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1on1 with Kristine Stolakis about Pray Away

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I recently had a chance to visit via Zoom with Kristine Stolakis, the director of Pray Away, a Netflix documentary about the “ex-gay” movement and conversion therapy that hundreds of thousands of LGBTQ+ people underwent in the last fifty years. The basis of that therapy has been discredited and denounced by medical and psychological groups and outlawed for licensed therapists in some states. It continues to be done in many church settings, however. Pray Away will be available on Netflix on August 3.

In the press notes, you mentioned that the subject came to your attention by way of your uncle. Are you comfortable talking about that?

I appreciate you asking that, but yeah.

I got the topic because my uncle went through conversion therapy when he came out as trans as a child. He went through conversion therapy at a time when every therapist was a conversion therapist back in the Sixties. He was put on antidepressants, which was a pretty common treatment at the time, and that began a lifelong battle with various mental health issues which included addiction—prescription medication as well as addiction more generally—anxiety, depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, suicidal ideations, all these things that I’ve come to learn are quite common for people that go through some form of conversion therapy. I knew my uncle during a really special ten years of good mental health. He was my babysitter growing up. I lived 25 minutes away from him in Upstate New York. I spent most days after school on his couch with him telling me stories, which was very lovely and special and wonderful—a wonderful time in my life. As I got older the mental health challenges continued to mount. I really saw him live with his trauma and the aftermath of his trauma.

So when I went to film school, he passed away unexpectedly a few weeks before I went to film school, and I decided I wanted my first feature to be about the conversion therapy movement. When I started doing research, I was very prepared to feel very angry at the people who led the conversion therapy movement, because I’d witnessed first hand the pain and trauma that resulted from that teaching. I frankly anticipated finding straight, homophobic people and transphobic people running conversion therapy or ex-LGBTQ ministries, but what I found was LGBTQ Christians who claimed that they themselves had changed. And they were teaching others to do the same.

For me, that claim of change really helped me understand my uncle’s desperation that change was around the corner. Because until that moment it was really hard for me to understand why my uncle had committed basically his entire life to the idea of change, and he really believed that what I’ve come to understand as the ex-LGBTQ belief system that being LGBTQ in some way is both a sickness and a sin. It was the claim of change that these leaders made that really clicked in something for me about my uncle’s life. That’s when I transformed from a family member who cared about someone who hurt quite a bit to a filmmaker who said, “Oh, this is what I want to shine a light on.” This movement really is an example of hurt people hurting other people—of internalized hatred, homophobia, and transphobia being wielded outward. And a lot of my anger transformed into sadness, because I saw that this larger culture of homophobia and transphobia was essentially training leaders. That really is the way this movement works.

The other piece of the puzzle when I started doing research that made me go, “Oh, there’s really a film here”, is my growing understanding during the research process that this is something that continues into today. We know that nearly 700,000 people in the US alone have gone through some version of this. We know it’s been used on every major continent. And I say “major” because we don’t know of a recorded case in Antarctica. This is very present in many religious communities across the country. Both of those things, the idea of studying how power works, which is why the movement continues, even though, as many do in my film, leaders defect—leaders come out again and say “No, no, no, I didn’t mean the things I said. I was lying or I was lying to myself. I’m filled with regret. This is a terrible thing.” The movement continued despite  those leaders defecting. That was one piece of the puzzle I really wanted to make a film about. The other was to bring the history into the present and show that this movement that causes a lot of pain continues.

PRAY AWAY. Cr. NETFLIX

Early on Michael Bussee says “We were doing what we thought God wanted us to do.” How did that attitude affect how you tried to represent these people in your film?

I know first hand that many people heading conversion therapy or ex-LGBTQ movement are trying to do the right thing. For people who grew up religiously, or express what the right thing is through religion in some way, that can mean that they think God is asking them to do this. That is a very powerful motivator—to believe that you are on the path to change yourself—and a very powerful motivator to “help” other people. I think that motivation, those good intentions, can blind people to the pain that they’re causing. It can make them through denial, or sometimes through the structure of their ministries, push away people that don’t want to change anymore, that have addiction issues after going through this. It can blind leaders to the pain that they’re causing, because they are so motivated from what I think ultimately is a good place.

Something we talked a lot about in the edit room in making this film was trying to make a film that is compassionate. Because this is a movement in which the leaders are often victims of conversion therapy themselves. So we wanted to capture that, but we also did try in the film to hold leaders, both former and present, accountable by weaving in a survivor’s story as well, which is the story of Julie Rogers, who like my uncle, primarily participated in the movement through not being in the position of leadership, but receiving these messages as a teenager and then in her young adult phase. And that was how creatively we worked to say this does cause pain, true pain, witness this pain. And also, we did try to honor the fact that this is not a system of just bad apples. This is people, especially in the beginning that think that they’re doing the right thing, and in answer to your question, things that God might even be asking them to do this thing.

I’ll say one other piece of that, because it’s a really rich question, that I haven’t said in other outlets, and also know that you are someone who lives in a religious world. There is a very common idea in this world that I’ve seen a lot, which is that God shows his love through challenges, through pain, through suffering. I saw that a lot. I think that very sadly gets in the minds of many leaders, and participants, that if they are suffering, they are actually on the path to change. I think that for people who are trans and gay, suffering is a part of the package when you live in a transphobic and homophobic world. Asking people to suffer, it confuses people thinking it’s their responsibility to change rather than the world’s responsibility to change.

