all been there. For me, in my 30s, when I was going through this time, I think one of the things that I realized is that, if I can generate my own meaning in life [and] my own happiness, all the different supports and kinds of love that exists outside of romance [give me] a lot more control than trying to get somebody to fall in love with me or a version of me that, at the end of the day, probably has more to do with that person than who I actually am. I think that anytime somebody presents something counter-cultural, it is disruptive and creates pushback. It’s another way to be.” 

In addition to this, Dorfman also argues that this ‘system of wanting’ taps into an innate drive to fill the void in our lives. Asked what she thinks we are ultimately searching for in life, she says that the real question may be how to become satisfied with what we already have.

“I think it’s probably built into our DNA to want,” Dorfman posits. “I always go back to the hunter/gatherers [where] wanting is always survival, you know? We want the berries and the animals to hunt. I think that we’re always going to want something and maybe that’s the problem. [The goal is] to try to let go of the wanting. I think until we do that, we’re going to hitch ourselves and our happiness will hinge on things that we largely don’t have control of and that will probably lead to unhappiness. So, instead of the question being ‘why do we want things?’, maybe we need to frame it differently and start to focus on the not-wanting. I’m getting a little bit Buddhist there I think, but it’s something that I actually do think a lot about. That things that we want often just don’t make us happy and it’s that expectation that they will that gives us incredible disappointment.”

For full audio of our interview with director Andrea Dorfman, click here.

Spinster is available on VOD now.

Rocking Against Racism: 1on1 with Rubika Shah (WHITE RIOT)

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It really should not be a surprise that there’s a strong connection between music and the battle against racial injustice. From doo wop to folk music to rap music, it seems that youth often look to their most popular artists to become the modern-day prophets for their generation.

But 70s punk music? I admit that that one was new. 

In her new documentary, White Riot, director Rubika Shah documents the amazing events that took place during the social upheaval during the late-1970s Britain in the midst of the punk rock revolution. As bands like The Clash and Steel Pulse are beginning to make their musical mark on the world, the country is also deeply divided over immigration issues.As The National Front, a far-right political party led by Enoch Powell, continues to gain strength, music photographer Red Saunders calls for rock to become a force against racism. While history’s record of social upheaval in the 60s and 70s is well-documented, somehow the story of Rock Against Racism has gone largely unknown in our global culture. Having just discovered the story recently, Shah believed that she and her team had found something special that people needed to know.

“We didn’t know about it until five years ago,” she begins. “I found it with my producer Ed Gibbs. He’s also the writer of the film, so we’ve been making it together for five years. We were really interested in music and especially music in the 70s. This was a story that came about because we saw the footage of the Clash at the Carnival. I know that part [of the story] quite well and so I wondered, just on the general knowledge level, what was the Carnival? What was that festival? I hadn’t heard of it before. As I started digging deeper, the story became bigger and bigger because then I found out it was a Rock Against Racism carnival as such. Then, I found out that all these people had marched from Trafalgar Square to Victoria Park in support of Rock Against Racism. When I went back to the beginning of the story, which was two years prior to that, I found out that it was just a small group of people that got together and decided that they wanted to stand up against racism in the UK and actually started this as just a bit of an ad hoc group of people coming together and just doing something quite small. Then, over time, it became a big project for them.”

Chronicling the rise of Rock Against Racism, White Riot also looks at the toxic culture that helped create the movement. In particular, the film explores the rising power of The National Front, a politically far-right organization with a xenophobic agenda. As their sphere of influence continued to grow. The National Front began holding their own marches down the streets of London and even had support from the police.

“It’s a quite common feeling I think in the UK that the police were, especially back then, probably on the side of the National Front,” Shah claims. “There’s a lot of criticism, I think, towards the police for overwhelmingly protecting National Front marches. I think there’s some footage in there where you see that actually there’s a couple of hundred people maybe marching and then, there’s two or three policemen on either side protecting them. I just think it was part of that era what was happening. I think that he was sympathizing with that point of view.”

As with research for any film, it can be difficult to dig up historical footage from long ago. Though the process was a challenge, her team continued to keep their eyes and ears open for anything they could find.

Says Shah, “We spent a long time working on this film. So, we gathered material from lots of different people over the years. It became a bit of an exercise where, if we heard about a certain clip or gig, [we’d say] ‘Let’s go and try and find that.’ It was really difficult, but we managed to pull it together in the end,”

With this in mind, one of the film’s most startling revelations comes regarding comments made by Eric Clapton in support of the racist ideals of the National Front. At a time when past comments by celebrities come to light almost daily, Shah says that these ones may have been missed due to the limited press coverage outside the UK at the time.

“It’s bizarre, isn’t it?,” she states, somewhat amazed. “I mean, I found out about it five years ago. It’s something that happened and then has been, I guess, quietly just skimmed over in a sense. I think a lot of people know about it in the UK. It was a different time, you know. There weren’t camera phones. It was written about in the music press [but], unless you’re knowledgeable about that era, then you probably would know about it. Certainly, I don’t think overseas people will know about it because it was written in the music press in the UK and that was it. Then, it wasn’t really spoken about after that. So, it was the launch pad in a sense for Rock Against Racism. There were lots of things happening at that time. It wasn’t just Eric Clapton and it wasn’t just other artists. There was a whole swing to the right with just everyday people, National Front marching, politicians saying things on mainstream media. So, from a music point of view and from Red’s point of view, I think he just felt really hurt that someone like Eric Clapton said what he said.”

Coming in a moment when political activism has become a daily occurrence, Shah recognizes the important role that music plays in inspiring people to become united in one voice.

