FFWD Weekly
Copyright © 2000. All Rights Reserved

Film by Richard Zywotkiewicz Five Dollar Film Festival Friday, September 1 Quincy’s on Seventh Move over $100 Film Festival – there’s a new kid on the block. On Friday, September 1, the Five Dollar Film Festival will be held at Quincy’s on Seventh. Besides the screenings from Calgary’s "hippest young directors," festival organizer Brent Kawchuk promises a good party afterward. "The five dollars refers to the entrance fee," laughs Kawchuk, "though sometimes it felt like that was the budget we were working with on our film." Kawchuk is a member of the Dino Martinis and is co-director of one of the films, The Dino Martinis Language of Love, which is more a story around the Martinis’ song of the same name, rather than a music video. "The band doesn’t even appear in the film," says Kawchuk. Language of Love was co-directed by SAIT grad and veteran filmmaker Grant Harvey, who is well known for directing the CBC youth program From the Hip, and who wrote, produced and directed the local feature American Beer. Recently he made his episodic debut directing for Mind’s Eye Pictures’ Mentors series. Kawchuk also produced the showcase piece for the evening, Jim Sutherland’s Saint Bernadette of Bingo, which is an oddball comedy about fictional Gibon, Alberta, where all residents are addicted to bingo. Writer-director Sutherland says that the film originated with his fascination with the microcosm of small town life, and the concept that people will do the right thing even with obstacles in their way. The idea was first written out in prose and eventually progressed and fused with the bingo concept into a 15-page script. "I always thought bingo was so strange," says Sutherland, who used to be a bingo caller in high school. "I took the idea to the most ridiculous level where someone who never won at the game eventually got ridiculed for it." Sutherland, also a SAIT grad, spent eight years as a floor director for CBC's NewsWorld, and has been involved in numerous TV projects including casting for Kid’s Street and producing the ’94 Olympics. When a successful application to the National Screen Institute (NSI) kick-started Saint Bernadette, he was able to complete funding through the Calgary Regional Arts Foundation, the Alberta Foundation for the Arts, and the National Film Board, to name just a few. Like in the other featured films, one of Calgary’s talented and zealous indie crews worked for nothing or deferred salaries on the film. The remaining two films being shown during the event are Michael Dowse’s Room 237, as well as Robert Cuffley’s Soother. Dowse, who is well known in the film community and has edited two feature films, Bad Money and Sweathearts of the World, and he is also president of Calgary’s Society of Independent Filmmakers. His short, Room 237, is the story of a hotel room which takes on a life of its own as a result of its many occupants. He is currently in post production on his video feature, Static. Cuffley has worked extensively on music videos, commercials and directed the award-winning short Eyes for You. Earlier this year, he completed a one-hour documentary for CBC entitled Barrage: A Musical Invasion of Europe. He was one of only four filmmakers accepted from across Canada into the NSI’s Features First program. The resulting film, At Shepherd’s Park, is scheduled for production in late 2000. Cuffley’s film in the Five Dollar Film Festival, Soother, deals with the unfortunate experiences of a man who’s patrolling a parking lot looking for his cousin.

| Back To This Issue Table of Contents | Back To Main Index |