I would urge religious leader who are trying to figure out how to make sure, that they are being clear that they don’t support conversion therapy; they don’t support the ex-LGBTQ movement. They need to proactively affirm and fight for LGBTQ folks. Because the message that being trans and gay is wrong is so common and ubiquitous, I think in Christianity in general, that unless you actively fight against it, there’s a good chance that your congregation is going to get that message. I think underneath that is the assumption that you’re going to suffer, and that’s okay. We’ve got to stop that, and I think we can stop that if we see this as a way to prevent children suffering versus a political issue. Yes, that idea of suffering as a form of God’s love is an ideology that I see being passed around that I think ultimately hurts people.

PRAY AWAY. Randy Thomas in PRAY AWAY. Cr. NETFLIX

A good part of your film deals with the political power dynamic of the religious right. What was the main insight you discovered in that area?

I was very stressed and saddened by the way in which the Christian right, politically speaking, would use the stories of people who claimed that they had changed to support anti-LGBTQ legislation. So in our film that is explored through recounting the story of Prop 8 in California which made gay marriage illegal in the state in 2008. Outside of the scope of the film, we’re seeing that happen with anti-trans legislation, which is being passed a tremendous amount in the past year. We’re seeing the way in which people who claim to be ex-trans or claim to be detransitioners, those stories are being used to support legislation that takes away trans rights for everyone, whether or not you are religious.

That is very sad to me, because it’s taking people who are already in a very vulnerable place, who, again, are victims of homophobia and transphobia more largely and putting them on a stage and saying “Please fight against your own community’s rights.” And again, I think that those organizations, they have a choice as our culture changes and we understand, based on so much research and so much antidotally, that LGBTQ people need to be supported and protected and loved. They are not a threat, to say the least. They have an opportunity, I think, to support these people in being truly who they are, but instead I saw them use these people, and that is incredibly insensitive to me.

You avoid telling the horror stories of the people who had undergone conversion therapy, but you allude to the trauma that people went through. Was it tempting to go to some of those dark places to make the point of the pain caused?

We have recorded cases, and there are plenty of them, of people who go through conversion therapy and experience physical pain, electric shock therapy, aversion therapy. That is abhorrent. And the vast majority of conversion therapy does look much less like that and much more like talk therapy—like sitting in a room with an individual who is either a licensed counselor or more often someone who is a religious leader who is acting as a pseudo-counselor, or perhaps it looks like a Tuesday night Bible study on the subject of homosexuality in the Bible, where the belief system that being LGBTQ is sick and sinful gets pushed forward and it’s kind of like AA model peer support. We want in the film to make sure that the main way conversion therapy is practiced is represented, so that people who are doing this didn’t see the film and go, “We don’t do that. We don’t shock people. Therefore, we’re not doing conversion therapy.” That being said, like the physical manifestation of trauma through self-harm is extremely common in this movement. We do explore that in the film, and also allude to the fact that sadly suicide is quite common in this world. We know that you who go through this are more than twice as likely to have attempted suicide. That is something that we do touch on in the film.

A big problem with the conversion therapy movement is that a lot of people who do it don’t see themselves as doing it. Everyone has the stereotype that conversion therapy happens in camps in the woods and it’s electric shock therapy. Much more often it’s happening in your church, down the street, by a pastor who might think they’re doing the right thing, who’s teaching pseudo-psychology that’s been disproven that’s been passed through a chain of information to this gay kid who came to them for help. That is conversion therapy. Call it whatever you want—pastoral counseling, I’ve heard, for example. We need to create a common understanding that starts a dialog that what’s happening in your church down the street might not look like the conversion therapy idea that you have in your mind, but it is. That’s why we took the approach we did in the film.

We really did represent conversion therapy as it happens most often in our country. And it mostly does happen in religious organizations. We know that about two-thirds of conversion therapy happens within religious organizations—religious colleges, Christian ministries, churches. It’s only about a third or less that happens with licensed counselors. So if you see, for example that conversion therapy has been banned in X state, that’s only for licensed counselors. It is important to do that work, but it doesn’t stop it where conversion therapy happens most. We have to have a culture shift. We have to have a national and international dialog that sees conversion therapy for what it is. And we need churches to stop what they’re doing because unfortunately laws cannot stop that. It has to be people changing their minds. So we really want to reach those people with this film.

PRAY AWAY. Julie Rodgers in PRAY AWAY. Cr. NETFLIX

We see some of your subjects in church now as openly LGBTQ persons. But I know that for some people church is just too painful. Did you note spiritual injury among these people as you talked with them?

Yes, absolutely. I saw two main types of reactions regarding spirituality following an experience of conversion therapy. This is of course a generalization. One set of reactions is “My religious life is so important to me I don’t want to have to give that up. And I cannot continue to live as someone who’s trying to change their sexuality or gender identity.” And a lot of people do find, because it absolutely exists, religious communities that fully accept people for who they are, and again, not only accept them, but fight for their rights to dignity. And for some people that is so healing, to be able to be in a church and have a pastor say, “Not only welcome, but we’re going to lobby for the Equality Act next week.” That can be so healing for people.

There are some people, to your point, where just being in a church almost can create a PTSD-like response, because of the pain and trauma people have endured often when they were children. For those people, sometimes the healthiest thing to do is to step away from trying to be a part of a community where your religion, your spirituality, is expressed through organized religion. For that group of people, I’ve seen the fact that going to brunch on Sunday with friends becomes very healing. And that’s okay too. We are not here to tell people how to heal. How to find community is up to the individual. If people want to express their religious life through organized religion, they can absolutely find places to do that. If people want to step away from organized religion and that to them feels like healing, that’s fantastic. So, I’ve seen both.

