Director/writer: Lynne Stopkewich

* Cinematographer: Gregory Middleton * Producer: Raymond Massey * Diary by: Fiona MacDonald

A young married motel receptionist in small-town British Columbia turns 24 – the same age her mother was when she died – and starts turning tricks with guests in the motel. Mystified by her own behavior, she starts saving the money she earns for some reason she can’t quite fathom.

‘She doesn’t really understand why she’s doing it,’ director and screenwriter Lynne Stopkewich says. ‘We come to understand why she’s doing it. The character’s gone through some traumatic things in the past and the journey is to jog her memory about things that happened in her family and her role with her parents. It escalates and she puts herself in more and more dire situations.’

November 1997: Lynne Stopkewich, still aglow from her triumph with Kissed, is inundated with potential scripts. Impressed by her work on Kissed and connected through a friend, l.a.-based expatriate Canadian school teacher Michael Okulitch sends her a novel to which he has bought the rights: Suspicious River by Laura Kasischke. It sits unread for months.

February 1998: Stopkewich finally picks up the novel and finds herself hooked ‘after reading the first page.’ On the basis of the first chapter she calls Okulitch and flies down to l.a. to meet him. ‘I pitched myself to direct the picture and write it – he was looking for a scriptwriter. He was talking to all the big Canadian and American women directors. He was excited by my enthusiasm.’

A few days after the meeting, Stopkewich gets a call: she has the job.

March to May 1998: Stopkewich works on the screenplay.

Mid-1998: At the suggestion of Cassian Elwes, Stopkewich’s William Morris agent, Hamish McAlpine of Metro Tartan, the u.k. distributor of Kissed, is approached and comes onboard as both the u.k. distrib and personally as a private investor. In the credits he is listed as an executive producer.

Stopkewich is eager to ensure McAlpine’s involvement, in the hope the film will be allowed to cleave faithfully to the story.

‘Given the darkness of the material I was concerned about the casting process. So much of the studio’s involvement has to do with who you cast. I wanted to keep it small and manageable. It made sense to develop the project on our own rather than sign with a studio who’d tell us how to cut the film.’

January 1999: With a draft screenplay finished, Stopkewich is ready to start looking for her cast, her plan being to cast the film and ‘then go look for financing. The distributors would be buying sight unseen, buying the package. That’s how we could cobble together the money to film.’

In the hope of securing her friend and Kissed star Molly Parker, Stopkewich sends her a copy of the novel. ‘When I read the book I imagined Molly playing the role, but I wasn’t sure how she’d feel about it. I tried to consider other actors, but I really, really wanted her.’

Parker reads the book and is ‘sold.’

February 1999: Stopkewich and Parker meet in Toronto for breakfast. Parker’s first words are, ‘Can I play this part?’

Early 1999: France’s Bac Films signs a distribution deal.

June 1999: With the addition of Callum Keith Rennie in the male lead, casting for the film is finalized.

July and August 1999: The bulk of Stopkewich’s summer is spent in accompanying singer Sarah McLachlan on the road with the Lilith Fair tour. The feature, which will be culled from the 600 hours of footage shot, is set to premier in December 2000.

September 1999: Raymond Massey is bought on board as producer. ‘Once we decided to keep it in British Columbia, we needed to find someone with a wealth of experience to be producer. When Michael Okulitch put his [Massey’s] name forward as a potential, I was jumping up and down with joy,’ says Stopkewich.

For his part, Massey recalls fielding a phone call from l.a. asking him to suggest a line producer for a low-budget film shooting in Vancouver.

‘I asked who was directing, and when she said ‘Lynne Stopkewich,’ I said, ‘I’m not going to refer anyone else, I want to do it.’ Within 15 minutes of the call I had a deal in principal over the phone.

‘I knew Lynne has her own company and wasn’t really shopping herself around as a director, so this was a golden opportunity, because the project had been developed outside her company.

‘Because it was just a book, without the vision of a filmmaker like her it would have been a very different project. My favorite way of dealing with filmmakers like Lynne is to give them the resources to make the film they want to make. She’s so discriminating; such a talented storyteller.’

Oct. 18, 1999: Preproduction begins.

November 1999: Financing falls into place, with a combination of foreign sales, a loan from McAlpine and Canadian distribution deals providing the bulk of the money. tva comes on board as a distributor, opening the way to federal and provincial tax credits. Kinowelt of Germany, Key Films of Italy and Beyond Films of Australia are the last to sign on the dotted line.

Dec. 22, 1999: The 28-day b.c. shoot wraps amid a record-breaking rainy season. ‘We experienced a lot of difficulties on Suspicious River – it rained every day of the shoot,’ recalls Stopkewich. ‘Various sets were washed away by raging rivers. It was physically grueling. The last day of shooting we sustained damage to the negative. The next day I got a phone call [saying] that all of the negatives of the last day’s shoot had been damaged and would possibly have to be reshot.’

In the end, the damaged film is repaired digitally.

January to July 2000: Post-production begins. January to May is spent on the picture cut, while the sound is done from May to July and the film is mixed in July.

March 2000: An additional day is shot to compensate for time lost from the principal shoot.

June 2000: A rough cut is submitted to the Toronto International Film Festival and accepted.

July 2000: Flown to Vancouver for one day’s sound looping work, Parker picks up a bug that results in her losing her voice completely within hours. The looping is finished later that month in Toronto.

‘I always wanted this to go to tiff,’ says Stopkewich. ‘That’s the market to take your film to.’

August 2000: The final print of the film is struck. ‘We’ll probably take it to tiff still dripping from the lab,’ Stopkewich jokes.

September 2000: Suspicious River makes its world premiere at the Toronto festival. *