September 30, 2008
Emma Hill Kepron, one of several bloggers at Thin Air 2008, Winnipeg’s International Writers Festival has this to report about the very first public screening of MOVING STORIES FILMS.
… I had just visited 13 different worlds in one afternoon. …They were more like a variety of different dishes, all with different ingredients, methods of preparation and presentation. …These little short films were just perfect wee morsels of delicious story. Watching the films sort of felt like being at a buffet where you nibble away at this and that and then realize later that you’ve actually had quite a lot to eat. … the components of this buffet complemented each other very nicely. “No Bikini,” “The Perfection of the Moment,” and “Nagasaki Circus” were particularly memorable and tasty. And this was the perfect end to a perfect festival.
Randall Maggs was our special guest at the intermission. He told the tale of how the film’s central story, Night Work: A Sawchuk Poem, took its heart and soul from his own personal experience with the only man to score on hockey legend Terry Sawchuk in a round of exhibition games in Newfoundland, way back in the golden era of the game.
Other authors at Thin Air and represented in the Moving Stories Films screening included Andrew Davidson (The Gargoyle: Sei’s Story, directed by Bert Kish); David Waltner-Toews (Food, Sex, and Salmonella, directed by Kate Hollett) and Paul Quarrington (Pavane, based on the novel The Ravine, directed by Paul himself).
Our thanks to the enthusiastic audience, who really let us know their favs with abundant applause and visits to the book sale table after the show.
September 26, 2008
Moving Stories has landed in Winnipeg for the first leg of its cross country tour. The film screening takes place on Sunday September 28, but we couldn’t wait till then to get into the action. We attended ME SEXY, an event featuring some of Canada’s most esteemed First Nations writers. With so many fabulous authors around, we dove right in with our camera to cover some readings and do a few interviews …including Joseph Boyden and Drew Hayden Taylor.
We also caught up with walker and writer Charles Wilkens. Stay tuned for clips and updates as we continue our tour!
For now we’ll leave you with our very own Paul Quarrington sharing a moment with the THIN AIR festival folks, including Charlene Diehl (left).
September 23, 2008
MOVING STORIES FILMS will be continuing its cross-Canada tour at the St. John’s International Women’s Film Festival, The first of its kind in Canada, the screening will feature hosts Judith Keenan (Founder) and Director Irene Duma. The event takes place Friday October 17, 5pm at the Masonic Temple (6 Cathedral Street), followed by a reception. Books which inspired the films in the film program will be available for sale.
There are many immediate touch points between St. John’s and Toronto-based Moving Stories Films:
• Irene Duma, director of the mockumentary This Hour Has Seven Decades, based on the memoir by Patrick Watson that opens the screening program will be the special on-stage guest. “I had an absolutely wonderful time at the Atlantic premiere of This Hour,” says Duma, originally from Toronto. “I fell in love with Newfoundland, and now I’m living in St. John’s!”
• Also in the program is the film When The Telescope Came by Director Kate Jessop from Manchester, England. Kate attended St. John’s in 2007, and pitched her work to Keenan when they both attended St. John’s Women’s Film Fest last year. “I have met many directors through the excellent programming choices the St. John’s curatorial board have made over the years,” states founder / producer Judith Keenan. “They are an important source for introducing the work of artists that we go on to commission, employ and whose work we screen on an ongoing basis.”
• Keenan has worked with Newfound Films’ Producer Anna Petras on several productions over the past few years, and with director Justin Simms on the 2008 production Night Work: A Sawchuk Poem, included in this year’s Moving Stories Films program.
• Rachel Peters is another talented “find” from St. John’s ‘07 – her work animating the Festival’s opening intro, her pitch at the Face to Face session, and a charming stage show that includes fire-eating (yup, eating actual fire) put her on our radar and lead to a fruitful collaboration on Nagasaki Circus. Not only is it in the MSF program, we helped to secure funding through Bravo!FACT, where the film will be broadcast after its festival circuit. Rachel Peters in St. John’s October 11-18.
Moving Stories Films is a 90-minute curated program of short films celebrating the written word submitted by artists around the world. The films have been selected by Festival Founder Judith Keenan and Programmer Paul Quarrington in consultation with illustrious Film Advisors Robert Lantos, Sarah Polley, Nino Ricci, Gary Thomas and Anne Collins. From September to November 2008, Moving Stories will screen at public events hosted by film and literature festivals across North America. Hosts include St. John’s International Women’s Film Festival, Ottawa International Writers Festival; Winnipeg International Writers Festival; WordFest: Banff-Calgary International Writers Festival; Vancouver International Writers Festival and Pages Books & Music (Toronto) “This Is Not A Reading Series.”
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For more information about the St. John’s International Women’s Film Festival contact Kelly Davis at 709.754.3141 / kelly@womensfilmfestival.com
For more information about Moving Stories contact Anita Shuper at 647.407.9987 / anita@bookshorts.com
September 23, 2008
In Paul Quarrington’s short film, PAVANE, Phil and Jay share more than a family bond – failed careers, failed relationships, bottomless drinks, and a debilitating memory of a shocking encounter in a ravine one childhood day. The pretext of being strangers, the darkly comic ritual that the broken, non-functioning brothers perform in an attempt to get at their pain, cant cover the palpable connection between them, nor their deeply felt desire to find redemption. Cutting between live action performed by an award-winning cast and ingenuous animation whose simplicity belies the impact of the incident it reveals, Pavane portrays both the loss of innocence and a subtle hint at the boys fragile potential for a new beginning.