And to answer your question very directly, absolutely, spiritual wounds are a part of it. For a lot of people, they’ve grown up learning that having a relationship with a higher power, which often in this world is through God and through a relationship with Jesus, has to come with a cost. If you believe that for years, it can be very very hard to reengage with that form of relating to a higher power through organized religion. Again, it can create some kind of PTSD response. So, yeah. You hear survivors talk about this. “I didn’t only lose my sanity. I didn’t only lose my mental health and my physical health. I lost my relationship to God when I had to step away from this.” That’s where I think churches have to step up. They have a responsibility to say if you want to practice religion here in the way that you grew up, you’re welcome to do it. Churches have to be proactive if they want to fully affirm LGBTQ people, because it’s overwhelmingly the message that people still get is “you’re not welcome here,” and that has consequences.

PRAY AWAY. Cr. NETFLIX

Rewriting the History Books: 1on1 with Tracey Deer (BEANS)

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I remember the Oka Crisis. Or, at least, I thought I did.

As a pre-teen, I vaguely remember hearing the stories of the Mohawk people who protested the building of a golf course. I remember seeing it on the news and hearing the testimonies of those who were worried that things would escalate. Because I was so young though, I didn’t understand what was really going on or issues such as media bias. Maybe none of us outside the situation really did.

Thankfully, in her stunning new film Beans, writer/director Tracey Deer offers some much-needed perspective on the events that took place that summer. Set against the drama that took place in 1990s Quebec, Beans (Kiawentiio Tarbell) is a young girl who lives on the Mohawk reserve of Kahnawa:ke. Staying with her loving parents (Rainbow Dickerson and Joel Montgrand) and her little sister (Violah Beauvais), Beans lives a life of innocence and safety on the reserve. However, when a proposed expansion to a golf course threatens their burial ground, an armed stand-off develops between the Canadian government and Mohawk population, exposing the racist undercurrents of the local population against the Indigenous population. Unprepared for the hatred that she experiences, Beans must re-examine who she is and transform herself into her own kind of warrior.

Although Beans itself is a fictional story, the film showcases many true events that took place during the events of the Oka Crisis. Having grown up during that time herself, Deer used her personal experiences to shape the characters and story.

“’The film is inspired by true events’ is how we phrase it because all of the events depicted of the Oka Crisis in the film did happen,” she explains. “But my family in the movie is a fictional family. Beans, my protagonist, played by the incredible Kiawentiio is the emotional through line. The coming-of-age journey that she goes on is very much my coming-of-age journey. But I have placed the character in these various historical events [and] I wasn’t at all of them myself. Some of the things that she does and her experiences are not identical to my own, but the emotional through line, the feelings and the growth and the shattering of innocence, all of that, is pulled directly from my own coming-of-age summer.”

While Oka was a massively important event in Canadian culture, Deer notes that history has only ever told it from one side. However, Beans allowed her the opportunity to tell a more complete picture of what really took place and the damage that it caused her family.

“[Voice] is so important. It’s one of the big reasons it was so important to me to make this film,” says Deer. “The way the media [covered] that event 30 years ago did not at all jive with the experience I was having of it. The way they would talk about the Mohawk protesters. These were my neighbors, my cousins, my uncles, my aunties, and to call them terrorists and send the army in against them, it didn’t make any sense. So, it was important to me to show the other side of it—the inside out view of it—so that people could see what it was really like… For so long, the policy of the powers that be [in] the government is to squash us, divide and conquer and take. Oka was really that watershed moment where Indigenous people stood up and said ‘no more’. I’m so proud that we did that. I learned so much about our strength and our resiliency from that summer. I learned so much about the importance of voice and to have my voice heard.”

“I learned a lot of negative things [and] devastating, destructive things that almost destroyed me. I was suicidal at 15 because of all of that rage and all of that hatred was just living inside me. That was that sense of innocence. That sense of safety, the ability to dream, all of that was stolen from me that summer. And I don’t want that stolen from any more indigenous children. So, it’s important that we tell the story like it is and Canadians step up to right the wrongs of history and make sure that history doesn’t repeat itself.

Embedded within Beans lies a powerful question about the nature of resistance. Torn between her father’s more aggressive stance and her mother’s insistence on integrity, Beans must wrestle with what it means to stand up against injustice. By showing this tension, Deer wanted to highlight the value of both perspectives but also show the damage that hatred can do to the soul.

“It’s really the tight rope that I have walked my entire life,” she considers. “I would say certainly as an Indigenous filmmaker, I firmly believe that violence is like a disease. Hatred is a disease. When we put it on to others, it then grows in others and then it’s put in and then it continues. I say that because I know that that was my experience. I learned to hate that day when those rocks were thrown at us, when the back window was burst open and my sister got cut with glass. That is the moment that I learned to hate. Unlike Beans, who lashes out quite a bit in the movie, I wanted to show what that hate looks like. But, for me personally, that hate lived inside me and it started tearing me up.”

“We have to have a line that says violence is never the answer. We need to stand up for ourselves and we do need to be strong. As her mother says, you need to be able to stand up for what’s important to you. And I believe, for me, that is the line that there is a way to stand up and not feed the cycle. And I feel you see that in the scene where the women deescalate the violence. There are ways to do that and we have to get much better at doing that. I think we’re a society that turns to violence and turns to retribution and vengeance way too easily.”

