Inside:

Distribution on the edge:

Canadian cinema carves an ‘erotic weirdness’ niche – p. B3

Canadian screenwriting:

‘A low-percentage proposition’ – p. B4

Shorts getting longer shrift:

Garnering more slots and more money – p. B20

Film diaries:

Production chronicles from conception to completion – begin p. B7

Features:

The Hanging Garden – p. B7

Shopping for Fangs – p. B11

Gerrie & Louise – p. B14

Pitch – p. B17

Hayseed – p. B19

Shorts:

Guy Maddin: Waiting for Twilight – p. B22

Permission – p. B24

Linear Dreams – p. B26

Director: Sturla Gunnarsson * Writer: Steven Silver

* Producers: Steven Silver, David York, Phyllis Brown * Cameraman: Kirk Tougas * Diary by: Teressa Iezzi

In 1985, Steven Silver, a young South African anti-apartheid activist, was involved in a conference at which two speakers, Matthew Goniwe and Fort Colata, never arrived. Their car had been ambushed and both were killed.

Twelve years later, Silver, Canadian director Sturla Gunnarsson and Blackstock Pictures have completed the film inspired by Silver’s urge to discover what happened to men like Goniwe and Colata, by Gunnarsson’s desire to uncover those behind the crimes, and by two people, Colonel Gerrie Hugo and Louise Flanagan.

Gerrie was an officer in the South African Defense Force and an operative in the government’s anti-anc campaign of detention, torture and murder. Louise is a journalist who had spent her career exposing the actions of these men. The two are now married, Flanagan serving on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and Hugo dealing with the no-man’s land of someone who has turned his back on his former life.

Gunnarsson delivers the story with an even hand and the result is a troubling and compelling film that visits no judgment on those presented and bestows on the viewer that most diminishing of resources, responsibility, to decide for themselves where the likes of Hugo, and the larger questions of good and evil, fit into the framework of humanity. It’s a challenging film on many levels and it was no picnic getting it made, either.

Summer 1994: Steven Silver moves from South Africa to Canada and approaches Blackstock Pictures’ David York with a proposal for a film about what happened to the victims of apartheid and about the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Sold on the project, York, together with Blackstock producer Phyllis Brown, and Silver, who will also coproduce the film, take the project to the cbc. After an initial rejection by the broadcaster, York and Silver discuss the wisdom of attaching a director to the project.

February 1995: Based on previous projects like feature film Diplomatic Immunity and documentary Final Offer, filmmaker Gunnarsson emerges as the choice to helm the project. Silver meets Gunnarsson, who is interested in the project but wants to shift the emphasis to the perpetrators of the crimes aired at the commission. ‘I said if we can find the bad guys, I’ll do it,’ says Gunnarsson.

The project is taken to cbc executive producer, documentaries Mark Starowicz, who had long been encouraging the director in the direction of another documentary. With the broadcaster’s imprimatur, the initial research phase of the project is underway.

March 1995: Gunnarsson and Silver spend two and half weeks in South Africa attempting to locate the perpetrators of government-sanctioned horrors. Everyone points to Louise Flanagan, recognized internationally as an expert in the government’s actions against the anc and as a courageous antiapartheid journalist.

Through Flanagan, Gunnarsson hears about covert operative Colonel Gerrie Hugo, and a meeting is arranged in East London, on the eastern cape of South Africa.

Gunnarsson encounters an ‘incredibly conflicted man’ upon meeting Hugo at a Holiday Inn. ‘It was 9 a.m. when we went to the bar together,’ says Gunnarsson. The two spend the day walking and talking and Gunnarsson discovers a likable man who is regaling him with tales of atrocities.

‘On one hand he was putting me right inside what it was like to be one of these nasty boys,’ says Gunnarsson. ‘But at the same time he’s a funny guy on a certain level. I’d be laughing and I’d catch myself and realize I was laughing at gross human rights violations. He just made me his accomplice. My reaction to him was so complex.’

Hugo invites Gunnarsson and Silver to his home. Waiting there is Flanagan and the shocking realization that she is involved with Hugo.

As Gunnarsson and Silver climb into their car that night, they both realize Gerrie and Louise are the story, and the doc for the cbc would not be exactly as discussed.

Starowicz gives the nod to the new direction of the project.

April 1995: Silver and Gunnarsson spend the next three months writing a new script for the film and sell the revised version to the cbc.

Summer 1995: With the cbc, and now Telefilm Canada on board, the project is ready to go until thousands of tiny pieces of the funding pie – in the form of Ontario Film Development Corporation dollars – disappear with the arrival of the new Mike Harris Conservative government in Ontario.

