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Reporting from Slamdance – Narrative Features (part 2)

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Here is another round of narrative features that are part of this year’s Slamdance Film Festival. This set of films is from around the world.

The world premiere of No Trace (Nulle Trace) from Canadian director Simon Lavoie served as the Opening Night film. Set in a dystopian future, the film begins with watching railroad ties go by before we discover “N”, a woman whose face shows years of struggle, driving a handcar along the tracts. When she stops, she picks up Awa, a young Muslim woman and her baby, and secrets them away in a crate to smuggle across the border. After a successful drop off, uniting the young mother with her husband, N returns to her travels. But misfortune will reunite the two women in a struggle to survive in the wilderness.

The film is shot in stark black and white in such a way to portray a cold, empty world. The world the two women inhabit seems to have lost all morality beyond the rule of the strongest. N is a survivor and is not opposed to using force if necessary. Yet when she finds Awa a second time, she cares for her, even at a cost to herself. The two women are very different, not just in age and looks, but in perspective. A part of that difference is faith. At one point, Awa asks N if she is a believer. N responds that she has never been that desperate. She tells Awa that belief “won’t help you survive.” But Awa continues in her prayer and trusts in God to deliver her—either in this world or the next.

The world of foreign domestic workers is the focal point of Alberto Gerosa’s Dea, making its world premiere at Slamdance. This is the story of a 20 year old Indonesian woman who contract to go to Hong Kong as a domestic worker. The understanding is that she will make enough money that she can send most of it back to help her family. What seems like an opportunity for a good life, ends up with many slights and disrespect, some small, but others serious, including sexual assault. When she loses her job, she has no real status in the society.

The film has 40 co-writers listed, each only with a first name. It is the result of an acting lab made up of immigrants in Hong Kong and Macau. Everything that happens to Dea in the film is based on things that happened to these young women. The socio-economic realities that the film brings forth are not limited to Hong Kong, of course. Exploitation of the poor is a near universal occurrence.

Isaac (Izaokas), from director Jurgis Matulevičius, is a Lithuanian film noir, set in Soviet Lithuania in 1964. In an introduction that takes place during World War II, with Jews being tormented and killed by Nazi sympathizers. This event becomes the focus of a film that Gedas Gutauskas wants to make. Gedas has just returned to Lithuania from 20 years in the US where he’s gained fame as a writer and film director. He reconnects to two old friends, Andrius and Elena. The three were very close until Gedas escaped to the West. Andrius and Elena are married, but the marriage has gone sour. The authorities are following and bugging Gedas. An investigator wants to re-open the case of a murder during that World War II event because Gedas’s script is so accurate, he thinks Gedas must have been involved. In reality it is Andrius who is tied to the story.

As with any noir film, there are twists as we slowly come to understand the truth, not only of that terrible event that opens the film, but also the relationships between Gedas, Andrius, and Elena. It also reflects a bit of the Soviet era angst with police surveillance and a hint at official corruption that only wants certain truths to be exposed. The film is mostly black and white, with the middle section in color. That middle section is the least noirish part of the film.

The Grizzlies: Hope is Not Cancelled

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The opening of the recent film The Grizzlies silently follows a boy on a walk with his dog amidst a desolate landscape. He sits down amidst the rocky crags, calls his dog over, and pets him. Then the boy shoots himself, leaving the dog to run free.  It’s an extremely jarring beginning to a film.

The boy is a member of the Nunavaut tribe in Northern Canada. Life for the people is categorized by standing around, drinking, smoking, and trying to survive a brutal climate.  It’s no wonder the town has the highest suicide rate in the country.

Entering into this is Russ Sheppard (Ben Schnetzer), a young guy whose life has taken a northern detour to Nunavaut in order to teach high school students. He’s a bit arrogant and thinks he can simply come in sight unseen and make things happen, but soon experiences culture shock when what he thinks is a basic run to the grocery store ends up costing him hundreds of dollars. Sheppard’s first class in the town of Kugluktuk doesn’t fare much better. There are a handful of kids and only one (Miranda, played by Emerald MacDonald) has any interest in academics. Sheppard tries to go “by the books,” gets into a heated discussion with another student, then blocks the door and tells the student they’ll have to get past him first. The student punches Sheppard directly in the face and walks out.