Through Beans’ childlike lens, Deer remembers how these events affected her own childhood and reshaped her understanding of the world.

“That’s exactly what my adolescence felt like. It was a really carefree, fun childhood up until that summer,” she remembers. “That summer really, really shattered that when I realized that who I am is not welcome in the wider world. There’s no place for me. When those people threw those rocks at me, they told me I was worthless. They considered me and my family worthless. So, how as a child, how do you process that? How do you understand that? Okay, I am so worthless that they are allowed to throw rocks at me and the cops stand by and let that happen.”

“This film takes place during the backdrop of the Oka crisis, but incidents like this are happening across the country to this day, right?,” she continues. “Our children are being told by our society, by our country that they are not welcome. And we are told every day that it is not safe for us in the wider world. That is really what I wanted to get across, because I think that sense of entitlement and sense of safety is something that the majority of Canadians take for granted. It is a given that with the right motivation and the will, you can pursue your dreams. You have a tonne of examples of people just like you, who were doing every single thing in the world. So, if they can, why can’t you? You can do it. I want people to understand that that’s not the country that they present to us. If your child was Beans, and this is what she was going through, how would you feel about that? I believe we all have the ability to make a difference. We all have our personal sphere of power, so we can all do something about this. I want people to see this devastating journey that Beans goes on and leave the theater wanting to do what they can to prevent it from happening to any other young indigenous child.

Having said this, the obvious question remains whether or not things have changed in Canada since then. Considering the horrors of abuse that have taken place against the Indigenous children continue to lead the headlines, there remains a great deal of work to be done to heal the pain that has been caused. Even so, Deer also says that she believes some progress has been made.

“The film is a historical movie, you know. It took place 30 years ago but, as you said, the themes are all incredibly current,” she contends. “That makes me really sad and it makes me really angry because, on many levels, I don’t think we’ve come very far as a country in the way that the country handles Indigenous issues. I don’t think the country and the leadership are very good at listening to Indigenous people. I think that’s one of the big things that has to happen for change to happen is [that] Canadians need to become much better listeners and not be so quick to judgment or so quick to think that they know what the solution is. I think it’s just about listening and then doing, based on what you’ve heard.”

“Now, on the other hand, the thing is [that] I don’t want to be all just doom and gloom and dire. I do think there has been progress on some levels. I see it right now. I see that there’s an openness in this country to be hearing from us. There’s a willingness to take down those walls. It’s hard to take down those walls because those walls protect you from feeling implicated[and] responsible, but you are. This is your country, and these things are still happening across the country. The coming of age story for our indigenous kids is still incredibly similar to the story that you see in Beans. So, more work needs to be done. I do think that I am encouraged. I am an optimist, and I always look for ways to be helpful. And I am hopeful. I want to believe in this country and believe in Canadians because I need to. I need you all to do the work. It’s not on us to make things better for things that we didn’t because it’s up to Canadians to do that. So, my answer is twofold. We have not come far enough, but things are happening that are giving me hope.”

Beans is now available in theatres.

To see our complete conversation with Tracey Deer on YouTube, click here.

To hear our conversation with Tracey Deer, click here.

Cultural Crossovers: 1on1 with Will Gluck (PETER RABBIT 2: THE RUNAWAY)

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It’s no secret that the work of Beatrix Potter is beloved by her fans.

As the author of the Peter Rabbit franchise, Potter’s stories have been read to millions of children over the years around the world. Of course, these expectations also make translating these stories onscreen even more challenging, especially if you want to honour what has come before.

Directed by Will Gluck, Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway takes us back to McGregor’s garden for the wedding of Bea and Thomas (Rose Byrne and Dohmnall Gleeson). Though they have no kids of their own, Bea and Thomas have developed a makeshift family with the rabbits and other animals and all seems well in their abode. Even so, despite the fact that he wants to be a good rabbit, Peter (James Corden) can’t seem to break free from his reputation of causing trouble. Then, when Bea gets a call from a publishing company about her book, the family hops into the truck and travels to the city. Suddenly out of the garden, Peter finds himself in a world where being a rascal is celebrated. After he meets Barnabas (Lenny James), an old friend of his father, Peter is invited into the criminal underworld (well, for bunnies that is) and must decide what type of rabbit he wants to be.

After having so much fun with the crew directing the first entry, Gluck was excited to return to the world once again. Admittedly though, one of the other major factors in his decision was the opportunity to share the experience with his family as well. 

“I had an idea for the second one,” he explains. “I didn’t want to walk away from something, but I also wanted to bring my family down to Australia. We all moved down there for more than half a year and gave them a new experience and that was a big part of it, to be honest.”

“[We shot in] Sydney and London. We all moved down to Sydney and then we went to London… and they went to school down there. They all fell in love with the country. I [also] loved the crew the first time. I had such a great time. As you go through life, you realize that, when you meet people that you like and work well with, why not try to replicate it with them? I think, when I was younger, I probably would’ve not done it. But as you get older and say, ‘Wow, these are these people that are amazing. Let’s keep going.’” 

Having directed mostly character-driven films early in his career, the move to a CGI-heavy franchise was a difficult transition. Even so, he and his team embraced the challenge of blending computer effects with live action and fought hard to give it the same authentic feel of traditional filmmaking.

