I WANT TO BE A DESI wins 2nd place and premieres at GRFF

My short comedy, I Want To Be A Desi, took second place at the 2010 Grand River Film Festival's BMO SHORT Shorts Competition and premieres there on Saturday.

At a recent ceremony held in Kitchener, ON, the judges praised Desi for its witty writing, assured direction and smart cinematography, and for addressing the issue of identity in modern Canada. "The acting was excellent, the editing thoughtful, and the use of music very clever," announced one of the judges, Phillip Bast, a Kitchener filmmaker and journalist. "I Want To Be A Desi is a delightful film, a comic social investigation into multicultural identity for second generation Canadians in large urban centres, particularly the Greater Toronto Area."

Fellow judge and Toronto filmmaker, Benjamin Rousse, added that Desi is "a solid film with no weaknesses in any area of film production. Writer/director Allan Tong demonstrates a firm grasp of the art of filmmaking."

Desi bride (Tari Joshi on left) and Pal Uncle (Jazz Mann at right) celebrate with wannabe Desi, Roger/Raj (David Yee)

I Want To Be A Desi will screen in a program devoted to the BMO SHORT Shorts on Saturday, October 23, 1:00 p.m. at the Galt Little Theatre in Cambridge, next to Kitchener-Waterloo. The screening will be the World Premiere of I Want To Be A Desi. Click here for schedule and tickets. Waterloo Record article about GRFF.

Click here to see the trailer.

SAVAC launches film program in GTA schools

The South Asian Visual Arts Centre has launched a pilot project to place short films from its annual MONITOR film screening into schools across Greater Toronto. Students from the Toronto and Toronto Catholic district school boards from grades 7 through 12 will be taught these short films throughout 2010-11. A more detailed announcement will be made by SAVAC and the TDSB later this fall.

Allan teaches Tapestry at the TDSB's Asian Heritage Month Symposium at OISE last May (photos: Allan)

SAVAC's Education Officer, Allan Tong, spent the better part of 2010 contacting individual schools in the school boards and wrote the teacher's lesson plans for all 12 short films, which include Rex vs. Singh directed by Ali Kazimi, Richard Fung and John Greyson. Many of the films are documentaries though some are animated and experimental. The themes touch on human rights, immigration, Canadian history, racism and gender roles.

TDSB's Asian Heritage Month Symposium

One of the films, Tapestry directed by Sharlene Bamboat, was already taught at symposiums during Asian Heritage Month last May. Allan taught those workshops himself and wishes to thank Karlo Cabrera at the TDSB for co-writing the Tapestry lesson plan with him and for organizing the TDSB event which take place at OISE in downtown Toronto.

Allan also thanks Christine Jackson, the Program Coordinator of The Arts at TDSB, and his colleagues at SAVAC, Srimoyee Mitra, Koko Kurunathan and executive director Haema Sivanesan. This is merely the beginning of the Films Program at SAVAC.

Planet in Focus Film Festival wraps with sold-out Industry Day

Toronto's Planet in Focus just wrapped, boasting sell-out audiences at its Industry Day of panels, pitches and networking sessions.

Industry Day took place at the Miles Nadel Jewish Community Centre last Friday amid the eleventh edition of North America's premiere environmental film festival (October 13-17).

The morning began with an overflowing Green Networking Lounge, where sudden demand forced Industry Programmer Allan Tong to increase the number of micro-meetings from seven to 10. That meant there were 10 simultaneous one-on-one meetings happening between filmmakers who signed up and industry leaders they wanted to meet. Those industry folk included the heads of Telefilm Canada, Astral's Harold Greenberg Fund, NFB, The Canadian Film Centre's NFB Feature Documentary Program, White Pine Pictures, BravoFACT, Vtape, The Toronto Arts Council and LIFT. Filmmakers pitched ideas and sought career advice.

Joan Prowse, co-producer of Eco Heroes TV/web series and Ron Mann, director of In The Wake of the Flood

Directors such as Peter Mettler (Petropolis), Ron Mann, whose In The Wake of the Flood, opened Planet in Focus, and Liz Marshall whose Water on the Table won PIF's Best Feature Documentary prize, spoke at panels later in the day.

Directors Peter Mettler and Liz Marshall

A special panel was devoted to Green Screen Toronto, a new initiative to reduce the carbon footprint of film productions, notorious to wasting everything from gasoline to plastic water bottles. Lead consultant Melissa Felder moderated the panel that included Avi Federgreen, the producer of Score: A Hockey Musical which recently opened the Toronto International Film Festival.

Green Screen's Melissa Felder and Avi Federgreen (producer, Score: A Hockey Musical)

All panels were heavily attended mostly by those who had purchased the $50 ($40 for students) Industry Pass which include the Networking Lounge, a vegetarian lunch and a licensed reception in the early evening. Filmmakers shed light on how they made their pictures and discussed the nature of today's environmental film, the role of advocacy in films, and non-traditional forms of distribution.

Director Malcolm Rogge pitching green

Industry Day climaxed with the annual Green Pitch in which six teams of filmmakers presented their eco-film ideas to a live audience and jury made up of producers from CBC's The Nature of Things with David Suzuki, TVO and the NFB. The jury was deadlocked and did not arrive at a decision for over an hour. The eventual winner was Katarina Soukup for Under The City, a documentary currently in development about vanished waterways running beneath the world's major cities.

