19 Months, a first-time feature from Randall Cole to bow at the Vancouver International Film Festival, is not about falling in love, as with most romantic comedies, but attempting to fall out of love with dignity.

With the pretense that 19 months is a scientific measure of how long the average romance lasts before going bust, Cole takes an unbuttoned look at a young couple, Rob (Benjamin Ratner) and Melanie (Angela Vint), who coolly agree to break up before their seratonin cache dries up and their relationship reaches its ‘expiry date.’

It’s a clever premise for a romantic comedy, with a twist: Rob and Melanie good-naturedly agree to stay together until each finds a new partner. And they recruit a documentary filmmaker to chronicle their unorthodox approach to severing one romantic entanglement while forging another. Of course, the planned breakup founders, which leads to a surprise ending for the debut feature from writer/director Cole and producer Jim Mauro, both Canadian Film Centre graduates.

Cole got 19 Months off the ground by convincing the CFC to underwrite his film as the 11th installment in the school’s Feature Film Project series, getting the green light in January 2002 to begin preproduction.

‘Randall’s script is extremely comical in the simplest of human ways, which everyone can relate to. Not only is it one of the best screenplays to come through our doors, it was also absolutely perfect, in its sensibilities and approach, for the ultra-low-budget range of $250,000 and under,’ says Justine Whyte, executive director of the FFP.

The FPP program is tailor-made for short filmmakers looking to make their debut feature.

Cole says he cut his filmmaking teeth while writing and directing five shorts at Concordia University. He next attended the CFC’s screenwriting program, where he wrote two feature screenplays and a short comedy.

19 Months is Cole’s third feature screenplay. The first draft was written in just under one month.

Producer Mauro says the FFP backing took the laborious search for financing out of the equation, but threw up a new challenge in shooting an independent feature on a shoestring budget.

‘Basically, everyone was working for next to nothing,’ Mauro says. That made it key that crew and talent were committed to the project.

‘When you’re up front with everyone and they agree with the project, they can be incredibly creative without breaking the bank,’ he adds.

It also helped that 19 Months is a faux documentary, and not solely a romantic comedy, which are usually associated with 35mm and high production values.

The use of documentary techniques made it easier for Cole and Mauro to shoot the film digitally using Sony 24p HD video, and not 35mm.

Mauro insists 24-frame video has a look that is near to film quality if properly lit and handled. What’s more, 19 Months can be easily transferred to 35mm should Cole and Mauro find the required financing to do so.

To complete his talent search, Cole hired Marissa Richmond as a casting director. As in the case of most romantic comedies, the writer/director knew his film would succeed or fail based on the chemistry, or lack thereof, of the two leads.

The male lead was especially important as the lynchpin in 19 Months: the audience would need to love to hate Rob, not love or hate him, says Cole.

The director came upon the Vancouver-based Ratner, the lead actor in Bruce Sweeney’s Last Wedding, after Ratner cold-called Cole and insisted he was perfect for the part.

‘I know this guy, I can play him,’ Ratner told Cole. And after reading for the part, Ratner was proved correct. ‘Ben nailed it,’ Cole says of the initial audition. And Ratner played well against his female lead, Angela Vint.

‘The chemistry was there. I believed they could love each other and I believed they could hate each other,’ recalls Cole.

Ratner came to 19 Months with extensive film and TV work under his belt. In addition to Last Wedding, he’s also played in Yves Simoneau’s Ignition and Mina Shum’s Long Life, Happiness and Prosperity.

Vint’s TV credits include stints on such series as Traders, Gene Roddenberry’s Earth: Final Conflict, Soul Food and PSI Factor: Chronicles of the Paranormal.

Among the locations for 19 Months was Cole’s downtown Toronto apartment. ‘A bachelor apartment filled with a production crew and cast was a nightmare,’ recalls the director.

Those watching 19 Months will readily recognize Toronto – its streetcars, the CN Tower. The crew made no attempt to disguise the city.

Cole adds that only two scenes in the film needed major surgery during post-production at Toronto shop Stonehenge. He credits that to the professionalism of the movie’s cast.

‘They are working actors. There were other more higher-profile roles they could have taken, but they wanted a chance to be artists as opposed to [TV] technicians,’ Cole says.

Despite the film’s shoestring budget, the association with the FPP meant Cole and Mauro could not conduct a sweatshop shoot. Shooting days ran to 12 hours, no longer.

Cole and Mauro are looking forward to getting 19 Months before a public audience at VIFF. The posting of the movie could not be done soon enough to attempt to get the film into either the Montreal or Toronto festivals.

Cole and Mauro are also hoping for a lot of hometown press for Ratner, given Vancouver is his base and his association with Vancouver filmmaker Sweeney.

After the launch of 19 Months in Vancouver, Mauro will turn his attention to securing distribution and a general release for his film.

-www.cdnfilmcentre.com