Pavane is inspired by Quarrington’s latest novel The Ravine, which has just been long-listed for the prestigious Giller Prize. The film will premiere to audiences attending Moving Stories Films in each city on our tour, before national broadcasts on both Bravo!FACT Presents and CBC Reflections.
September 23, 2008
Here’s a slug this Quillblogger didn’t expect to see: “A short film by writer/director Paul Quarrington.”
But, according to Open Book Toronto, (and as reported by Quill & Quire Omni this past summer) the acclaimed author of the Governor General’s Award-winner Whale Music and this year’s Canada Reads champ King Leary has ventured behind the camera to shoot his first short feature, Pavane, based on his latest novel, The Ravine.
Read the entire Quillblog post here
September 22, 2008
First Stop, Winnipeg! Moving Stories Films makes its premiere on Sunday September 28th at THIN AIR Winnipeg International Writer’s Festival. Journalists, check out the Moving Stories Press Kit for photos, trailers, info about the films, filmmakers, books, authors and more! Check our tour schedule for the latest information on screenings and workshops dates as we tour the program across the country.
We’re thrilled to have special guests join us in Winnipeg! Randall Maggs, author of Night Work: The Sawchuk Poems (Brick Books) will be in attendance and a short film adaptation of his work will be featured in the program.
“This film does what you hope a dramatization will do,” says Moving Stories Films advisor and publisher Anne Collins, “expand into the unsaid bits of the poem to bring an even bigger experience to the viewer.”
Also in attendance at the Festival is author David Waltner-Toews, shose BookShorts film “Food, Sex, and Salmonella” is also in the film program line up.
Paul Quarrington, Susin Nielsen and Judith Keenan explore the process of adaptation in a Moving Stories Master Class on Saturday Sept 27.
The tour continues in St. John’s, Ottawa and Vancouver in October, and Toronto in November. Stay tuned for more news as the tour unfolds and keep visiting our website for details!
September 8, 2008
By Ken Tsui
Director of Soucouyant
We had our first rehearsal yesterday with the cast. Our brilliant lead actress is Addena Sumter-Frietag, who is “well known for her provocative poetry and powerful performances and has been likened to Maya Angelou.” Wow!
http://www.addenasumterfreitag.com/
We’ve got most of the rest of our cast and crew in place, and we’re looking forward to our 2 day shoot, scheduled for September 22-23. The target delivery date of our film to BookShorts is October 1.
Originally we wanted to shoot in red cam, and even did a test shoot to determine whether we had enough time and resources post production to make it work. As it happens, we’re on quite a tight schedule so we’ve decided to forego that challenge for this project and shoot on an EX1 HD instead. We’re doing screen tests in this format during our rehearsals.
Stay tuned for updates on our progress!
September 3, 2008
BookShorts Literacy Program, presenters of the Moving Stories FIlms, is privileged to have the support of a number of important organizations. We send all a hearty “Thanks!” and our cimmittment to making this inaugural year the best is can be.
- Judith Keenan, Founder / Executive Producer
A personal shout out to our champions:
September 3, 2008
When we first screened JPod at SXSW, Wired Magazine took notice …
I Want My Book-based Film Shorts
By Todd Jatras 
March 12, 2007 | 2:42:03 PMCategories: SXSW07
Authors could soon begin demanding short video treatments of their latest works of fiction and non-fiction, emulating musicians in the 80’s, who quickly realized they could seriously pump sales by producing mini-films of their hottest singles for the MTV generation. The other night Bookshorts screened a 4-minute HD adaptation of Douglas Coupland’s new novel JPod. The film was slick and more than lived up to Bookshorts’ stated goal: “to advance a new genre of entertainment, making short films, animations and interactive media that capture the spirit of a book in moving images.” JPod and bookshorts’ catalogue of 20 or so 3-to-5 minute adaptations can be viewed on their web site and will be showing at select movie theaters around the country.
September 3, 2008
A huge congratulations to Director Justim Simms and his excellent filmmaking team! Night Work: A Sawchuk Poem will make its theatrical premiere at the Atlantic Film Festival in Halifax on September 17.
“I was attracted to the work because it’s rife with incredible powerful imagery right from the first page,” states Justin, the St. John’s-based Director, who took as inspiration the similarly-titled book NIGHT WORK: THE SAWCHUK POEMS (Brick Books) by long-time Corner Brook resident and poet RANDALL MAGGS. “For ten years, Randy immersed himself in the cult and culture of hockey in the early days of the sport, before they wore much equipment, before a goalie wore a mask. What kind of man puts himself in the path of a rubber missile travelling straight to his head at the velocity of a Bobby Hull shot? That’s what we explore in the film.”
Featuring DES WALSH as Gerald; PHIL CHURCHILL as young Randall; LOIS BROWN as the voice of reason. DAVID GRAY, original music; CHRIS DARLINGTON, Editor / Graphics; NIGEL MARKHAM, Director of Photography. A Production of Newfound Films and BookShorts Literacy Program.
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