“It’s really important. We’re seeing it now with what’s happening with Black Lives Matter, but I think it was important in the 70s and throughout various different times in the last 50-60 years (and probably going back further),” Shah argues. “I think what was interesting about what was happening here in the UK was that punk was just beginning to seep into the zeitgeist. Young people, in general I think, were angry, [whether they were] white, black, Asian. Across the board, I think young people were just fed up and that sense of anger was starting to seep into music.” 

“I think that when the guys behind Rock Against Racism decided that they wanted to do something, it really started on a small level,” she continues. “Their original idea was to just put on gigs. They would put some white bands and black bands together on equal billing, and they would pay everybody. It was really important that they did this because they recognized that musicians needed to be paid as well. It was a show of unity and an idea for all different audiences to come together. That was the reason behind it… There were more carnivals and there were more gigs and Rock Against Racism actually lasted another three or four years. Then, eventually, they just went off and did their own thing because essentially it was just a group of people coming together.” 

One of the most amazing aspects of White Riot is the fact that this cultural zeitgeist was able to grow at a time when communication to the masses was far more difficult. Even so, Shah notes that those involved were able to make the most of a fanzine culture that helped the beliefs of a few passionate people to become a large-scale movement.

“It’s this grassroots activism business,” she explains. “So, it’s the way that people are able to mobilize like that. It’s people power. I mean, there was a lot of hard work going into that. They were able to tap into like-minded people in the print shop and get people involved. They had a lot of goodwill as well because printing was expensive. They didn’t have the money to do that, but they were able to slip in print runs at night and then get those papers on the back of the lorry, going out to wherever it was the next day to drop them into a music shop. Fanzine culture was right at that time. So, people knew where to look, to find out about music and the underground. It was literally like the analog equivalent of going viral is what they captured.”

Furthermore, though opportunity for people to speak their voice has become far easier, Shah sees that today’s changing media landscape has also created so many voices that cultural unity seems to have become more difficult.

“I feel like things are changing for sure. People [have] a lot of ways now to put our points of view across. Media has changed a lot. There’s Twitter, there’s Facebook. But then on the flip side, does that dilute the message? Is it harder to actually reach people? It’s difficult.” 

Though forty years have passed since the events of the Carnival, it truly is remarkable how much of the events of the late 70s resonates with what we’re seeing today. According to Shah, these similarities may actually be part of a pattern that extends back over the last century.

“When this happened in the late 70s, it was forty years after WWII and now, we’re forty years after the events of what happened in the late 70s,” she points out. “It seems to be every forty years. I mean, there are things happening in between as well but I just feel like maybe there’s something in it. Maybe, we all like inching forwards, but sometimes it seems very slow that things are changing.”

For full audio of our interview with Rubika Shah, click here.

White Riot is currently streaming on VOD and select online theatres across Canada.

What’s the Deal With 2020? Hamilton, Cancel Culture & Legacy

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your sunday drive podcast

2020 is nuts. Pandemic. Polarization. Social upheaval. The election. We try to put our arms around where the year is and where it might head next, seeking how we might respond from a Christian perspective.

Everyone is talking Hamilton (again). We discuss this cultural juggernaut in terms of its artistic value, how it relates to our current climate, what it says about legacy, and more.

Come along for Your Sunday Drive – quick conversation about current events, politics, pop culture and more, from the perspective of a couple of guys trying to follow Jesus.

Hosts: Matt Hill and Nate Polzin. Presented by the Church in Drive of Saginaw, MI, as often as possible. Please visit churchindrive.com and facebook.com/thechurchindrive

Sacrifice in the Sand: 1on1 with Rod Lurie (THE OUTPOST)

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War is hell.

Though that may sound cliché in, there’s no question that any war requires incredible sacrifice that can be difficult to understand for those who have never been involved in the military. Still, over the years, this has not stopped filmmakers from attempting to bring the intensity and tragedy of war to life on screen. 

With his latest film, The Outpost, director Rod Lurie (The Contender) may have come closer than others to depicting reality with his incredible and intense look at the famed Battle of Kamdesh, the bloodiest engagement in the Afghanistan War. When he was first offered the script, Lurie says that he found this particular project too enticing to pass up, especially considering his own military background.

“As a military guy, I’m living every day on military websites and [I have] my military friends on Facebook and on Twitter, [so] I was aware of the story,” Lurie begins. “Certainly, I was aware of The Battle of Kamdesh. It’s absolutely within military folklore at this point. So, when it was brought to me, there was just no doubt I was going to do this. It was, by the way, brought to me by the first director of it, Sam Raimi. Sam had decided to drop out as director and was not going to produce it. Although he didn’t ultimately end up producing it, I first heard about it as a film project in his office with his head of development—a guy named Paul Merryman—and the film’s two writers, Paul Tamasy and Eric Johnson. I knew there was just no way [that] I wasn’t going to do this film.”

The Outpost tells the story of Bravo Troop 3-61 CAV, a small unit of U.S. soldiers left alone at the remote Combat Outpost Keating, who are tasked with helping maintain the peace and build relationships with the locals. Trapped at the bottom of a deep valley between three mountains in Afghanistan, the division sits exposed and faces daily attacks from insurgents. Then, when an overwhelming force of Taliban fighters attacks them, the unit finds themselves faced with the impossible task of defending their station and staying alive. 

Relentless and unyielding, The Outpost is a visceral experience that makes the viewer feel as though they’re in the middle of the firefight. While he may have never been directly involved in combat himself, Lurie also argues his passion for this project extends from his desire to honour his brothers-in-arms.