Sheppard wants to get through to the kids and get them out of their situations, but their lives are mired in hopelessness he doesn’t fully understand. He attempts to push students to get better but to no avail. He protects one of his students from domestic abuse. He sees another student who is struggling and counsels him with basic platitudes. This backfires when Sheppard discovers the boy killed himself after their talk. Sheppard struggles with the ramifications and begins to wonder whether he can make any positive difference at all.

However, a breakout occurs when Sheppard realizes he already has the key to the tribe in his hands—a lacrosse stick. In Canada, the sport is nearly on par with ice hockey (it’s their national summer sport), but the students are reluctant to trust him when he begins to introduce the concept of a team. Only when he earns the trust of Adam (Ricky Marty-Pahtaykan) does the town begin to show interest—even allowing a mini-tournament to be held in the local gym. That success leads Sheppard to enter a team from Kugluktuk into the national tournament.  This drives a rift between the younger and older generation that threatens to rip the tribe apart.  

The Grizzlies appears on the scene in a very unique time in history – it was scheduled to be released in the US in late February (I had the opportunity to screen it at that time), but The Virus Which Must Not Be Named pushed the release to this month. My first take on the film: there are some nice aspects (particularly the cinematography and acting of the teenage characters), but the desperation and darkness at the beginning is simply too heavy for the rest of the film to overcome. I still believe this six months later, but I think we need the ending more than ever right now.

Hope is on the way . . . be ready for it!

With the world deep in the throes of a pandemic, the months of staying at home and limited contact with others (outside of a computer screen) have had a profound effect on people. A sense of hopelessness has developed as the days drag on. Frustration mounts as news reports provide pictures and videos providing conflicting information. Fear has arisen due to the unknowns and changes from what was once normal behavior. Yet hope isn’t cancelled. The sun rises each morning as a gentle reminder that today has the potential to be better than yesterday. As the Bible puts it, “[H]ope that is seen is not hope; for who hopes for what he already sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, with perseverance we wait eagerly for it” (Romans 8:24-25 NASB).  We long for the days when handshakes and hugs become commonplace, when phrases such as social distancing disappear from use.  We might not see things change immediately, but we keep praying and doing our part to help end the pandemic, remaining hopeful in the eventual outcome.

At the end of The Grizzlies, the team plays its qualification matches at the national tournament, but the stresses of life, the expectations of a community, and Sheppard’s decision to leave the tribe rain hopelessness on everyone. Goal after goal after goal is scored on them—and they have no comeback. But hope is waiting and enters the stage at the perfect time, performing a transformational work.

The Grizzlies is available on demand now.

The Cuban – Jazzy Memories

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“We can’t change the past. All we have left is our future.” The past and future are not so much what Sergio Navarretta’s The Cuban focuses on. Rather it calls us to find life in the present.

Mina (Ana Golja) is a young Afghan-Canadian pre-med student who is working at a nursing home. She is tasked with feeding one of the patients who has Alzheimer’s. Luis Garcia (Louis Gossett Jr.) spends his day staring blankly. Because he reacts violently in frustration, he doesn’t eat with the other residents. Mina notices a poster on his wall of a Cuban jazz musician. She remembers that music from her grandfather’s home when she was a child. She notes that as she hums music that Luis becomes a bit more animated. She begins to bring Cuban jazz records to play for him and each time he becomes more engaged. Soon she’s bringing him Cuban food as well. She’s skirting the rules, but it is paying off. She soon discovers that Luis was a famed Cuban musician.

But when we see Mina’s homelife with her aunt (Shohreh Aghdashloo), we discover that Mina is less interested in being a doctor than her aunt. It is the aunt’s dream that she expects Mina to live out. She is concerned about Mina’s future, but not with Mina’s desires. (Mina is more interested in music.) It is the aunt who voices the quote above. The aunt had been a doctor in Afghanistan, but now is an administrator at the nursing home. As an immigrant, she was not credentialed to practice medicine, but she did the best she could to provide a home and opportunity for Mina. She may feel a bit like a martyr for her sacrifice.

But the contrast is really when we see Mina’s relationship with Luis. Here is a man who has seemingly lost his past, and has no hope of a future. With neither, he is stuck in a present of emptiness. The music and food that Mina brings him begins to draw out his memories—some happy, some not. It is the interplay of Luis’s past and Mina’s possible future that creates a meaningful present.

The film is a little bit cluttered with side stories of Mina entering into a romance, and with battles with the nursing home staff (which are a bit stereotypical). Those subplots take away some needed exploration of Mina’s memories of her family and how that impacts her situation vis-à-vis her aunt.