At this point the budget for the film is $374,860 (these numbers tend to get pounded into your head, says York). Then, Telefilm runs out of money and cannot finance the project until the next fiscal year.

Montreal’s Films Transit indicates its interest as a distributor.

April 1, 1996: The financing picture is in place, with involvement from Telefilm, the Cable Production Fund, the Rogers Documentary Fund, a cbc licence fee and cbc equity investment, Gunnarsson’s Eurasia Motion Pictures, producers’ deferrals and a cash investment from Blackstock.

Telefilm and the cbc helpfully expedited matters to ensure the project will be in the blocks as of April 1. As standard practice, however, they won’t release the cheques until cpf participation is confirmed, which comes with the contingency that the project be the first English production in its lineup.

So the wee hours of April Fools Day find York and Brown, both sick with the flu, lined up outside in the snow, where they have been all night, in order to be first in line in the morning.

Blackstock has about $50,000 committed to the project, mostly on credit cards, and funding absolutely has to be in place this morning or things could unravel most unpleasantly.

While funding closure is achieved today, the timing of the project’s start is critical for the story as well. The start date of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission has been announced – it will begin April 15 in East London, where Flanagan and Hugo live. Flanagan, who is about to assume a position on the commission, has also decided to wed Hugo.

‘I realized this was it, we had to do it now,’ says Gunnarsson. ‘It was the convergence of history and a personal story.’

April 6 to April 24 1996: Gunnarsson travels to South Africa to shoot the film, which at this point is commissioned for cbc’s Witness series. Silver has gone ahead and will form a part of the small production team comprised of David York, who is line producing, cinematographer Kirk Tougas (Rustling of Leaves) and a sound man and camera assistant picked up in South Africa.

The production is shot with digital Betacam, and to ensure complete coverage sans crew, Gunnarsson also brings a Digi-Cam, which is as constant a companion as Hugo. ‘I was basically on him like a wet blanket,’ says Gunnarsson.

The shoot is short and intense. He says, ‘It was all there in the moment – a country confronting its past and people coming out of the woodwork – it all happened in a very compressed period of time.’

Silver, whom Gunnarsson calls a built-in resource, facilitates the acquisition of the film’s stunning stock footage.

In addition to capturing Kusta Jack, a memorable victim of Hugo’s former activities, Gunnarsson manages to nab Colonel Jan Anton Nieuwoudt, a high-level government operative who has never been photographed before. Gunnarsson uses a campaign of attrition together with a big Mercedes to wear down the colonel’s resistance. Nieuwoudt, a trained subversive, interrogator and hit man, commends Gunnarsson’s interrogation skills.

With about 80 hours of footage, Gunnarsson realizes the project has potentially burst out of the framework of a 46-minute documentary.

After returning from South Africa, Gunnarsson is off again to film We the Jury.

Fall 1996: Editor Manfred Becker assembles the first rough cut and Gunnarsson takes it to the cbc along with the request that the production be feature-length. ‘They were profoundly uninterested,’ says Gunnarsson.

Undertaking a feature-length Gerrie & Louise will mean that Witness loses both the show and the money it has invested thus far. Starowicz agrees to look at a feature-length cut.

Christmas 1996: With the feature-length cut in play, a foreign broadcaster sniffing around, and Gunnarsson committed to the longer version, Starowicz meets with Slawko Klymkiw, cbc exec director network programming, and together they decide to run Gerrie & Louise as a network special.

With a long version approved and an hour version de rigeur for international sales, the task of refinancing the now dual project begins.

Spring 1997: Films Transit’s Jan Rofekamp takes a cut of Gerrie & Louise to mip-tv and sells about 12 territories for broadcast.

Distribution revenues are used to make a 16mm print to show in Toronto and potentially at other film festivals.

Summer 1997: The cbc and Telefilm pony up an additional $29,300 and Gunnarsson contributes $20,000 in deferrals to round out the final budget of $453,460. Both director and producer acknowledge the support of funding bodies throughout but admit that the original refinancing stances of the cbc and Telefilm are ‘tough.’

As of the end of August, negotiations are open again on the issue of refinancing and recoupment. Gunnarsson says Telefilm has expressed an acknowledgment of the difficulty for a small company to carry a high level of deferral.

Amid flack from a petulant New York, Gunnarsson begins filming Torre and The Yankees in Toronto.

Silver cites the importance of narration cowriter Barry Stevens’ contribution to the overall narrative structure of the film. The film reflects the moral ambiguity of South Africa, he says, adding that Gunnarsson was instrumental in the film’s withholding of moral judgment: ‘He has an ability to look for truth in a difficult place without flinching.’

September 1997: Gerrie & Louise screens at tiff.