Best Director Nominees

Renny Bartlett – Eisenstein

According to writer/director Renny Bartlett, the battle between art and power is a recurring theme in his work.

And few films speak to this theme more poignantly than does Eisenstein, the debut feature from the former sculptor and documentary filmmaker. Central to the story is the ongoing battle between the director Eisenstein and Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, who, while appreciating the filmaker’s skills as a propagandist, was a foil to his greater cinematic ambitions.

But beyond this, the film, originally titled The Furnace, seeks to get inside the soul of the man. It was a vein Bartlett felt he could tap, as opposed to revisiting the same territory covered in volumes written about the filmmaker as technician. (Eisenstein redefined cinematic editing in a career that ran from the 1920s to his death at age 50 in 1948 and included such films as Battleship Potemkin, October and Alexander Nevsky.)

‘What I was after was the person, the character, and partly the myth. I was not so interested in his film theories as I was in the man,’ says Bartlett, an Ottawa native who now splits his time between Montreal and London.

While paying tribute to the great filmmaker could easily lead a director to adopt some of Eisenstein’s famous shooting and editing techniques, Bartlett says he purposely avoided any such homage.

‘It too easily slips into pastiche,’ he says. ‘How do you try to beat a master at his own game without ending up looking silly?’

Beyond his documentary work, Bartlett has made experimental films including Artikos (1991) and he also helped develop Sally Potter’s Oscar-nominated Orlando. He called upon Alexei Rodionov, Orlando’s director of photography, to lens Eisenstein.

Bartlett is currently developing a musical comedy set in New York and has been working on a political thriller set in Peru. The events of Sept. 11 have thrown a wrench into the Peru project, however, with potential producers pondering the appropriateness of the subject matter. Peter Vamos

Denis Chouinard – L’ange de goudron

L’ange de goudron director/screenwriter Denis Chouinard points out that the cast of his contemporary social drama is composed equally of professionals and non-actors. ‘It’s a way of changing the [performance] of professional actors, who have to tone down a little bit, and it’s always interesting for non-actors to try to play something.’

Chouinard says if the approach might have some producers wringing their hands, he was determined the film should have a semblance of street realism. ‘It changes the way the film looks. It’s new faces, and the people don’t look like ‘les jeunes premiers’ or fresh-faced beautiful girls with beautiful guys who played Romeo and Juliet last week at the theatre.’

L’ange de goudron, produced by Max Films and distributed by Alliance Atlantis Vivafilm, tells the topical story of Ahmed and his family, Algerians whose hopes for Canadian citizenship are imperiled when their teenage son takes up dangerous political activism.

‘Algeria has been in a civil war since 1992,’ Chouinard says. ‘Most of the adult population wants to fly out of that country. Canada has become the main destination for [Algerians] in the past five years, especially now that the borders of France are closed. And they are massively coming to Montreal, because we speak French.’

Chouinard’s approach to social filmmaking implies ‘a filmmaker is first a citizen, someone who lives in a community at street level and is capable of doing a synthesis of their surroundings.’

Chouinard was thrilled to work with veteran director of photography Guy Dufaux. Dufaux had seen Chouinard’s first feature film, the 1997 immigrant stowaway drama Clandestins, and had been especially impressed with the acting performances and direction.

‘Guy was in New York shooting a German film,’ Chouinard recalls. ‘I sent him the script and he read it in his hotel room and phoned me back the day after to tell me he thought it was great. It is a social film, something he believes is missing in Quebec cinema.’

Europe-based actor Zinedine Soualem as Ahmed is nominated for a best actor Genie. Bertrand Chenier is nominated for original score.

Chouinard is presently completing a feature-length documentary for the National Film Board on pioneer Quebec filmmaker Gilles Groulx, titled Voir – Gilles Groulx. Next spring he intends to take up residence in Mexico City in preparation for a new feature to be produced by Max Films. Leo Rice-Barker

Bernard Emond – La femme qui boit

An established documentarian, La femme qui boit director/screenwriter Bernard Emond is drawn to novels and other literary forms, but much of his research and inspiration in film is grounded in anthropological ‘fieldwork.’

‘For years I have traveled across Quebec listening to how people speak,’ he says. ‘And I think that lends itself to a certain kind of truthfulness in dialogue. What’s also important to understand is that I am not interested in glamour or films about people who live in lofts. What counts is the lives and words of ordinary people.’

That said, Emond says La femme is in no way a documentary. ‘The form is entirely dramatic with a structure that is somewhat Brechtian. It addresses a reality, but that doesn’t make it realistic.’

Emond places a lot of emphasis on working with actors, and sees a screenplay as no more than ‘a work in progress.’