“If I’m really being honest, it’s my lack of experience that made me want to make this film,” he confesses. “I graduated in 1984 from West Point, the United States military Academy. [It was a] tough four years. I graduated into a peace time and served in Germany. I was with an air defense unit. I was never on a battlefield and never had a bullet pass my head. I never fired a bullet at an enemy. My life was never in danger in any real way but that’s not true of my classmates. Many of my classmates have decorations that they wear on their chest from their valorous actions and from being in the field of battle. When I go back to my reunions at West point, I’m one of the guys who wasn’t in battle. It’s not a great feeling, to be honest with you. I always knew I wanted to make a war film, but not just any war film. It had to be about the war that my brothers were fighting in. So, if I couldn’t be on a battlefield with him, then I was going to honor them and this was the best way to do it… [It’s] the only way that I can do it right now, I think.”

Of course, with any film of this nature, preparing for the role would be an intense process. Though some of the cast were military veterans, Lurie notes that the actors who were experiencing basic training for the first time found themselves pushed much harder than they had expected.

“I really had to put these guys through the ringer,” Lurie recalls. “A lot of the guys were already vets. They were soldiers and they knew how to hold an M4. They knew how to fire a weapon. They knew how to move. But a lot of these guys, they’re like trained at Carnegie Mellon University. They are not soldiers. So, I sent them to basic training with our military guys…. This was not easy for a lot of these guys. I mean, there are many times at lunch where they would come and they would sit with me and there would be a tear rolling down their eye, going ‘I didn’t expect this humiliation. I didn’t expect this physical toughness.’ I had to train them properly, so that was very, very, very difficult for them.” 

“Now, [then there’s] somebody like Caleb Landry Jones, who plays Ty Carter, the medal of honor recipient, in the film,” he continues. “I’ve never seen a guy more dedicated than this kid. It’s just incredible. When I first met Caleb, he was exactly what I thought I was going to be, which is like this hippie type. He’s as Olive Oyl (from the Popeye series) and he’s hairy down to his [butt]. It’s like the opposite of the sort of buff, tough bald-headed [guy] who was Ty Carter… But I knew that Caleb was a great actor and, from speaking to people about him, I knew that he was dedicated and he would somehow transform himself into this guy. In fact, I sent him to meet Ty Carter. Ty called me and he said, ‘Rod, this guy is going to work out’. He was really nervous, but… Caleb transformed himself. That also meant militarily. So, he took it very, very seriously when the military guys trained them. In fact, Caleb’s brother, a guy named John Jones – is a Marine who lost both his legs in battle and he came to Bulgaria and trained with his brother. So, there was lots and lots of an attempt at authenticity in this film. I think we nailed it, in the end.”

Asked about the response he’s gotten from those involved that have seen the film, Lurie is grateful for the overwhelming support that he has received from the veterans and their families. However, that should not be surprising. To his credit, The Outpost works hard to depict The Battle of Kamdesh as realistically as possible. In fact, one of the most amazing aspects of the film is the fact that some of the survivors themselves are in the film, in some cases playing themselves. 

“Not only have they seen the film, some of them are in the film,” he asserts. “Daniel Rodriguez, who fought in the mortar pit, plays himself in the movie. Not only that, but he had to relive for us the death of his best friend. He actually staged it for us. He told us exactly how it happened, which was obviously a hugely traumatic experience for him, but he was a good soldier and he fell apart after he did that for us. We had a screening for many of the survivors of the battle and for the families of the fallen last October in Washington DC. That had to have been among the most emotional nights of my life. Certainly, that’s pretty remarkable. It was really something. What these families realized was that their loved ones, their names, will live on now. They don’t just disappear into the ether. Their names matter.”

Though Lurie recognizes the value of every man who served in Kamdesh, he chooses to frame the narrative in segments that focus on the unit’s rotating (and brief) commanders. Given their dramatic differences in approach, Lurie felt that this would be a good way to highlight them and how their varying styles to leadership affected the unit.

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“The commanders were targeted by the Taliban, so I thought that was one way to sort of honour them. One after another, they either die or have to leave the outpost. They also have different styles of command, which I thought was very interesting. So, the story sort of changes as we go along, based on the leadership styles of the commanders. I just thought that it would be a very effective form of storytelling.”

One interesting aspect of the film is the fact that, though they live and serve together, there are no guarantees that the troops will come together until they’re on the field of battle. Popularized over the years as the ‘band of brothers’ mindset, Lurie believes that, while may be willing to sacrifice themselves for one another, the truth about the relationships between men off the field may have become overstated. 

“I think you’ve latched onto something really, really interesting. You’re right. They are not friends,” he points out. “In fact, sometimes they’re actually like almost enemies. They will fight in the barracks, but they do learn that, in the field of battle, they’re all brothers. They are absolutely brothers. The real Ty Carter will tell you how unpopular he was among the other soldiers. Nobody liked him. He didn’t like anybody, but he saved a lot of lives. He put his life on the line in a very dramatic way for at least for one soldier and probably for several more. That is what it boils down to. These guys that are in Afghanistan right now, I’m talking about troops for all nations, they’re there to survive more than to do anything else. That means being there for your brother. It’s really simple.” 

“That’s not a good enough reason to have troops over there, in my opinion. It’s not a good enough reason. During the Second World War, you ask every soldier why they’re there, [and] they’d all have the same answer. You’re going to stop Hitler. I don’t know that if you asked any soldier at any war after that why are they are there that they would have the answer. The closest common denominator [as an] answer would be ‘to keep my brother alive’. That’s the reason that they’re there. It’s not good enough, but it is what it is.”