The film does offer some wonderful bits of Cuban jazz. Some of those involve getting into Luis’s mind as the music awakens him, taking him back in time to New York clubs, and also cruising in Havana. The music adds a sense of joy and life to the film, that focuses so much on people who are stuck in a life that is not their choosing. But throughout the film we find that the music, so based in the past, is what brings meaning into the lives of these characters.

The Cuban is available on Virtual Cinema through local arthouses.

Photos courtesy of Brainstorm Media.

Most Wanted – The Cost of Ambition

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What happens when a big, police inspired drug sting goes bad? Most Wanted, from writer/director Daniel Roby, is inspired by a true story of a Canadian man who was used by the police and left hanging in the wind when things turned bad.

Daniel Léger (Antoine-Olivier Pilon) is a recovering heroin addict, who finds himself connected to Glen Picker (Jim Gaffigan), a small-time dealer and informant to the Federal police. He convinces Federal agent Frank Cooper (Stephen McHattie) that Léger can make a big drug deal in Thailand. Cooper, who has been passed over for a promotion, wants to make a name for himself and sets up an extensive and expensive operation in conjunction with the Thai police. It turns out Léger is not the person they all think, and really isn’t up to this task. When things fall apart and a Canadian agent dies in the process, Léger ends up serving a 100 year sentence in a rugged Thai prison.

He would have languished there if not for Victor Malarek (Josh Harnett) an investigative reporter for the Globe and Mail. Mararek is on the outs with the newspaper’s management. He is brash, confident and way too full of himself. But when he goes to Thailand to get an interview with this Canadian citizen that seems to have been abandoned by the Canadian government, he learns that Léger was a patsy who was used by police who want to make this all disappear.

A familiar three-act format might have been a bit more appropriate for the storytelling. Instead we get the story in two parallel timelines, one focusing on Léger and the police operation, the other on Malarek’s investigation. Knowing this going in may make the first quarter of the movie a bit more understandable as it alternates between timelines.

The story is one of ambitions. Léger is an innocent person caught up in a battle of people looking to advance themselves. Picker is in this for the money he’s promised when the operation is completed. Cooper wants to prove that he should have a better position in the RCMP. Malarek enters this fray looking for a big story, but discovers that the person who this story revolves around is more important than the story he wants. Malarek becomes the agent of justice in the story.

It also speaks to the way a person can be seen as expendable to someone’s ambitions. Léger’s life was considered by the police involved to be so unimportant that it didn’t matter that he would spend his life in jail for what they orchestrated. And to protect the institutional integrity of the police, the government was willing to let this one, unimportant, former drug addict suffer what was not really his doing.

The film is set during the time of the US War on Drugs, and Canada’s own version of that. One of the keys that makes that “war” so ineffective was the idea that those involved with drugs were in some way unworthy of the protection of the law or of basic human consideration. It resulted in long, unjust prison sentences with no real consideration of the harm done to people in need. Daniel Léger is only one example.

Most Wanted is available through Virtual Cinema at local art houses and on VOD.

Photos courtesy of Saban Films.

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.

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.

Guest of Honour: The Pieces of Life

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Atom Egoyan is adept at creating cinematic puzzles for us to assemble. We aren’t quite sure what it will all look like when it is complete, but as we piece together the various facts and memories, we discover not necessarily the truth as much as emotional and psychological insight into how those memories live within the characters. His latest film, Guest of Honour, is another example of such a puzzle.

Veronica (Laysla de Oliveira) has gone to talk with Father Greg (Luke Wilson) to arrange a funeral for her father Jim (David Thewlis). It was Jim’s desire to have Father Greg do his funeral, even though he never attended church. As Veronica and Father Luke talk about Jim and the father-daughter relationship, we slowly discover the way the sins of the past influence the way people live in their aftermath.

Jim is a health inspector with great power over restaurant owners. At first it seems as though he is very conscientious—he sees his role as protecting the customers from disease. He will not hesitate to shut down a restaurant if it is necessary. He cares for Veronica’s pet rabbit as she serves a prison sentence. She refuses Jim’s help to seek early release. Prison is where she believes she belongs.

Veronica’s imprisonment is as much emotional as it is physical. As a school music teacher, she pled guilty to abusing her position of authority. Although technically true, the real reason for her guilt is based on something that happened years before. She harbors resentments towards her father from when she was a child and her mother was dying. That has created a wall between the two. Jim tries to free his daughter, both emotionally and legally, but she is resistant.