“I didn’t know anything in the first film. I was completely blind then,” Gluck recalls. “They always say being a director is having the illusion of control, but being director of a live action/CGI movie is not even an illusion. You have to just kind of give yourself up and trust everybody. It was such a fun process to learn. So, the second time, since I knew more about it, we could play even more. I know it’s something that people don’t notice but, for a CGI/live action movie, this is so, so complicated. They always say that the simplest things are so complicated to pull off, but we never wanted to do a stationary shot. We never wanted to make it easy for ourselves. We never locked off. The camera’s always moving. It’s just like it’s a regular live action movie, which makes it really hard. But everyone was up for the challenge and it was challenging but fun, ultimately.” 

Certainly, taking on the Peter Rabbit franchise is not an easy task. Beloved for generations, the works of Beatrix Potter held in high regard for their classic sensibilities and innocence. While Gluck did everything he could to respect these memories, he also recognizes that these memories are also tainted by our own sense of nostalgia.

“It’s challenging for many reasons,” Gluck begins. “I want to honor Beatrix Potter, for all the reasons you can think of. I feel incredible responsibility to the British people and the people in the Commonwealth who loved and grew up with Peter Rabbit. I did too. But you also have to make a movie that people want to see. So, it’s a constant dance. Now, if I were to actually think all the time about how much pressure it is, I would be paralyzed. So, at some point, you just have to say, ‘we’re doing it this way, and this is the way it is.’ It’s tough [because] it’s Beatrix Potter. She’s so beloved as she should be. She’s so beloved.” 

“Everyone has their own memory of Beatrix Potter,” he continues. “But, really what their memory is… when they read the book or when they read the book to their kids, like me. It’s not necessarily the actual [material]. I’ve had so many people say, how could you kill Peter Rabbit’s father? I’m like, I didn’t kill Peter Rabbit’s father. Beatrix Potter put him in a pie. So, we took every inch of the source material we could and used it. So it’s more their fond memories of the grandmother, of their dishes, of their samplers. That’s a tough memory to mess around with. It’s dangerous.“

As he attempted to blend more modern humour with Potter’s fabled characters, Gluck did his best to bring them together in a healthy balance. Despite the franchise’s success, he’s still not entirely certain that he was able to fully accomplish his goal.

“I don’t know if we did [find the right balance],” admits Gluck. “A lot of people think we didn’t. The majority of people in the UK think we did, but there’s a lot of people who think we [didn’t]. Listen, there’s a line in the movie [where] Rose Byrne says ‘I’d be spinning in my grave if my pictures ever get turned into some puerile hip-fest.’ All those lines in that scene were taken directly verbatim from critics.”

Over the course of his career, Gluck has created a wide variety of film styles, ranging from more R-rated comedies such as Easy A and Friends with Benefits to the family-oriented, CGI-heavy Rabbit franchise. When he thinks about what types of stories he wants to tell, he believes that the best stories are more upbeat and stem from our common experiences.

“I’ve done all different types of movies [and] all different genres,” he says. “I don’t like seeing bummers of movies. I like seeing movies that have really bummer stuff in them, but ultimately are very optimistic and positive. That’s what I choose to watch. I understand the value of the other movies. I want to be on a happy, fun and a funny set. Whenever I have to do dramatic scenes… just a straight sex scene, or even an action scene. I’m bored out of my mind because it seems like math to me. I like kind of fun, upbeat, funny movies about the human condition.” 

For Gluck, the driving force behind his creative process remains his own life experiences, regardless of style.

“All the stuff I do for a living is informed by my life,” he contends. “It’s a hundred percent. So, it’s what I’m going through, what I enjoy and who I’m with. Friends with Benefits is a sex comedy because that was before you got married. Before that, [Easy A was] in high school. Then, guess what? I had kids, so now I want to do stuff for kids. It’s’s not calculated. It’s not that hard to figure out. My next movie is adult action comedy because my kids are now like, all right, we got that part. Dad give us something for us. So, my family is always so close to me and that’s what I’m inspired by.” 

As with any film, Gluck believes that the soul of the character matters most. With the latest entry into the franchise, he wanted to show Peter at a time in his life when he had to decide for himself what type of rabbit that he wants to be.

“In the first movie, in my head, Peter was 11 or 12 years old and figuring life out,” Gluck points out. “He thinks he knows better, as we all do, often wrong, never in doubt. Then, when he gets older, and in this movie he’s about 14, 15 years old, you go through different things. We wanted to kind of honor the time in your life when you are right at that crossroads and deciding who you are going to be in life, whether you’re going to be who people tell you to be, or whether you’re going to be who you really are. That really is kind of like an identity search for the soul of Peter. This is the moment in life so many people figuring out who they are, right. It’s in high school, [at the age of] 15, 16. That’s when they kind of take that path and it kind of imprints them forever. Some people change. My theory is that no one does, but some people change. So, this is kind of like the fight for Peter’s soul in this movie. Unlike other kids in life, you actually saw him dealing with it and talking about it and, ultimately, he makes the right choice, I think. This movie was kind of imprinting his soul.” 

Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway is now available on demand and in theatres.

To see our complete conversation with Will Gluck on YouTube, click here.

Rewriting the History Books: 1on1 with Questlove (SUMMER OF SOUL)

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One of the most horrific things that can be done to a culture is to erase it from history. But it’s always something special when those storie are finally given the representation that they deserve.

The directorial debut by Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson, the new documentary  Summer of Soul takes the viewer back to the summer of 1969. At a time where Woodstock is fondly remembered and the moon landing changed the world, The Harlem Cultural Festival also made a mark on cultural landscape. Filled with six weeks of incredible concerts by Stevie Wonder, Nina Simone, Sly & the Family Stone, Gladys Knight & the Pips, Ray Baretto, Abbey Lincoln & Max Roach and more, one would expect that the fest would be as well-known and fondly remembered as Woodstock itself. However, until now, the footage was never seen and largely forgotten. 