As Industry Programmer, Allan thanks all his PIF colleagues including executive director Sarah Margolius, director of programming Kathleen Mullen, and his assistant Majid Kholdabandehlou.

Given the popularity of Industry Day, perhaps Planet in Focus will expand it next year. I'm purely speculating, but all the written feedback I received suggests this.

LEONE STARS launches Kickstarter.com campaign

The LEONE STARS documentary team has launched a fundraising campaign at Kickstarter.com to raise $20,000 to shoot a film about the amputee soccer team of Sierra Leone. Donate anywhere from $5 and $5,000 and receive books, t-shirts, photos and CDs in return.

This project has attracted some of the top film, music and photography talents in Canada and the United States: K'NAAN who has contributed his song, "Fire in Freetown," to this trailer you see; Hot Docs board member WALTER FORSYTH who produced the viral hit How to Be Alone and the feature doc CUBERS; New York photographer FIONA ABOUD, and journalist/filmmaker ALLAN TONG.

For full details, please visit www.kickstarter.com.

I Want To Be A Desi finalist at Grand River Film Festival

My short comedy, I Want To Be A Desi has been chosen as a finalist in the Open Category of the 2010 Grand River Film Festival's BMO SHORT Shorts Competition. Details.

In A Better World [TIFF review]

Left to Right: Elias (Markus Rygaard) and Christian (William Jøhnk Nielsen)

They say that a filmmaker tells the same story in all his/her films, with each one refining the last one. That theory would apply to Denmark's Susanne Bier whose After The Wedding (2006) and Brothers (2004) explored themes of male violence and fractured families as contrasted between wealthy Scandinavia and the impoverished Third World. Those films featured strong writing and assured performances. In A Better World surpasses them.

In an unnamed war-torn African country, Anton (Everlasting Moments’s Mikael Persbrandt) plays a doctor stitching up mangled bodies in a refugee camp. His work is noble, yet heartbreaking. Amid a world of pain, he carries a stoic dignity about him.

Back home in Denmark, his estranged wife, Marianne (Trine Dyrholm), tries to protect her son, Elias, who's bullied for being Swedish, wearing braces and being shy. Enter the new kid, Christian, who arrives from London with his dad Claus (Ulrich Thomsen, seen in Brothers) . Immediately, you know that Christian is damaged. Cold and unsmiling, he's burning with anger over the death of his mother to disease and the apparent indifference from his father. When the bullies attack Elias then himself, he takes matters into his own hand -- with a knife.

The two outcasts bond, but Christian's violent streak escalates when a redneck shoves Elias' old man (back on a sojurn) in a brief sidewalk scuffle. Christian finds explosives and wants to blow up the redneck's car. However, Anton later confronts the redneck with the kids in tow and like Gandhi doesn't strike back at his aggressor. He's a little man, he's saying, and his blows don't hurt me.

Anton (Mikael Persbrandt), the moral compass of the film

However, Anton's pacifism is tested when he returns to the Africa camp and the sadistic warlord -- who takes pleasure in butchering the women and children he tries to save -- demands that Anton treat his leg wound.

Bier constructs an edge-of-your-seat thriller without sacrificing deeper themes and rich characterization. Each character has layers and their actions are unexpected. In A Better World is her best film so far.

Screening times & ticket info

Teenage Paparazzo [film review]

Austin Visschedyk is just like any other 14-year-old except he chases celebrities for a living. He photographs them in his native Los Angeles and sells those images for hundreds, even thousands of dollars a shot. You know, Paris-Britney-Lindsay-Nicole, chasing them at three in the morning in dodgy parking lots behind all-night clubs. Adrian Grenier knows how that feels. He became a celeb by playing a celebrity on the hit TV series "Entourage" and decided to turn his own camera on Visschedyk and other paparazzi.

Left to right: Grenier, Visschedyk (center, kneeling), Paris Hilton

This is a very good movie. True, it's not the first documentary to focus on the paparazzi, but it stands out by switching roles with one paparazzo--one that can't legally drive nor enter a club. The two form an unlikely bond, and Grenier becomes a more unlikely shooter. Imagine a celebrity who chases other celebrities for money. Meanwhile, Grenier draws so much attention on Visschedyk that the boy becomes an overnight sensation who stars in his own reality show. The Prince and the Pauper switch is the strength of this movie, full of irony.

Grenier does his homework, however. He interviews Visschedyk's parents who indulge their boy in this profession, yet call him during his late-night stakeouts and worry like all parents do. Grenier also talks to a lot of celebs including Paris Hilton who comes off as sort of smart, yet still ditzy. Alec Baldwin (of 30 Rock) fondly recalls having the Empire State Building "shoved up my ass, one brick at a time" by hostile photogs. And he talks to shrinks who of course warn consumers of celebrity rags and TMZ about how alienated they are (i.e. don't have lives of their own).


In fact, Teenage Paparazzo avoids being fluff by delving deeper. One scene that stands out is where Grenier prods Visschedyk into becoming a serious photojournalist by showing him John Filo's famous photograph of the 1970 Kent State shooting. Whereas his mother will always remember that shocking image, Visschedyk remarks that it doesn't look real enough, because not everyone around the dead body is screaming. Grenier answers that Visschedyk is used to seeing over-dramatization in popular images.

Seeing this movie is like walking into a room full of mirrors with image reflecting image without revealing any truth. Teenage Paparazzo succeeds by smashing those mirrors.

Teenage Paparazzo is released today in theatres across Canada. Images courtesy of Mongrel Media.