In an effort to breach that wall, Jim begins to use his power over restaurants abusively. He become obsessed with revenge against someone he sees as responsible for his daughter’s imprisonment. But that does nothing to restore their broken relationship. We eventually discover that Father Greg may have the one piece missing from the puzzle that will allow Veronica to finally emotionally reconcile with her father after his death.

Themes of guilt, atonement, and forgiveness run throughout the stories that are told in a non-linear manner. I found it interesting that when the film opens and Veronica turns up to meet with Father Greg, he is dealing with a church rummage sale (a curse all pastors must endure from time to time). The goods found in such events often represent memories or grief or pasts that are painful to give up. The books, clothes, and knickknack are pieces of people’s lives. So, too, as Veronica tells her stories to Father Greg, it is a mixture of joy and pain, of sins and grace, of resentment and of love. Atonement is found not in punishment or revenge, but in the discovery that perhaps the divine can be found in something as commonplace as a rabbit’s foot.

Photos courtesy of Kino Lorber

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

For audio of our TIFF19 roundtable with star Laysla De Oliveira, click here.

Guest of Honour is available on Virtual Cinema through local art houses.

Band Ladies: Never Too Late

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Band Ladies is a new web series streaming on HighballTV.com beginning May 13, 2020. Highball TV is a newer platform that offers a 7-day trial where you can check out Band Ladies, as well as much more content.  Band Ladies was created by Kate Fenton, Dana Puddicombe, and Molly Flood (who also directed). With each episode running around 10 minutes long, you can binge the entire season in about an hour.  

When five acquaintances get sick of reading cheesy romance in their book club and have a drunken night together, they realize that they’re all quietly dealing with their own personal wounds. As a result, they decide to venture into the world of punk music as a venue to express their frustrations and escape from their daily mediocrities. 

This force of nature Canadian cast includes Kate Fenton, Lisa Michelle Cornelius, Vicki Kim, Dana Puddicombe, and Kirsten Rasmussen. Together, they yield a group of strong women who, despite their differences, support each other and provide a safe space to be themselves, or at least different from their everyday personas.  

Band Ladies is pure comedy, while still managing to touch on more emotional story lines, such as infertility, struggling to balance parenthood, and even the ugly side of the corporate world. It’s a true to life glimpse into some of the struggles that women face as they approach middle age.  

Band Ladies also contains the potential for some serious female inspiration.  With the overarching theme of “it’s never too late to reinvent yourself”, we see that it doesn’t matter where we come from or what we do. Instead, what matters is the next step we take. We don’t only have to be one thing. It’s important to listen to ourselves and do what we feel is right and what makes us happy. As one character says, “I don’t usually do things just for me. It’s nice to take care of yourself.”

With some fun punk music (available now on most streaming platforms), and funky fashion, Band Ladies is a fun ride from start to finish.

To listen to my interview with the director, producer, actor, and co-creator, Molly Flood, click here.

Canadian Strain: Marijuana and the Marginalized

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First of all, it’s not about what you think.

While the title of the film may sound eerily like some vague attempt to capitalize on the current pandemic, Canadian Strain has nothing to do with any viral outbreak. Written and directed by Geordie Sabbagh, Canadian Strain tells the story of young cannabis dealer Anne Banting (Jess Salgueiro), who takes pride in her work and believed that the legalization of marijuana would only help her business. However, when her customers begin to abandon her for legal distributors, Anne finds that her decade as a dealer matters little in the new reality. Now, with no money, no direction, and some worthless weed, Anne is forced to confront the system while trying to hold on to what she loves.

Billed as a comedy, Strain is more dramatic than one might expect as Anne attempts to deal with the difficulties of life transition. As a result, Strain becomes a surprisingly fun little film about the challenges that happen when corporations infringe on small businesses, even as it relates to the drug trade. While the script is a little uneven in places, some intriguing engaging performances keep the film moving along. In particular, relative newcomer Salgueiro brings a genuine likeability to her overwhelmed Anne as she attempts to navigate the new realities of drug distribution. Another standout is comic veteran Colin Mochrie (Who’s Line is it Anyway?), who brings charisma and humility to his performance that helps ground the film.