Considering that the festival that had seemingly been removed from the history books, Questlove was shocked when he first found out what had taken place.

“I first inadvertently saw the footage back when the Roots went to Tokyo in 1997,” starts Questlove. “My translator for that tour, who knew I was a soul fan, took me to a place called the Soul Train Cafe. So, unbeknownst to me, I was watching two minutes of Sly and the Family Stone’s performance. But, because it was what I knew to be camera two (which was the bird’s eye view of a nosebleed section), I didn’t know I was watching the Harlem Cultural Festival. I just assumed that all festivals in the ‘60s were from Europe because America really didn’t have that culture yet. [Then, I] find out exactly 20 years later when David Dinnerstein and Robert Fivole told me that they had this footage and they wanted me to direct the film. So, first seeing it without knowing it in ‘97 and then it was presented to me in 2017. Even then, I didn’t believe it was real.”

As a first-time filmmaker, Questlove also notes that this experience has been formative in his development as both an artist as a storyteller.

“Without being all touchy feely with it, this project more than anything has helped me develop as a human being,” he reflects. “Sometimes artists can be really neurotic, living inside our heads… I will not hesitate to admit that, of all the things that I’ve done creatively, this is the one that I was really, really nervous about. And, by nervous, I mean, scared, partly because I’m a perfectionist. What I will say is that this film has really brought out an awareness and a competence in me that I never knew that I ever had. A lot of the times everything that I do creatively is behind a shield. Behind the drum set… With the exception of teaching at NYU, you guys have never like experienced me one-on-one, There is always a barrier that gets you from getting in there. That’s sort of how I thought I liked it. So, I will say that, with the amount of confidence that I got as a human being, this was a game changer for me.”

“But on a technical side of things, I also learned the power of editing. Most Roots albums are these gargantuan, ‘everything but the kitchen sink’ projects. This is what I’m bringing to the table. My first draft was like three hours and 35 minutes. This is where I really learned that less is more and less is impactful. The three hour and 35-minute version of the film probably wouldn’t have hit you in the gut more than a very succinct two hours.”

Although, with all that he has learned throughout the filmmaking process, he also felt that his skills as an artist also allowed him to tell the story in his own unique voice.

“Me being a DJ’s is exactly what informed me on how to tell the story,” Questlove  explains. “There was a point where I was wondering ‘Could I take the same approach that I take deejaying or putting a show together with this movie?’ That’s exactly what I did. So, for five months, I just kept it on 24-hour loop, no matter where I was in the house or in the world. If anything gave me goosebumps, then I took a note of it. I felt like, if there were at least 30 things that gave me goosebumps, we could have a foundation.”

“I tend to work backwards whenever I’m given a project,” he continues. “The first thing I think about is what is the last 10 minutes of the show or the set that makes the person that goes home think ‘Man, that was incredible’ because it’s usually the last 10 minutes of a show or a presentation that’s your chance to make your audience [forget the rest]. I’ve had disastrous Roots shows where I knew, ‘okay, if I make these the last two songs and do this certain things, they’ll forget about what happened in middle of the show.’ That happens a lot. So, that’s a trick I play. Of course, I wanted to make my entry in the film world my version of inserting myself in this film… I figured that [Stevie Wonder’s drum solo] was the best way for me to crash land into your lives as a director, without really being about me. We have not seen Stevie wonder in a sort of in this light of a drummer so I thought that was the perfect beginning. That’s pretty much how I crafted the show. I searched for my ending. I knew I wanted what my beginning was and then I worked backwards. So .I added it and paste this film backwards as opposed to the other way”

Taking place in the backdrop of 1969 when the Civil Rights Movement was at its peak, its shocking that the festival has remained deleted from the history books. Asked what he believes needs to take place in order to prevent such erasure from happening again, Questlove suggests that conversations have changed in a healthier way in recent years.

“This is a step forward,” he points out. “This is the first time that I’m really seeing conversations that were never had before, especially post-pandemic. We weren’t talking about mental health for Black people and we really weren’t speaking of Black erasure. Previously, before we sort of coded it as like cultural appropriation, which was like a really politically correct way of saying… ‘Yo man, why always bite my [stuff]‘ or whatever. It was always sort of draped in slang so that you couldn’t see the heart or the sincerity of what the problem was… I know this one thing: this isn’t the only out there… So, perhaps maybe this film can be an entry sort of a sea change for these stories to finally get out. But really for us to acknowledge… one of the first ever like Black festivals is important to our history. Normally, the process is that we talk about it for three months and then we forget about it. So, that’ll remain to be seen, but I know as for me, I didn’t come into this wanting to be a director or any of those things. I do believe that again, creativity is transferable. This is not my last rodeo with telling our stories. If anything, I’m more obsessed now than ever to make sure that history is correct, so that we don’t forget who this artist is, or that event.”
Featuring performances from Stevie Wonder, Sly and the Family Stone and many more, Questlove was fascinated by the balance of styles that took place within the festival. With the development of Summer of Soul, he attempted to mirror that blend of jazz, soul and gospel music in order to show the therapeutic nature of the moment.

