In building a feature about what makes relationships work, Midnight at the Paradise writer-producer Bill Robertson also had to figure out what would make the financing work — a six-year-long process for which the solution turned out to be team-building.

Making its world premiere at B.C.’s Whistler Film Festival on Saturday (Dec. 3), the drama features three Toronto couples whose lives intertwine over the course of a fateful evening at the movies.

Midnight at the Paradise was directed by Ghost BFF web series creator and star Vanessa Matsui, and executive produced by Paul Barkin. It was produced in association with Alcina Pictures and funded with participation from Telefilm Canada and Ontario Creates. Toronto-based levelFILM is handling Canadian distribution.

Robertson of Toronto-based Billfilms tells Playback Daily he wrote the script about six years ago specifically with Liane Balaban in mind for the lead role, after she’d starred in a couple of his short films. It went through a “development process with the Harold Greenberg Fund and Telefilm Canada,” and the script “generated a fair amount of interest right away — but there were issues as to what the film would be at the centre of it.”

One of the biggest points of feedback was around who would play the key figure of the father to Balaban’s character, with some telling him: “You’ll never get somebody good enough to pull this off’ kind of thing,'” he recalls, noting he applied for production financing at that time but got turned down a couple of times.

Things started to click when he met Matsui, who is one of Balaban’s best friends, about three years ago. Robertson originally approached her to act in the film but later asked if she wanted to direct, thinking her connection and shorthand with Balaban would offer the star the feeling of security needed to play a vulnerable character.

“I was like, ‘No, I’m not ready for that,'” Matsui says with a laugh. “But then after giving it some thought and talking to other people, everyone was like, ‘No, if somebody offers you your first feature, you just take it; just say yes and figure it out.’ So I said yes and it kind of changed my life.”

With Matsui on board, Robertson says Barkin talked to levelFILM and “made them see the value of the package,” resulting in the distributor putting up a minimum guarantee.

“LevelFILM are very supportive of Canadian independent film and particularly new talent, so having Vanessa at the helm of it I think was interesting to them as well — the package, the script, Liane, and the music,” he says.

The music was also Robertson’s baby. He says when he was initially turned down for some production money, he produced and recorded the band that’s in the film himself — Toronto indie group The Neighbourhood Watch. The result was so great, he’s already written another feature centred on the band.

“Now their album has millions of streams on Spotify and it’s just another element to take to the funders and go, ‘Look, here’s the star, here’s the script, here’s the director, here’s the music, here’s the package, here’s levelFILM. Are you interested?’ And that was enough for Telefilm to come on board for production financing,” he says.

Robertson then approached Ontario Creates with the same package, and they came on board to finish the financing, which also included his producer fees.

“If you look at the end of the movie, the thank-you credits, we had to put in all the people because this is how you make a film for $1 million — you have a lot of people doing you incredible favours and working at rates that they normally don’t work for,” he says.

Matsui also helped solve the problem of finding an actor venerable enough to play the father for Balaban’s character, securing the late Kenneth Welsh (pictured) in what turned out to be his final screen role. Other stars in the film include Allan Hawco and Ryan Allen.

Filming began in Toronto in late fall 2021, just before a new wave of COVID shutdowns due to the Omicron variant.

A core element of the film is a love of cinema and classic movies, so shooting in the city’s Regent cinema and Paradise Theatre while they were suffering from pandemic closures added a new layer of potency to the story. Robertson says the goal is to release the film in cinemas just like those.

“I actually feel like it’s better timing now than it would have been six years ago, just because of where moviegoing is at,” says Matsui. “The film will resonate a little more deeply currently, because theatres were still around six years ago; it didn’t feel as like dire as it does now.”