In addition, while other famed war films such as Saving Private Ryan and 1917 choose to emphasize the gravity of their specific mission at hand, The Outpost opts to instead focus on survival as the mission itself. For Lurie, this level of sacrifice was one of the most inspirational aspects of the project.

According to Lurie, “Scott Eastwood, who plays Sergeant Clint Romesha says [in the film that], ‘Our mission is what it’s always been.’ Then he says, ‘To survive’. That is indeed what all but eight of them did. They survived. But there’s something also very inspirational about that. This movie is not a morose thing at all. You will likely come out of this very moved, but also very inspired by the human spirit and what the human calculus is capable of. When I was at West point, what I was told was once you think you have exhausted everything, you’re only 10% of the way there. That’s something you see in The Outpost.

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For full audio of our interview with Rod Lurie, click here.

The Outpost is currently streaming on iTunes, Google Play and other VOD sites.

Refracting Truth: 1on1 with Atom Egoyan (GUEST OF HONOUR)

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Atom Egoyan does not make life easy for the characters in his films.

Known for such powerful and entracing films as The Sweet Hereafter, Exotica, and Chloe, the iconic director always creates characters who are caught up in complex relationships that challenge the viewer’s assumptions. His latest film, Guest of Honour, continues this trend by building around what appears to be the simple relationship between an estranged father and his daughter yet somehow spirals into an intricate, multi-layered narrative infused with a mix of truth and lies.

Written and directed by Egoyan, Guest of Honour tells the story of Jim (David Thewlis), a health inspector whose daughter, Veronica (Laysla De Oliveira), has recently been convicted of a serious crime. Although Jim remains steadfast in his belief that she’s innocent, his efforts to reduce her sentence are hampered by her stubborn refusal to cooperate with him. After her release, she visits Father Greg (Luke Wilson), a local priest, that she looks to as her potential confessor and may know more about her story than she realizes. Asked where the idea for such a complex narrative came from, Egoyan claims that the seeds were planted from his own family’s experiences in the restaurant business.

“It came from the fact that our son was working as a bus boy in this very exclusive French restaurant in Toronto,” he begins. “[He] came back with stories of the chef who is a proprietor also being tormented by a food inspector who was making his life really difficult. [Then], the character began to emerge. I began to think of parenting and how much do we really know about our kids?… That became sort of the root of the story. That weird place where we all know that, in a family (or any relationship), you have openness. There has to be communication, but where there couldn’t be communication. That blockage had this really strong effect on the two characters [of Jim and Veronica]. Of course, there were all sorts of issues around #MeToo and this idea about the ways in which lines were being crossed. I thought that [because] she was also as a teacher and had these responsibilities, there was something very interesting about this choice that she made. She’s a very extreme character. She obviously has this very self-destructive sort of tendency, but that’s where it came from.” 

“We [also] had a small bar on Queen Street, and we had to deal with food inspectors. You become aware of this whole network of how the city especially is built up on this network of restaurants and all these different sorts of windows into the different places. So, this person who spends a day going from one place to another, and who himself was a restauranteur at one point, that became really interesting and rich in possibility.” 

When the time came to cast the character of Jim, Egoyan was thrilled for veteran actor David Thewlis to take on the challenge. Having been a fan of Thewlis’ work for some time, Egoyan believed that he had the presence and gravitas to take on the role.

“There are actors that you see a performance and you just never let it go,” Egoyan recalls. “I’d seen David in Naked, Mike Leigh’s film, a long time ago. The way he was able to hold the screen and the energy and he had, I just thought it’d be very interesting to revisit this actor all these years later. I’d seen him in several films, but I’d never seen him take on a lead role. I just prayed that he would respond to the script when I sent it to him and he did… I was so thankful that I’d found my actor. He was so curious and he brought so much to the role. Some of my favorite scenes are the ones where he’s not doing anything or he’s just opening a drawer and looking at ribbons and an old cell phone. We read everything in his performance.”

Though Jim walks a line of the law as a health inspector, he also pleads for grace from his incarcerated daughter, Veronica. However, despite Jim’s earnestness, Egoyan feels that Veronica’s anger towards her father may inform her motivation in meeting with him.

“The question is, by seeing her father in these visits, almost in a very strange perverse way… [does] she actually also want to punish him as well?,” he asks. “[Jim] goes on about reputation and how he knows how important it is to preserve a reputation. But, of course, his reputation has been demolished by this action. There’s a side of what she does, which I think is really also focused on seeing him pay this penance as well. That’s so unfair because ultimately if they had only communicated to each other, this would might’ve been avoided.” 

“I also understand that that wouldn’t have been possible. There’s no way he would have told her at that time that [he and] her idolized music teacher were having an affair [or that] the mother was aware of that because she was ill. [She] was thinking about (maybe) a mother figure for her daughter. You know, a nurturing figure. So, it’s a real tragedy at the core of this, but you can’t explain that to her. As I said, by the time he could, when she was older, she probably locked herself into such a place that she wouldn’t believe it. She would have said, ‘Well, that’s as easy for you to say now.’ I think that really hurts him as well, but he feels that he didn’t even have that trust from her. What is he going to do to earn that at the same time?” 

Interestingly, while Veronica’s character remains in jail for her crimes, she also finds herself in an emotional prison as well. When he reflects upon what it will take for her to be truly free, Egoyan points out that her soul can likely only be able to let things go if/when she finally has the opportunity to hear the truth about her father.

