Cash in the bank and a bona fide Hollywood set
• Director: Carl Bessai
• Writer: Adam Zang
• Producers: Jason James, Irene Nelson, Dylan Collingwood, Kimani Ray Smith
• Production companies: Resonance Films, Titlecard Pictures, Rampart Films, Raven West Films
• Key cast: Richard de Klerk, Kandyse McClure, Sonja Bennett, Chad Willett, Rebecca Jenkins
• International rights: Rampart Films
• Budget: $1 million
Coming-of-age drama Cole is Carl Bessai’s seventh film to premiere at the Toronto festival.
But this latest effort is a departure for the Vancouver director – unlike most of his films (Normal, Mothers & Daughters), Bessai didn’t write the script. Nor was the film financed through the typical myriad of Canadian subsidy programs.
Cole is the story of a 21-year-old man who has spent his life picking up the pieces for his dysfunctional family in small-town B.C., where he manages a gas station. Cole, who is dating a black woman from the city, finally spies an opportunity to leave small-town life behind for good, yet finds himself guilt-ridden over abandoning his family.
New Vancouver production shingle Titlecard Pictures brought the script to more experienced B.C. producer Jason James (Unnatural & Accidental), who then approached Bessai to direct.
‘I liked the fact that this film has a racial tremor, which is something I have never explored before,’ explains Bessai. ‘There’s also the tension between the rural versus urban experience.’
Bessai has excelled in the world of low-budget Canadian indie features where financing is cobbled together from numerous, mostly government sources.
Cole offered the chance to work on a film with a very different funding structure – the $1 million budget was raised privately by Rampart Capital Corp., a Vancouver/L.A.-based investment capital company that has been in business since 1980. Rampart acts as an intermediary, matching business opportunities with private investors, and has primarily focused on land development, until recently, when it opened the production arm Rampart Films, a copoducer on Cole.
Rampart Films holds world rights to the picture. No distributors are currently attached. A pay-TV sale has been made to Super Channel in Canada, which allows the production to be eligible for federal and provincial tax credits.
‘Typically in Canada, producers are still running around closing the bank deal two weeks after shooting has begun,’ explains Bessai. ‘But in this case the cash was in the bank, so the producing team could focus all their efforts on the creative. It’s incredibly liberating to work this way.’
Although the film’s budget is modest, they did manage to secure a Hollywood set for their location shoot. Bessai undertook an exhaustive search for an authentic small town and finally found an online photo of a working gas station in Lytton, BC that piqued his interest.
‘It had that small-town, dusty and tired look, so we booted out there and found attached to the gas station this weathered building with a house and store filled with old furniture,’ recalls Bessai. ‘It was too good to be true.’
That turned out to be the case. After wandering through the ‘authentic’ rural house/store and finding no washroom or electrical outlets, Bessai asked the owner a few more questions.
‘It was built by an American studio for the movie Pledge,’ he says, laughing. ‘Here we were looking for an honest depiction of a small-town gas station and after all our searching ending up with the Hollywood version. But it worked.’
Cole is targeted at a younger audience and is music-heavy with a soundtrack of top Canadian indie bands, including Broken Social Scene. Bessai believes the film has potential as a boutique theatrical release, and should do well in the TV market.
‘It is an accessible movie and has quirkiness, charm and beautiful scenery and music going for it,’ says Bessai. ‘It’s a love story, but it’s also the romance between a young man and his hometown, which I think a lot of people can relate to.’