Nino Ricci & Paul Quarrington Review 2008 Moving Stories Films

Curator Paul Quarrington speaks with Film Advisor Nino Ricci about the page-to-screen film adaptations represented  in the Moving Stories Films 2008 program.

 

A LETTER TO COLLEEN: Dir. Andy London / USA / 8:30 / Fiction / Based on the graphic novel A Letter to Christine by Andy London - Haunted by the events of his 18^th birthday, Andy London writes a letter to Colleen in an attempt to put his demons to rest.

 

THE CAVE: Dir. Michael Ramsey / USA / 3:00 / Fiction / Based on The Republic by Plato - An evocative claymation adaptation of the allegory of the cave, a classic commentary on the human condition.

 

NO BIKINI: Dir. Claudia Morgado Escanilla / Canada / 9:00 / Fiction Based on the short story “No Bikini: included in the collection Close to Spider Man by Ivan E. Coyote, Published by Arsenal Pulp Press - A young girl pretending to be a boy discovers the freedom that comes with no bikini.

 

PAVANE: Dir. Paul Quarrington / Canada / 5:30 / Fiction / Based on the novel The Ravine by Paul Quarrington - Connected by debilitating memories, bottomless drinks, and the pretense of being strangers, Phil and Jay play out a darkly comic ritual in an effort to redeem themselves, and each other, of a terrifying childhood incident.

 

THE GARGOYLE: Sei’s Story: Dir. Bert Kish / USA / 5:30 / Docu-Drama / Based on the novel The Gargoyle by Andrew Davidson Published by Doubleday US / Random House of Canada - Author Andrew Davidson recounts the story of Sei, a beautiful Japanese glassblower caught in a dilemma of love and loyalty.

 

Shot live on location at the Vancouver International Writers Festival.  Thanks Hal!

 

© 2008 BookShorts Literacy Program

 

Guest Blog from Director Rachel Peters, Nagasaki Circus

“Loves it!” Newfoundland and Beyond

My [now annual] excursion to St. John’s NFLD was, as usual, a lovely time. I’ve found that in every trip to The Rock I seem to get tricked into being educated, in some way or another. This year at the St. John’s Int. Women’s Film Festival was no exception. From Irish sailors stopping in to port, to films about Holy Heart High School, to dark comedies about Newfoundland life — everything seems to be crammed full of culture. Everything also seems to be uphill and against the rain.

I ate cod tongue.

I have yet to be screeched in.

I spent Oct. 11th and 12th with seven junior high students, creating animation flipbooks and claymation shorts for the festival-sponsored workshop, “2D in 2Days”. I was truly impressed by the quality and understanding of animation these guys achieved in only two days and it excited me to try the workshop again. I had planned it all out two years ago, but this was my first time seeing it through to fruition.

The morning of Sunday, Oct 12th was spent in the CBC radio studio, with Angel Antle, on the Weekend Arts Magazine, talking of workshops, festivals, films (specifically mine, “Nagasaki Circus”) and fire eating.

Then, a little break and on to the festival! I actually got rather distracted during most of the festival and missed a great deal of the films and workshops I had wanted to attend. I ended up starting a flipbook of my own, having been inspired by my kids from the previous week, and I hid away for most of the week.

“Nagasaki Circus” screened on the 17th with the Moving Stories Film Festival, within the St. John’s Festival — A festival within a festival. Like an onion. Or a parfait.

Luckily, I missed my flight home because I was too busy dancing atop of Signal Hill with filmmaker, Irene Duma, so I was able to attend the closing ceremonies and the after party where I was able to meet people I had hidden from all week and shove some helium balloons down my shirt. See? It all works out.
I then garnered a solid three hours of sleep, woke up while the others were still wrapping up the party, and I caught my next flight off that precious stone.

watch Post Festival Depression, chalked full of festival inside jokes!

Here’s what you should expect next:

The Moving Stories Film Festival is trucking onward to screen at the Ottawa Writer’s Festival where many-a-masterclass will occur.