In some places, the film seems interested in speaking into the ironies and hypocrisies of the medical marijuana business at the government level. By examining the trickle-down effect of legalization on the casual dealer, Strain serves as a metaphor for how big business can slowly eliminate the smaller, independent market. Even so, while conversations surrounding the challenges of legal distribution can be poignant, they often slow the film’s pacing. Even though there are moments that seem to emulate the absurdity of The Big Short, the film never fully reaches that level of energy. However, what’s most interesting about the film is Anne’s genuine desire to help others. 

In her world, the distribution of marijuana isn’t just a financial transaction but rather a public service for those in need. Interestingly, Anne’s love for drug delivery has nothing to do with giving others a ‘buzz’ but about genuine medical aid for her people. What’s more, Anne’s care for her clients extends beyond casual acquaintance, as she knows their health issues and is able to prescribe proper strains that will help their individual needs. In one poignant scene, as one client falls ill after getting his hit elsewhere, Anne runs to the rescue, offering him genuine practical care in his time of need. As opposed to getting involved with the more illegal aspects of the drug trade, Anne’s deepest passion remains helping the marginalized. As Anne, Salgueiro’s solid performance creates a character who operates on the fringe of the law yet somehow also operates with integrity and honour. (Is it weird to respect a film’s drug dealer for the way that she works her trade?) For Anne, what gives life to her heart is helping others, not working the system.

In the end, Canadian Strain is a surprisingly enjoyable and unexpected look behind Canada’s burgeoning marijuana industry. Differentiating itself from other ‘drug-themed’ films with its humility and love of others, Strain is a reminder that passion for others is always the most important aspect of our lives.

For audio of our interview with director Geordie Sabbagh and star Jess Salgueiro, click here.

Canadian Strain is available on demand on AppleTV+ and other digital platforms on Tuesday, March 17, 2020.

Saturday at AFI Fest 2019

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The second day of AFI Fest Presented by Audi, was another day filled with interesting and powerful films. The odd thing about being at Hollywood and Highland this year is that since the Egyptian Theater down the street isn’t being used this year, I have no reason (or desire) to descend to street level and the mass of tourists and hawkers on Hollywood Boulevard. I’m up two floors higher where I can look down from my own little world (or perhaps it’s an ivory tower).

Hirokazu Kore-eda is one of my favorite directors. His hallmark is films about relationships—especially family relationships. The Truth is his first film made outside of Japan. That gave me some worries that he might have trouble portraying a different culture, but he’s done a wonderful job. Fabienne (Catherine Deneuve), an aging actress, has just published her memoir. Her daughter Lumir (Juliette Binoche) has returned with her family (including her husband Hank [Ethan Hawke]) after many years in America to celebrate her book—but also to criticize her mother for the falsehoods about their relationship, which was pretty non-existent. A recurring line is “Memory can’t be trusted.” When Fabienne’s major domo suddenly quits after years of being taken for granted, he convinces Lumir to stay around through the next film Fabienne is making—a story of a mother and daughter who rarely see each other. It is a story of memories—real and imagined. It is also a story that delves into the parent/child relationship in the unique way Kore-eda has of exposing love that may not be what we expect.

Kazik Radwanski’s Anne at 13,000 Ft is a very up-close look at a young woman struggling to understand who she is. Anne (Deragh Campbell) is a daycare teacher in Toronto who is hardly more mature or responsible than the children she oversees. After going skydiving (a tandem jump) on a bachelorette party, she wants more than anything to get to where she can do it solo. But as we watch her at work, or in various relationships, we see not only childishness, but also perhaps a bit of bi-polar style personality problems. As the film moves along, we see her less as someone we are comfortable with and more someone we know is at a breaking point. Will skydiving give her the freedom and control she desires or will it be too much for her to handle?

In Song Without a Name (Canción Sin Nombre) from director Melina León, Georgina (Pamela Mendoza),a young indigenous woman in 1988 Peru, is lured to a clinic with the offer of free maternity care. But after she delivers her daughter, the child disappears. Itinerant clinic would steal the babies of poor women to sell for adoption abroad. The police are unresponsive, in part because the poor women are seen as worthless. (When Georgina first goes to the clinic there are children jumping rope to the chant “Singled, married, widowed, divorced. Mother or not, you are worthless.”) In desperations she turns to a journalist to investigate in hopes of having her child returned. The start black and white cinematography emphasizes the dreariness of the story and of Georgina’s life. Her life is visualized on screen by hills and stairs—she is always struggling to get anywhere, but she must persist.