“As far as I’m concerned, there was a perfect balance of soul music, free jazz and salsa music,” says Questlove. “For me, I kind of saw the gospel and free jazz as one in the same thing. Oftentimes, I’m a guy that’s always doing litmus tests with people, as far as testing music out on them… but there’s one thing I always noticed. When I play really intense soul music for younger people, they tend to find James Brown’s yelling humorous. That’s funny to them because we live in a meme culture. So, those three seconds of something out of context can seem funny to people. There was a lot of, I guess, what we can call primal musical expression or primitive, exotic expression, or, in layman’s terms, like people acting wild. I wanted people to know that that was more of a therapeutic thing than anything.”

“So, if it’s a gospel singer, that’s catching the spirit. If it’s Sunny Sharrock doing one of the most atonal destructive, violent souls I’ve ever seen on a guitar… I wanted people to know that this just isn’t black people acting wild and crazy. This was a therapeutic thing and, for a lot of us, gospel music was the channel because we didn’t know about dysfunctional families and therapy and life coaches that we have now.” 

With such a personal project, it’s fair to say that Questlove found it a particularly emotional experience. For him, one of the most surprising elements was the realization that the type of musical code-switching of that era still affects his own life today.

“The emotional component of the film was something that I wasn’t preparing for and really didn’t know what was going to happen,” Questlove explains. “The sort of emotional trigger moment, at least where the Billy Davis Jr. and Maryland McCoo portion, was the fact that… my memory of all the 5th Dimension performances I saw were sort of composed and unsteady and very passionate, sophisticated. This performance of theirs at the Harlem Cultural Festival was closer to that of a gospel revival. I’ve never heard Billy Davis—with the exception of one of their songs on their solo records—use his raspy gospel baritone, like that sort of James Brown sort of thing. So, I thought it was humorous. I was like, ‘Wow, Billy, I’ve never heard you use your gospel register before.’ They kind of opened the door and said, it was because we were comfortable and excited to be there. It wasn’t the pressure of [being] on the Ed Sullivan show or the Jack Parr tonight show.” 

“And I realized then, Black people have to code switch all the time. It’s not just in the office space, but even in entertainment, because I related to that. I’m a guy that has to adjust his show… What’s the audience look like? I had to code switch all my shows that aren’t transferable to each audience. I have to adjust it for every place we go to. And I noticed that, and that was their way of telling me that they too had to go through that pressure.”

However, at the same time, Questlove also points out that one of the most emotional components to the project was the fact that it validated the memories of so many who felt the sting of that erasure of Black history..

“Opening that door is also Mussa Jackson,” he remembers. “He was five years old at the time and I was a little bit, like ‘What five-year-old is going to give me insight of the emotional deepness of being there when he’s five years old?’ He is the thing that won us over was like, this is my first memory ever, but he wasn’t sure he had it… So, once we showed him the footage, suddenly the tears started welling because for him as a 57-year-old, he didn’t know if he remembered it. He didn’t know if anyone believed him. If I didn’t believe this happened as an adult, who’s going to believe a ten-year-old… So, for him, it was sorta like that little boy that cried wolf exoneration moment. Like, I knew this happened. That’s why I started crying. So, I didn’t realize there was a heavy emotional component really until we allowed people to give commentary. I’m so glad we made that decision instead of not doing that.” 

Summer of Soul is available on Hulu on July 2nd, 2021.

To hear the full press conference with Questlove, click here.

Play It Again: 1on1 with Cody Fenwick and Joel Lightman (Canadian Dueling Pianos)

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It goes without saying that we all miss being around one another.

Whether it’s enjoying live entertainment or simply going to a bar with friends, one of the most detrimental effects of the pandemic has been the way it has stripped us of our ability to come together. As a result, during the incredible challenges set before them, many live performers have (understandably) opted to slow down and wait for the pandemic to subside. However, even with overwhelming odds, there are those who were able to pivot successfully.

One particular team who managed to adapt to the online world are dueling pianists Cody Fenwick and Joel Lightman. As the voices behind the Great Canadian Dueling Pianos, Fenwick and Lightman have managed to turn their in-person performances into a bi-weekly online show. Backed by a supportive community, the two men have continued to build relationships with their followers and bring the gift of live music into people’s homes. Looking back at how this journey first began, Fenwick recalls a visit to a raucous piano bar.

“The first time I saw dueling pianos”, Fenwick begins, “I couldn’t get in to the venue because it was so rammed full of people. There was a line up and I said, ‘Man, there’s something going on here.’ This was about 10 years back. With ten years of doing this under my belt now,  I know it’s the interaction between the pianists and the crowd and the fact that we’re doing nothing but requests that draws people.”

“We realized that we could take this to corporate and party audiences all over Canada, because there aren’t really any other companies here that do it,” says Lightman. “So, we started Great Canadian Dueling Pianos. Within eight months, we were flying all over the country. Within a year, we’d started our own dueling pianos club in downtown Toronto. It was a bit of a whirlwind and then, of course, the last year has been even more of a whirlwind.”

With the move to virtual performances, the most difficult challenge has been maintaining their connection with a live audience. Even so, the two men have done everything they could to make the best of the situation.“I suppose when you’re doing stuff like Guns ‘N’ Roses, we often rely on the fact that we expend so much energy playing these songs,” Lightman says. “They’re so rocking that, when people are in the room, they can feed off that. Doing that to an empty room with just Cody and I in it is different. There’s always that element of sterility when you watch something on a stream. I think we’ve definitely worked very hard to try and transcend that.”

