– Director/writer/coproducer: Clement Virgo

– Producers: Damon D’Oliveira, Karen A. King

– Executive producer: Colin Brunton

– Diary by: Pamela Cuthbert

Summer 1990: By way of a trip to England, a memorable visit to the cinema and a political anti-drug campaign, window display artist Clement Virgo comes up with the idea for his first feature, Rude, a film that is literally nearly the death of him.

Virgo visits London, Eng., which is replete with pirate radio djs. ‘This voice alone in a room was so compelling to me,’ he says, ‘and that was the jumping off point for the film.’

Originally called Rude Boy, the film is also inspired by an image embedded in Virgo’s mind since 1979 when he saw Walter Hill’s The Warriors at the Coronet theater on Yonge Street. The film features a dj who is, onscreen, a mere pair of lips and a microphone.

Another influence is then-Toronto mayor Art Eggleton’s anti-drug campaign whereby, news cameras at the ready, he visits Alexander and Regent Parks to smash down walls that drug dealers used for cover as they worked the streets.

Summer 1991: With a first draft of Rude finished, Virgo is admitted into the Canadian Film Centre’s Summer Lab. Rude is, and remains, a story of three characters – a window dresser, a young man just out of jail and a boxer – whose tales are intertwined by a pirate radio dj named Rude.

At the Centre, Virgo meets future Rude coproducer and actor Damon D’Oliveira when he performs in one of Virgo’s video exercises. Virgo gives him a copy of the script to read. D’Oliveira likes what he sees and agrees to produce the film.

Spring 1992: Virgo becomes a Centre resident and starts to work on the script for Rude (with story editors Bruce McDonald and Walter Donohue) while simultaneously writing and shooting his first solo effort, the short film Save My Lost Nigga Soul.

Summer 1992: Production funding for Rude comes in from the Ontario Arts Council and the Canada Arts Council.

September 1992: The short Small Dick, Fleshy Ass Thang! that Virgo codirected with Virginia Rankin, is screened at the Toronto Festival of Festivals.

September 1993: Save My Lost Nigga Soul premiers at the Toronto festival and wins the John Spotton Award for best short film. During the festival, D’Oliveira and Virgo approach Karen King to coproduce the film. Virgo knows King from their days on the board of the Black Film and Video Network.

Fall 1993: Virgo writes a couple more drafts of Rude and returns to England, ‘just to get that original vibe back.’ Upon his return home, he and D’Oliveira make their first application to the Feature Film Project.

Why the ffp? ‘For our first feature, we wanted to take as much pressure off as possiblewe thought the Centre would give us some leverage because we knew them,’ says Virgo. He wants the ffp even though he and his producers are faced with a budget of about $750,000 (half of which is deferrals from suppliers, crew and cast, labs and facilities) and a five-week shooting schedule. Virgo meets dop Barry Stone.

Winter 1993: The Ontario Film Development Corporation and Telefilm Canada come onside for development money to the tune of about $25,000.

Rude is initially rejected by ffp but the decision is turned around by cfc head Wayne Clarkson and ffp head Colin Brunton who are in favor of the project.

The ffp does not allow for any development money, so the ofdc and Telefilm subsidies are returned to the agencies by the first day of principal photography.

Early 1994: Virgo, King and D’Oliveira do preliminary casting and approach actor Maurice Dean Wint.

Spring 1994: Faced with a puny budget and intent on creating a visually rich film, Virgo and production designer Bill Fleming start to work on the film’s look.

A wall is an instrumental part of the set and Virgo and Fleming think ‘long and hard’ about what to put on the wall. They look at the works of Renaissance painters like Caravaggio and Michaelangelo (‘a lot of dead Italian guys,’ as Virgo puts it) and decide to use Renaissance colors. They notice that few patterns exist in the Renaissance paintings and decide the film will be comprised exclusively of solid colors (including wardrobe and set).

Mid-April to mid-May 1994: With a medium-sized crew and a cast of 28, including a 500-pound lion named Bongo, the 35mm film shoots in an old cbc warehouse and on location in Alexander and Regent Parks.

Virgo has decided each storyline should be shot in a different cinematic style, using ‘a European, meditative style’ for the window dresser, a busy, jarring style for the boxer, and adding animal sounds and slow-motion sound effects and applying a classic Hollywood style for the ex-con who comes home from prison.

Within the confines of the wee budget, Fleming comes up with some inspired ideas, like the creation of a shower out of nothing but a little paint and smoke. With the bathroom fixture not available, Fleming suggests that a shower can be created by painting a small space on the warehouse floor to look like the floor tiles of a shower and by using smoke to create the illusion of steam. ‘So the shower happened in this void filled with smoke,’ says Virgo.

The paring down continues. ‘I wrote a scene that was outside with 30 extras. Suddenly it became two actors in a stairwell,’ says the director. It’s no problem, he says, as long as you keep your eye on what to cut back on. ‘We realized we would have to make the right compromises, not the ones that would compromise the film.’ Virgo and his team kiss one location after another goodbye.

Mid-May 1994: The last day of shooting turns out to be momentous, not for the usual relief that comes with a wrap, but because, with only a few hours of shooting left, the director unexpectedly sees his own image reflected in the hungry eye of the hired lion.

Six crew members, including a couple of camera operators, first ad John Lawson, one producer and Virgo are onset with the lion and his trainer, a man Virgo says has ‘the biggest scar I have ever seen on anyone.’

As declared by the trainer, rule number one is don’t move if the lion gets out of control. While shooting an in-camera matte sequence where the lion has to walk up to a wall and turn left, Virgo notices the beast that was visible on his monitor only moments ago, has suddenly disappeared. When he turns around to look for him, the cat is staring at him, inches away.

‘I stand up slowly,’ he says. ‘Some people would disagree and say I jumped up quickly and ran. Everyone said I sprinted out of the room, which was not true. The trainer yells, ‘don’t run!’ and I stood there while he shoved a big piece of meat in the lion’s mouth and slowly led it away.’

No break or breakdown followed the ordeal. Virgo says he and the crew had a big laugh and continued with the shoot as planned until, a few hours later, after another take of the lion’s promenade around the wall, the giant pussycat stopped and glared at the crew. ‘He was looking at us like we were a big t-bone.’ Virgo calls it a wrap.

Summer to fall 1994: Editor Susan Maggi cuts the feature at deluxe toronto.

Late winter 1994: Rude is invited to Sundance but can’t go because the film, being mixed sporadically on a deferral deal, isn’t ready. Next, an invitation to attend the Berlin Film Festival in February is turned down for the same reason.

March 1995: Rude is accepted into the Cannes Film Festival in the Un certain regard section.

Spring of ’95: Cineplex Odeon Films buys domestic distribution rights and Alliance Releasing takes on foreign rights.

Rude gets its world premiere at Cannes to much brouhaha and acclaim.

September 1995: Rude gets its North American premiere when it opens Perspective Canada at the Toronto International Film Festival Sept. 9.