Articles
You may recognize Thomas Dekker mostly from his featured roles in TV fan favourites like Heroes, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles or The Secret Circle, but he’s slowly but surely making his way in the world of film. One of the big screen credits on his steadilly growing acting resume is in Shawn Linden’s Montreal-shot The Good Lie, which opens in Toronto on May 10. In the film he plays Cullen Francis, a young college student who finds out that he was the product of a violent rape. Dekker sat down with Toronto Film Scene to chat about this challenging role....
A conversation with Kirk Marcolina and Matthew Pond, Directors of The Life and Crimes of Doris Payne
At first glance, there’s nothing about Doris Payne that screams “jewel thief”. But this 82-year old African-American woman from West Virginia has in fact stolen at least $2 million in jewels in a career that’s spanned five decades. I recently spoke with directors Kirk Marcolina and Matthew Pond about their new documentary The Life and Crimes of Doris Payne, and their experiences working with Doris to bring her story to the screen. Doris is obviously quite an actor. Were there times when you felt you were taken in by her? Kirk Marcolina: Without a doubt. I feel like every day...
I am not a particularly imposing person. I’ve been told I have a warm smile and people just seem to be able to open up and talk to me. So when Shawney Cohen stepped into the Hot Docs industry lounge for our interview it was a surprise to me that he seemed to be a bit unsettled by my presence. It wasn’t actually me, of course, but the idea of talking to a journalist about his film, The Manor, which is an intimate portrait of his family who also happens to own a strip club (the titular “manor”) in Guelph,...
Andrew Moir is a young filmmaker who’s going places. The 2012 grad of the Ryerson University film programme had his short documentary, Just As I Remember, chosen to screen at this year’s Hot Docs Film Festival. The film contrasts the experience of two men battling ALS–Brad is in the early stages of the disease, and Don, who also happens to be Moir’s own Father, is almost completely paralyzed–and how their fight with the disease affects their relationship with their children. It’s a truly unique take on ALS as well as any parent will be able to relate to – all...
lex Winter is no “noob”. Having spent the late ‘90s in BBS and newsgroups (remember those?), he was perfectly positioned to be right in the thick of the technology boom and its resulting legal uproar. Just like the rest of us, however, he was hearing a decidedly one-sided story. It’s obvious that his love of technology stood him in good stead in tackling one of the biggest stories of the century in his latest film, Downloaded, which tells the story of peer-to-peer file sharing pioneer Napster from the inside. Winter originally got involved with Napster creators Shawn Fanning and Sean...
reida Mock is an internationally renowned filmmaker, with accolades aplenty. It’s safe to say that at any given time, she’s got enough projects on her place to keep her busy for years to come. She was in the middle of a number of other projects when she was contacted by a friend of Anita Hill’s who wanted her to send Hill a copy of her film Wrestling with Angles: Playwright Tony Kushner – only the friend didn’t say who the film was going to. “I said, why?” Mock remembers, “She said well this friend of hers is often asked to...
TVO’s second annual documentary competition, this year with a focus on the subject of poverty, drew submissions from all across Ontario. After a jury of Ontario documentarians led by producer/director Shelley Saywell selected five finalists, TVO invited Ontarians to choose the winner via online vote and Craig Allen Conoley’s 4 Kids, which examines poverty through the prose of Just Jamaal, a spoken-word and hip hop artist from Ottawa, emerged as the favourite. As the winner, 4 Kids is set to air on TVO this year and Conoley will be joining Saywell for a day-long mentorship at the Hot Docs Film...
On Friday, April 26, 2013 something is going to happen that hasn’t happened in recent memory: a Canadian film will open that looks and sounds like a big-budget Hollywood movie. It’s called The Colony and it stars Laurence Fishburne and Bill Paxton, two actors not unfamiliar with the world of the Hollywood blockbuster. So how did this happen, you ask? How did Canada get a movie made that might actually be able to play in the big leagues? Director Jeff Renfroe tells Toronto Film Scene that it was originally slated to be a small movie about a group of survivors...
Two kinds of directors produce remakes: eager-to-please first-timers or iconoclasts that don’t give a damn and see something in the material to say afresh. Remakes aren’t inherently crap, but a lot of the modern-day horror ones are utterly cynical vehicles based on a ‘brand’ name and ability to abuse it. Because flogging remake rights is big business. Brave/Fearless/Mad (you decide) Fede Alvarez has gone and produced a rehash of Sam Raimi’s iconic shocker The Evil Dead. Here are five solid gold reasons why the original will always rule. 1. Ash This seems the most obvious one, so it’ll go first....
The sad reality about about most coming-of-age films focused on a female protagonist is that they don’t often feature that young woman taking control of her own destiny – especially where her own sexuality is concerned, a fact that Sara St. Onge is all too aware of. “There’s still a lot of stigma that we’re fighting. A woman taking control is still seen as overly aggressive whereas I see it as just, normal. I do think that we’re making progress but we’re up against a lot of stereotypes.” With her debut feature Molly Maxwell, which opens in Toronto on April...
Ah, the rumour mill. An ever-turning cacophony of misquotes and half-heard whispers; where every young actress has expressed an “interest” in starring in the adaptation of 50 Shades of Grey and Michael Bay is making a movie out of every single one of your childhood toys. It’s also the kind of place where Danny Boyle can be “in line” to direct the next James Bond movie; that is, until somebody actually bothers to ask him and he says: “no”. Which is a good idea for everyone, as the director of Trance (out now) is not the ideal man for the job....
Film can be one of the most inspiring forms of art in the world. The mere act of watching a movie can ignite extreme passion in an individual. Think of all the actors and directors in the world. Surely it was watching films that inspired them to create their own, or to join the industry and become a part of the process. Look at the endless supply of blogs, websites, and forums, created for the sole purpose of sharing an opinion on the film world. I had originally pitched this article as a post about my girlfriend and I watching...