“We really had to say ‘How do we do the same show with the same energy when it’s just us two?’ There’s always a synergy between performer and participant, right? They give us the energy and then we return that energy and we all play off one another. Then, when you take the audience away and just put us in a room with a bunch of cameras, we had to learn how to pretend that the audience was there. It’s very easy just to sit there and play – almost like piano practice. That’s the biggest mistake I’ve seen in other people’s streams – not treating it with the same enthusiasm as you would a real live show. We’ve definitely gotten better at it over time!”

“When this whole thing started at the end of March,” Fenwick says, “we started streaming as an experiment. We had no concept as to whether or not it would actually work. We also didn’t know how long the pandemic was going to last.”

“We did the first show and partnered with the Daily Bread Food Bank.” Lightman says. “we made a fairly astonishing amount of money, and we thought, ‘If we can keep this going, this is a way of surviving. And we’ve actually thrived. I believe that consistency was key to our success. The fact that we do this every Wednesday and Saturday has built a community of people who expect us to be there and are excited to come and share music with us. The most important thing that we’ve done is build a community.”

“We’re also doing corporate shows.” Fenwick says. “We have a wonderful client base and before this all started, we had a full calendar. Everything initially just disappeared when COVID began, but the ability for us to actually keep playing these events by appearing virtually is priceless.”With each online performance, Fenwick and Lightman continue to build the dedication of their audience.

Due to the flexibility of the online world, they have found that their following are willing to bring the two pianists wherever they go, including on vacations.

“It’s pretty amazing. We definitely have a core of about a hundred people who will come at least once a week,” says Lightman. “We’ve thrown some of our profits back into advertising and making sure that new eyes see the shows. But there’s definitely a core of people who like the concept, love coming and listening no matter where they are. We’ve had people who’ve taken us camping with them and people listening in their hot tubs. We’ve had people send us pictures of themselves, sat on the dock of their cottage, listening to the music. It’s amazing how far our reach has jumped.”

“We accepted an invitation to go and play a block party right in the middle of COVID last summer,” Fenwick says. “We packed the pianos up, went out there and they had invited the entire block. So, we played the cul-de-sac with each household out on their porches. The organisers invited us back, and we decided that once we’d made $2,000 for the food bank, we’d return and do a show in full drag, which was a first for me. Every opportunity that we’ve had to play, we’ve tried to capitalize on and do it safely and responsibly.”

At first, it may seem odd that there would be such demand for live piano music at a time like this. However, there remains something universally profound about the nature of music. Asked what it is that they believe affects their audience so deeply, Lightman argues that it’s the incredible human connection that they maintain with their viewers that keeps bringing people back.

“I’d like to think that we’re very honest about what we do,” he explains. “So if you ask me for a song that I may have heard 20 years ago, then I will happily give that a go for you, but it’s not going to be the most rehearsed thing in the world. There is definitely something very human about us saying that we will rise to any challenge you throw at us. You see a band and they’re absolutely perfect. That’s awesome. I play with a bunch of bands like that, but that is not dueling pianos. You’re not coming to see a choreographed performance. You’re coming to see two people who are very talented try and do anything that you could ask of them. I think that’s what really resonated with people. It’s very human because there have definitely been songs that I have started and, within a minute, have certainly regretted.”

“We both have. It’s just one of those high wire acts. That’s part of the human connection that you’re talking about,” Fenwick says. “People like to see that. All musicians know the benefit of music in people’s lives, especially when things get really difficult. It’s a mental health issue. But I think it takes some people by surprise how important live music actually is to them – because they’ve never had to be without it before. It’s a great testament to the human spirit and it was quite a surprise to both of us.”

Of course, despite the fact that the show focuses on requests from its audience, both men have their favourite songs that they love to play as well.

“One of the crowd pleasers that I really like is Bohemian Rhapsody,” says Fenwick. “That really works well because people love to sing along and are often surprised that two people can create the necessary wall of sound to pull it off. Of course, we also have the ubiquitous requests. The tunes you know are going to be requested night after night. But I love playing longer tunes that have a more pianistic approach to them. That gives us a chance to stretch out and gives us fresh opportunities to get the audience involved.”

“I’m a child of the 90s so I grew up listening to rock music,” Lightman says. “If someone asks me for Sweet Child O’ Mine, Nirvana, Sublime or any of that stuff from like mid-90s, that stuff makes me incredibly happy. I like nothing more than stepping behind my instrument and screaming my head off. It’s very cathartic. Actually, I think it has kept my mental health on a good path during COVID. Just being able to go and release all that stress by singing my socks off and playing the piano like a monster. I want to expend as much energy as possible behind the piano so that when we finish the gig, I can go home and like fall straight to sleep.”

As vaccinations begin to take hold and venues begin to open up, the obvious question remains whether or not they will continue to offer online performances. Although they can’t wait to get in front of an audience again, they have also discovered the importance of maintaining these online relationships.

“We actually have corporate work scheduled all the way through the end of October for streaming events so I don’t think it’s going away. So many people have gotten used to the fact that now there should be entertainment at the tip of your fingers. I’ve seen other piano acts in the States who are still streaming their in-person shows now that they can do them again. I just don’t think we’d stop. It’s such a useful extra revenue stream. The fact that there are people in senior’s homes, hospitals and other places who can’t get out to enjoy shows anymore, and that we’re able to entertain them and provide them a lifeline is fantastic.”

If you’d like to hear Lightman and Fenwick perform, you can hear their live broadcast every Wednesday at 7:30 and every Saturday at 8:00pm on Facebook Live. You can find the link here.