“She feels responsible for wiping out this family, between the mother and the son. That’s where she is [emotionally],” he explains. “I think her character needs to know exactly what the priest tells her, right? The mother had given her blessing for that relationship. That was something that the mother felt would be best for her. To have this woman that was in her life, then take on that maternal role. I think the most moving part of the film for me [is]… when Jim is doing his final inspection. There’s that closeup of that smile on his face when he comes to realize something. I think that’s the moment where he thinks that if he has his funeral at that church, that maybe that conversation might happen. That maybe the priest would actually offer that information, because he’s the only person who can. It’s the only person who objectively would be able to say that and allow Veronica to believe it.” 

“Not only is it the Veronica wouldn’t believe the father, but also what would be the point in the father telling her that history? Because the music teacher isn’t there either… He doesn’t see any point to it. And yet it’s a moment that actually would have a profound benefit, but there’s no one there. I think this happens sometimes. There’s no one there to regulate that. There’s no one there to kind of say, ‘This would be the best course of action.’ So, these two characters are left to their own devices.” 

Known for his complex relationships within his films, Egoyan loves to challenge his audience with visual imagery as well. For example, in Guest of Honour, one of Egoyan’s most effective visual motifs is his use of glass which serves as a metaphor for how our understandings are affected by others.

“First, we’re telling our story through glass camera lenses. Also, glass is this object that refracts, and, in this case, creates a different sound [and] these strange distortions. In the film, there are flares but there’s this idea that glass is also fragile. It can break. So, all those things were really important in the visual motif of the film.”

In light of this, Egoyan maintains that Guest highlights the fact that, like refracted lens, our perspectives shape our understanding of history.

“The question is who determines what actually is the story that’s told and why is that story being told?,” he contends. “This is a very unusual situation where she is perceiving something as a child and what she’s perceiving is that the father is doing something so incomprehensibly wrong. We need to understand that. We see that image twice. Once, she’s playing the piano and she notices her father make a signal to the music teacher that they go upstairs. It just seems like so cavalier and crazy. But then, when we see it again, after she understands what has happened to the father, we see that he’s actually in the same place but his hand is in her hands. Then, he just leaves the room and the teacher goes to follow him to try and comfort him. It’s interesting that the only thing that separates those two scenes is the fact that she now has the information from Father Greg as to what the circumstance really was. But if there’s no one there to tell you that, then there’s no reason for her to ever altered that. I firmly believe that, even if the father had told her that story, there would be no point to it from his perspective…He doesn’t understand that she’s in pain so why would he tell her?”

In fact, faith plays an interesting role within Egoyan’s latest endeavour. For example, while his character appears not to hold any specific religious beliefs, Jim seems to honour and even carry out any number of religious sacraments within the film.

“There’s one huge clue [to his spiritual history],” he points out. “When he’s at the party at the Armenian restaurant, he’s holds up the glass and he says, ‘To his blood’. That is a moment from the Eucharist. That is a moment of communion. My suspicion is that there was religion in his background, but he just hasn’t been following it. So, he does create all of these weird sacraments, like what he’s doing with the rabbit. It’s as though he’s he still needs that… We also understand that his wife, Rosangela’s parents gave a lot to the church… So, I think it was there. It was just that he’s lapsed. It’s not there in his life anymore.” 

With an emphasis on the relationship between the past and present, Egoyan’s structure is told through multiple flashbacks and timelines. Though that may seem daunting, he believes that it actually brings the narrative together as a whole in a seamless manner.

“It’s all about these conflicting images that are existing in these two characters’ minds,” says Egoyan. “They both have these memories. They both have these sorts of images of things that happened and those are being revisited over the course of the film. So, there had to be a structure that allowed that to happen fluidly. There are really five timelines that are being kind of followed. That sounds confusing but, I think as you watch the film, it’s not. I think it’s pretty clear. Between her as an eight-year-old, a 17-year-old, the school band trip, in jail, and with the priest, those are five different sort of moments that are being referred to. So, to keep it fluid and keep all those balls bouncing, the structure seemed most organic.” 

For full audio of our interview with Atom Egoyan, click here.

Guest of Honour is currently streaming on iTunes.

Battle of the Soul: 1on1 with Aaron Schneider (GREYHOUND)

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You simply don’t ignore a phone call from Tom Hanks.

As the director of the latest WWII epic, Greyhound, Aaron Schneider was thrilled to have the opportunity to work with Tom Hanks in bringing the story to life. Featuring a screenplay written by Hanks himself, Greyhound transports the viewer back to February 1942 and follows the journey of U.S. Navy Cmdr. Ernest Krause (Hanks). For his first war-time command, Krause is assigned to lead an Allied convoy across the Atlantic during World War II. Forced to travel without air support across the area known as the ‘Black Pit’, his convoy is suddenly pursued by German U-boats. Despite his anxiety about the situation, Krause must remain steadfast and committed to his crew if he is to successfully lead his convoy across the Atlantic to safety. 

While he was thrilled to partner with Hanks on the project, the primary appeal of the film to Schneider was the opportunity to help the iconic actor bring his passion project to reality.

“[When] you get a hold of a Tom Hanks-starring WWII script, the filmmaker in you gets excited right away,” he admits. “But what really drew me in was that Tom had written it, not just the novelty of that [either]. I had made a short film early in my career, called Two Soldiers… It was fun and a little scary, but it’s what I wanted to do. It turned out great! We were honored with an Oscar for our effort and it was the beginning of my director’s career.” 