I will be on the panel of one of these masterclasses, “Animating Books: From Page to Screen”

Come to the screening Wednesday, October 22, 7:00 PM, at Library and Archives Canada, 395 Wellington Street Tickets, passes and info: 613.562.1243.
The brilliantly written and puppeted “Nagasaki Circus” will be screened, along with many others, including Paul Quarrington’s “Pavane” which is a short adaptation of (or alternate angle to) his latest Giller long-listed novel, “The Ravine.”

The “Animating Books: From Page to Screen” masterclass with Rachel Peters and Gary Thomas, Hosted by Chris Robinson, and Presented with the Ottawa Animation Festival will be held Thursday, October 23, 6:00 PM.

For more information about the Writers’ Festival and all of its events, visit: www.writersfestival.org

I’ve got MY bus ticket. Do you?

Scenes from the Set

By Ken Tsui
Director of Soucouyant

What a terrific shoot we had. With so much to do in such a short period of time, the cast and crew really came together to do an amazing job!  Here are a few stills from our work on set, including me & the camera crew, “Adele” getting her makeup done, and a poignant portrait of the family.

First Rehearsal

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!

Adapting

By Ken Tsui
Director of Soucouyant

It was early on a sunny afternoon when Judith Keenan of Book Shorts called with the exciting news. I was on a bus ride home when she called and amidst the roar of traffic, I managed to hear her tell me that we had won the competition.

We went to work immediately and realized quickly the elaborate process involved with adapting a one page treatment in to five pages of script. The first draft came quickly but felt like a scattershot burst of all the ideas bottled up from the days we waited anxiously to hear if we had won the competition. As we progressed through the drafts, Brittany and I received valuable feedback from peers and supportive members of Book Shorts such as Judith and Paul Quarrington. As we received critiques, we in turn churned out new drafts, removing dialogue, adding scenes and even at one point eliminating a character. After more than a month of constant revision, the first draft feels like a lifetime ago and has become six pages of embarrassing script we retrospectively laugh at. 

How it all started

It all began when my roommate Choo-Kien Kua spotted a posting for the Moving Stories competition on the Emily Carr website. Knowing that I was a film maker, he immediately sent me the link and needless to say the opportunity to adapt one of three well respected literary works piqued my interest. I enthusiastically began to read the books and kept in mind interesting elements that would be useful for the adaptation. After a week of reading and research, my enthusiasm began to wane as the reality of condensing a novel with an involved narrative into a terse three minute short film became a daunting task. Most of my free time was spent wearing down the delete key on my computer as a brainstormed for ideas. It wasn’t until I began to collaborate with my friend Brittany Junek were we able to finally decide on adapting David Chariandy’s novel Soucoyant. Brittany had read the novel previously and her understanding of the it immediately propelled the project out of ennui. With only several days before the deadline, Brittany and I hurriedly put together a treatment which we were very excited about. We sent it off at the eleventh hour and waited anxiously for a reply.

 - Ken Tsui, Filmmaker & Winner of the Emily Carr / Vancouver International Writers’ Fest Competition

 

Ken Tsui, Brittany Junek Guest Bloggers

Congratulations to Ken Tsui and Brittany Junek, winners of the Moving Stories MAKE A FILM ON OUR DIME Competition. They will work with author and filmmaker Paul Quarrington and producer Judith Keenan to translate their creative treatment of David Chariandy’s Soucouyant into a short film.  Their film will premiere on October 25 along with the cull curated Moving Stories Film screening.

Read Ken and Brittany’s blog here to follow their progress!

Ken Tsui is a 23-year old from Vancouver, British Columbia currently studying film and media at the Emily Carr University of Art and Design. Recently participating in Vancouver Asian Film Festival with two films co-directed with Jeff Chan, Ken continues to balance his studies with his work in short film.

Brittany Junek graduated from Emily Carr in 2008, specializing in painting, textiles and the incorporation of language into visual art. Since graduation she has focused her energies namely in writing, including short stories and free verse poetry.

 

The program is sponsored by Emily Carr Institure of Art + Design and Vancouver International Writers Festival.