La femme stars Elise Guilbault in the affecting role of Paulette, an older woman who revisits life’s memories after years of alcohol abuse. (Guilbault is nominated for a best actress Genie.)

The film, produced by ACPAV and distributed by Christal Films Distribution, opened this year’s Rendez-vous du cinema Quebecois retrospective and was an official selection of the Cannes International Film Festival. It has won awards in Belgium and Portugal.

Other La femme nominees are Michel Forget for best supporting actor, Andre-Line Beauparlant for production design and Sophie Lefebvre for costume design.

Emond says production on La femme went smoothly and had its share of laughs on the set, even if the subject matter was rather difficult and there were many ‘hard scenes’ for lead Guilbault.

‘[Guilbault] is a fabulous actor with great craft and a generous spirit,’ he adds.

Emond had Jean-Claude Labrecque as his director of photography, which was a particular treat since he remembered seeing Labrecque’s doc 60 cycles in film school and recalled its formal experimentation in camera technique. ‘If someone had told me then, ‘One day Jean-Claude Labrecque will be the DOP on your feature film,’ I wouldn’t have believed it,’ he says.

Emond is already in preparation for his second feature for ACPAV, a contemporary drama starring Luc Picard called 20h17, to be shot at the end of March. Leo Rice-Barker

Zacharias Kunuk – Atanarjuat (The Fast Runner)

In addition to the seven Genie nominations Atanarjuat (The Fast Runner) has received, including one for Zacharias Kunuk for direction, a potential Oscar buzzes around the film. Despite all these accolades for his debut feature, the Igloolik, Nunavut-based director/coproducer says he hasn’t changed.

‘I’m in the same place,’ says Kunuk. ‘The only changes I’ve been through are that people recognize me more and people are calling more. Every Saturday I still go out there and hunt with the hunters.’

Kunuk is president and cofounder of Igloolik-based Igloolik Isuma Productions. As a younger man with a keen interest in stills photography, Kunuk purchased his first video camera in 1981 and began shooting Inuit elders telling their stories. His only formal film training was a weeklong camera course in 1985, and he learned the rest on the job. He spent the better part of the 1980s as the senior producer and station manager at the Inuit Broadcasting Corporation in Iqaluit before cofounding Igloolik Isuma in 1990.

Atanarjuat is the first Aboriginal production to use a script, which Kunuk says posed little challenge to his cast, despite the fact several were novice actors. What did pose a problem was the production’s timing – funding was still not in from all the contributors in time for the start of principal photography. The producers nonetheless proceeded, shooting in April because it was warm enough to keep the camera operational but still cold enough to erect igloos.

The camera was a Sony DVW-700WS Digital Betacam, handled by cinematographer/coproducer Norm Cohn. The video footage was then transferred to 35mm film for the Cannes International Film Festival, where the film received the prestigious Camera d’Or for best first feature.

Kunuk’s previous credits include three documentaries and the 13-part docudrama Nunavut (Our Land). As he waits to see if Atanarjuat will be nominated for a foreign-language Academy Award – it’s Canada’s official entry – the director is looking ahead to his next project, a feature called Angakuq (Shamanism and Christianity),

currently in development at Igloolik Isuma. Dustin Dinoff

William Phillips – Treed Murray

The action in Treed Murray, William Phillips’ debut feature, transpires almost entirely in a tree. The single-location film, inspired by the backroom jury film 12 Angry Men, has earned Phillips a nomination for achievement in direction.

Treed Murray is a psychological thriller about an advertising executive who on his way home from work makes a wrong turn in a city park, where he ends up being chased up a tree by a gang of teenagers, and an overnight standoff ensues.

Phillips, who also wrote the script, has had previous experience on a single-set feature, serving as second unit and post-production supervisor on Vincenzo Natali’s Cube. He felt this prepared him for the challenge of Treed Murray.

‘I had a good idea how I wanted the film to look going into production,’ he says. ‘Because we went into this knowing this was what we were going to do, we were able to think of interesting ways to shoot it beforehand.’

But this being his first feature, Phillips admits he was unprepared for the pressure he eventually felt. Budget constraints meant a short 19-day shooting schedule, which for him proved to be the most difficult part of putting the film together.

‘The 19-day shoot should be saved for the veteran who knows all the tricks, as opposed to the guy getting out there for the first time,’ he says. ‘One thing I didn’t count on was the physical exhaustion you feel. But you’ve got 50 people waiting for you to show up, so you have to [do it].’

Prior to Treed Murray, Phillips had directed short films. He wrote and directed Milkman (1997) and Deep Cut (1998) as part of the Canadian Film Centre’s Short Film Programme. He is currently writing the third draft of a script called Foolproof, and has also begun penning a Western titled Gunless. Kimberly MacDonald