“When you’re inside of it though, you don’t know any of that. All you know is that you’re trying something new. So, when I saw Tom’s name as screenwriter, my first thought was, ‘Oh my gosh, Tom Hanks is a big movie star and yes, he’s done it all. But I wonder if this is something new and a little scary and a little challenging for him, the way my film was.’ How cool would that be? That I could sort of help out a filmmaker like Tom with something that’s personal [and] new to him. Just the idea of helping a filmmaker do something different sounded like even more fun than just making a movie with Tom. That’s what it turned out to be. It was a passion project [that] he’d been sort of secretly building behind the scenes over time, when the mood struck him. He finally debuted it and here it was falling into my lap. So, that was very exciting and that’s what drove me.” 

Based on C.S. Forrester’s classic book, The Good Shepherd, Greyhound may not be a true story but it is based on actual events. In his research and preparation for the film, Schneider was amazed by the stories that he heard and sought to be as historically accuracy as possible.

“I’ve read [that] some people kind of wish it was true story, as if somehow that would affect their enjoyment of the film,” he muses. “The truth of the matter is that I started doing lots of research when I came on the project. One of the first things I began to learn is that every ship in that convoy and Naval engagement is based on an actual event. There’s a story out there about [the drive-by of the sub] happening and the guns not being able to tilt down far enough. In the real-life story, men even started picking up Coca-Cola bottles and potatoes and throwing them at the sub. As it turned out, somebody recalling the event said that the Germans thought the potatoes were grenades and it kept them from manning their guns. One of the destroyers in Greyhound had a history too. I was doing historical research and sure enough, I said, ‘Oh, my goodness, C.S. Forrester has basically borrowed the history of this real-life destroyer in terms of giving it its backstory in the book. So, it’s a fictionalized story and a fictional character that uses many of the many real-life events and stories from actual battles as a foundation.”

Though Hanks’ career has brought him to WWII on several occasions, this was Schneider’s first attempt at re-creating this period of history. Asked if there was anything in particular that he learned from the experience, Schneider says that the most meaningful aspect was seeing for himself the level of hard work and sacrifice that was required from those who served.

“It was a crash course. You look back at the heroes of WWII, and you already know that they sacrificed,” Schneider points out. “You already honor the heroism. But it isn’t until you get inside of it, research it and your job is to dramatize what made that job so hard to do. It took all those things, the difficulties, the hardships, the challenges, the talent that it took, the commitment, it took just to do the job, let alone win the war. So, I’d say that was probably the biggest lesson for me is submersing myself in this tin can, this ship, learning how it works and learning all of its moving parts and how they had to work together to succeed. That was probably the most meaningful lesson to me because it wasn’t easy work. It was hard enough to risk your life, but the job itself was such a challenge, it makes it that much more heroic.” 

To bring history to life, special effects and sound mixing are always essential to create the proper atmosphere for the audience. By developing a balance between the whizzing of bullets, crashing waves and (at times) muted dialogue, Greyhound becomes a visceral experience for the viewer. In doing so, Schneider explains that the process helps the viewer focus their perspective on the film’s most important narrative aspects.

“The challenge for the filmmakers at any point in time is that it’s about point of view,” Schneider explains. “You can tell a story based on focusing on one point of view over another. There’s that great moment in the Normandy beach landing in Saving Private Ryan, where a shell goes off near Tom’s character and it blows it ears out for a moment, right?… As [his] ears ring, Tom looks around and he’s taking in all these chaotic horrific things going on around him and then boom, a shell lands and jerks you out of it.”

“That’s a great example of how both the camera and the sound can have a point of view in terms of what you’re focusing the audience on. This was a big challenge in Greyhound as well. The movie kind of sticks to Krause’s shoulder [and] his point of view and experiences. He’s our conduit. He’s our ‘way in’ to everything… The goal in sound design, I think, is always to make sure that the sound design helps support the point of view of what the character is experiencing. Sound design is trying to adhere to the same subjective point of view that the camera is or that the story is. Then, that boils down to balance and what you choose to bring to the foreground and what you choose to push to the background.”

In fact, point of view is essential to Greyhound. By following Krause’s character, the film offers a unique perspective on the battle that gives a personal feeling to the action.

“From the very beginning, Tom described this as the perfect 90-minute procedural,” Schneider explains. “He wanted it to be a rip-roaring, experiential event for the viewer. He wanted to honor and dramatize the experience of the Battle of Atlantic by dropping you off over Krause’s shoulder, without giving you anything to hold on to, and force you to follow him, move through his experiences and, in some case, without a full understanding of where you are and how things work. Over time, you would engage with the film, educate yourself, acquaint yourself, get yourself more comfortable, exactly the kind of experience you’d have if I beamed you aboard the USS Keeling, and you found yourself in a foreign world in the middle of a very dangerous battle. So, in that sense, making the whole movie experiential and Tom’s character becomes the human conduit for the person following him around, through all this.” 

More specifically, one of the most interesting aspects of Krause’s character is his devout faith. As a man who sees the value of every human soul, his faith puts his heart into conflict as he is called into battle. According to Schneider, this experiential aspect of Krause’s character helped provide weight to the film.

“In that regard, you introduce this character upfront and you’re in a very private moment, praying and preparing yourself emotionally and spiritually for the day and for the job at hand,” he describes. “We’re not even sure we know we understand [the situation] yet, but you get a sense of the kind of man you’re going to be moving through this journey with. So, now knowing this about him, that he lives his life within a certain set of principles and we get an immediate sense of what we can imagine that he holds dear, right? And then, boom. All this stuff begins to happen. So, in those little private peeks we get inside his mind that maybe the crew doesn’t absorb or get to see, we know enough him that we can begin to ask questions about the way he feeling about this.” 

“That’s where the soul comes in. You have to understand who a person is and what lives in their soul before you can you can explore who they are and what any of this means to you. It’s not a classical drama in the sense that there’s no soliloquies announcing who this man is or how he feels. The only way into that is what you can pull away, learn about and derive from the way he’s making these decisions. So, in that sense, getting to know the character is experiential. You only get to learn as much about this guy as you’re willing to study and pull out of it. You have to do a little bit of work if you want to know this man. The goal there is to engage audiences in their curiosity about who he is. We see him kill his first 50 soldiers. The ship is cheering, but he’s staring out at these floating dead bodies as a man of faith. He’s confronting the irony of having to kill. You’ve got a job to do, He’s got to protect. He’s got to serve, but, but he’s got to do something that’s in conflict with his nature and his spiritual principles. If we’ve done our job right, we created a moment there where you’re empathizing with his internal struggle. Now, you put that in your back pocket and you move forward through the rest. It’s an exploration of somebody’s soul moving through these horrific events.“

As Krause journeys across the treacherous waters, the film reminds the viewer of the importance of every decision that he makes. Using the theme of ‘yesterday, today and tomorrow’, Greyhound places great emphasis upon working through the struggles of the moment while keeping the end firmly in view. Interestingly, in this way, Schneider also sees comparisons between his film and the emotional strain of our current global pandemic.

“From the beginning, as the screenwriter, Tom was fascinated with the feeling of what he calls ‘stasis’,” he explains. “Looking back at WWII, it has a beginning, a middle and an end. But, if you can try for a moment to imagine the world shortly after we entered the war where the entire world was on fire in a fist fight with itself, nobody knew who was going to win. Nobody knew what their fate would be. Nobody knew when it would end, right? In many ways, without even knowing it would occur, we’re living in similar times with the pandemic. We’re fighting this war against this virus and nobody really knows where we’re going and how long it’ll take. It’s a disquieting feeling but the best you can do inside of all that is maintain vigilance. We got yesterday, we got today and we’re going to have tomorrow. You hold onto that… Krause wants to succeed. He’s got his eye on the end. He doesn’t know when it’ll come, but he’s fighting for the end. Then, Charlie [his XO, tries] to remind him that the battles aren’t won in a moment. It’s about getting from yesterday to today, because, if you do that enough times, land will appear. That’s kind of where we are now in the world. We’ll get there.” 

For full audio of our interview with Aaron Schneider, click here.

Greyhound is currently streaming on AppleTV+.

Sipping from the Cup of Life: 1on1 with Sean Cisterna (FROM THE VINE)

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In his latest film, From the Vine, director Sean Cisterna (Kiss and Cry) shows that, like a glass of fine wine, it can be refreshing to go home again.

From The Vine tells the story of downtrodden CEO Marco Gentile (Joe Pantoliano), a man experiencing a moral crisis. Burned out and broken, Marco finds himself lost in a sea of corporate nonsense and he quits his job on a whim. Despite the protests of his wife, Marina (Wendy Crewson), Marco then decides to uproot his life and return to his grandfather’s old vineyard in Italy to re-calibrate his moral compass. As he reconnects with his heritage, Marco’s venture offers the surrounding town of Acerenza a sustainable future that may also signal a fresh start for his family as well. 

Having grown up in Toronto, Cisterna shares that his initial interest in this story stemmed from his desire to find a link between his Canadian home and Italian heritage.

“I’m Canadian and Italian,” he explains. “so I was looking specifically for a project to shoot both in Canada and in Italy. When I put out that call, a number of projects came across my desk. Then, so did this novel Finding Marco, which the film is based on. [After] I read that, I got in touch with the author [Kenneth Canio Cancellara] and that’s how it started.”

By blending Italian neo-realism with fantasy elements, the film is both creative and engaging in its stylistic choices. Reflecting on what led him to make such unique choices to build the narrative, Cisterna believes that it was the best way to communicate the unique perspective of the source material.

“I think one of the challenges of the book is that it was very introspective,” Cisterna considers. “It was like a first-person recollection of this character going back to his hometown in Southern Italy, but it was very hard to externalize that into film form. We really wanted to play with having the town feel like it’s coming back to life when Marco returns to Italy. So, we had the statues that sort of awaken when he’s once again back in his hometown after many years. Vine leaves come to life. We have all these little flourishes and animations, just to suggest that the town itself is rejuvenated with this character’s re-emergence.”

When the time came to cast the character of Marco, Cisterna was thrilled for Joe Pantoliano to come onboard for the lead role. Given the fact that he’s best known for playing more dangerous or aggressive characters, Cisterna was excited to give him the chance to explore his range in a more tender role.

“I’d always known Joe as a bad guy,” he reasons. “Every character I’d seen are these over the top bad guys with guns and he’s either playing a cop or a monster. I just loved the idea of seeing him in a romantic lead, something so far from the realm of what we know him as. When you give a strong actor that might be known as something else an opportunity like this, I think they take it seriously and want to shine at something else to showcase their chops. Joe was just a remarkable person to have on set in Italy. Everybody loves him. He’s an amazing storyteller. So, the cast and crew appreciated his presence in the film.”

In one of the film’s more unique cultural twists, Cisterna even added an Italian version of Blue Rodeo’s iconic song Lost Together to the soundtrack. Recorded by Laura Cavacece and arranged by Mark Alexander, Cisterna explains that the idea stemmed from his desire to find a musical connection between the two worlds. 

“I was just looking for some sort of musical link between Canada and Italy,” he remembers, “and I couldn’t really find a pre-existing song that would’ve worked. Then I thought, ‘what if we take a popular Canadian anthem and rerecord in Italian?’ That kind of gave us that musical bridge between our two countries. That was the main. I thought that Laura Cavacece, the singer here in Canada, did an incredible job translating that iconic song into Italian.”

Featuring stunning cinematography in both Italy and Toronto, the film allowed him to play with the visuals creatively by holding the two cultures up against one another and compare their ideologies as well.

“We played with the look of [the two cultures] as well,” describes Cisterna. “All of the scenes in Canada or most America are very linear, the colors are muted. They have a lot of grays and silvers and blacks, whereas Italy is more earth tones and rolling hills, that sort of thing. So, we played a lot with the look of the two geographical areas, even through wardrobe. The characters [in Toronto] are wearing tight clothing and a stuffy sort of business attire, whereas in Italy, it’s far looser. It’s just a visual representation of what it looks like to work in both Canada and Italy. In Canada, we’re very rigid with time and our schedule. Behind the scenes, we stuck to our schedule as much as possible. In Italy, it’s very hard to stick to a schedule because there’s wine at lunchtime and there’s naps. There’s a fun dichotomy shooting between the two cultures, for sure.”

Filled with history and charm, Italian culture heavily influences the manner that they develop their wine (and vice versa). At a time when technological advances seem to drive every aspect of industry, Cisterna points out the value in doing things ‘the old ways’ and even felt compelled to highlight these practices in his script.

“It’s hard to dismiss centuries of people who have come before us and perfected the craft,” he argues. “I don’t know. It’s just hard to argue against the beauty of tradition. Even there are just these flourishes in the script that we added that when we got there [that we] learned from the old winemakers in town, like the whole trick about the lighting candles in the barrel house when they’re doing the punch down of the crust on the top of the wine. The fermenting wine releases carbon dioxide, and the old winemakers would put candles in there and, if the room filled up with enough CO2, it would extinguish the candles. That was a cue for the winemaker to leave right away because these dangerous gases were in the air. And so, yeah, there’s just a beauty in that natural alarm system. So, it was just really, really cool to incorporate that into the film.” 

By honouring the value of doing things in ‘the old ways’, From the Wine also speaks to the spiritual refreshment that takes place when we take the time to slow down. Though he believes that lives of patience may be a challenge in our culture of immediacy, Cisterna also feels that, like a fine wine, it also reaps the greatest rewards

“I think we want instant results for our hard work,” he states. “That’s one thing that when you make a film about wine, you know. Wine takes time to ferment, to turn from a grape into like a drinkable, glorious beverage but, it takes months and years for it to be appreciated. In North America, I think we just want that instant satisfaction. So, the characters reminding Mark to be patient is something he has to can relearn. That’s the beauty about working in Europe for a bit, man. The pace is so deliberately slower and it just does not feel as stressful when you’re making a movie in Italy.”

“When you’re here in North America, our jobs—or at least pre-COVID—were kind of all consuming,” he continues. “There’s a rigid structure where you wake up and head down the DVP and then… do your work, and check out when the sun is no longer there. Maybe [you] spend an hour with the family before bedtime. So, the difference [between] a job and mapping a life is just the balance of everything. A bit of work, bit of family and rest for yourself. It’s kind of like wine. All these things have to come together to make them the perfect wine. I think that’s a good analogy for how one should live their life.” 

Like the character of Marco himself, Cisterna also believes that slowing down can be a life-giving process, especially when it means investing our lives in helping others.

Says Cisterna, “I think when you’re (and I’m guilty of it as well) so consumed with a project and you’re racing towards the clock to get something done, your ethics and commitments to family or friends seem to go out the window when there’s a deadline. So, having this deliberately slower pace and isolated towards one single goal, like the rebuilding of his grandfather’s vineyard. This goal is a meaningful goal to help rejuvenate this town. It’s a selfless act. And I think having that time to himself in Italy recalibrated his moral compass to his business skills for the betterment of the people.”

Given the amazing experience to reconnect with his heritage and explore such important ideas, developing this From the Vine has been a particularly rewarding experience for Cisterna. Asked if there’s anything that he’s learned about himself through this process, he feels that this journey has challenged him to bring better balance to his own life.

“I almost want to embrace more of a European lifestyle where I can balance things a bit better in my life,” Cistera ponders. “I know when I get consumed with projects, it’s all I can think about. I’m in film mode 24/7. It’s good to have that other perspective and other selfless things happening around me, where I can devote my time to even bettering someone else’s life or doing something for my community. So, I think the overall slowing down the still pace and using your skill to better our community is what I want to take away from this experience.” 

For full audio of our interview with Sean Cisterna, click here.

From the Vine is available on demand now.

Films in Full Colour #4 – MOONLIGHT

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We, at ScreenFish, believe that we are all created in God’s image and want to show our support where we can to those in the Black Community who continue to battle against systemic racism. While our team strives for diversity, we can always do better ourselves in giving voice to those who need the chance to speak out and be heard. 

In our new series, ‘Films in Full Colour’, we will be examining films that explore issues specifically within the black community. For each episode, my co-host will be Jordan Thoms, pastor of Warden Underground Church in Toronto and our hope is that, through the lens of film, we might be able to shine light on the issues faced every day by African Americans. This week, Jordan and I welcome back Erico Kabongo to talk about male role models, confidence in our identity and sexual stereotyping in the black community in Barry Jenkins’ Moonlight.

You can also stream the episode above on podomatic, Alexa (via Stitcher), Spotify or Soundcloud! Or, you can download the ep on Apple Podcasts or Google Play!

Want to continue the conversation at home?  Click the link below to download ‘Fishing for More’ — some small group questions for you to bring to those in your area.

Films in Full Colour #4: MoonlightDownload