GALA PRESENTATION: ONE WEEK

Writer/Director: Michael Mcgowan
Producers: Michael Mcgowan, Nick de Pencier, Jane Tattersall
Production Company: Mulmur Feed Company
Cast: Joshua Jackson, Liane Balaban, Campbell Scott
Distributor: Mongrel Media
International Sales: Charlotte Mickie, Maximum Films

Four years after he burst onto the TIFF scene with the comedy drama Saint Ralph, Ontario writer/director Michael McGowan is back with the road-trip drama One Week in a coveted red-carpet gala premier.

‘[TIFF] is positioning One Week to say ‘This is a big, important film,’ says the 42-year-old filmmaker, dismissing the added pressure that typifies a gala. This is ‘as good as it gets,’ McGowan tells Playback.

‘As a filmmaker, I couldn’t be happier,’ he continues, ‘unlike a lot of other filmmakers who are trying to raise their profile and get heard. We don’t have to worry about that.’

The journalist-turned-filmmaker began writing the script for One Week two years ago, and says it was an arduous process because he couldn’t get the tone right.

‘It was quickly disintegrating into MOW territory,’ he recalls. ‘I had 20 pages which I rewrote and rewrote before I had this breakthrough in May of last year.’

One Week follows Ben Tyler, a young man who is diagnosed with cancer and decides to forego treatment to take a cross-country motorcycle road trip from Toronto to Tofino, BC.

Vancouver native Joshua Jackson (Dawson’s Creek, Fringe) stars as Ben, while Campbell Scott (Saint Ralph) provides narration.

McGowan says he wanted to combine two ideas he had entertained for a while, including the notion of ‘what would you do if you had one week to live,’ while crafting a road movie as a love letter to Canada.

The director compares One Week to Sean Penn’s Into the Wild, where the character abandons his possessions and hitchhikes to Alaska.

‘That’s the great thing about traveling – getting out of your routine and escaping from your own life,’ McGowan says. ‘I love what [Into the Wild] did on the road, romancing the country. I wanted to capture the beauty [of Canada] for this film.’

Mongrel Media has skedded the $2-million feature for a domestic release on March 6, 2009. The distributor helped trigger Telefilm Canada and other investments early in the process.

‘When I finished the script I didn’t know if it was any good or not, but it quickly became apparent that people liked it. I didn’t have to explain how I was going to make the film…people were like, ‘We like the script, we’re going to do it,” McGowan recalls.

Nick de Pencier (Manufactured Landscapes), who coproduces One Week with Jane Tattersall (owner of post shop Tattersall Sound & Picture), says McGowan is able to win over the audience with a script that delicately blends mortality and humor.

‘One Week has that very nuanced balance, in a way that not a lot of writers can accomplish,’ begins de Pencier. ‘It’s not a depressing, super-edgy story, but is still very high-stakes, real, and meaningful,’ he adds.

McGowan says the film will appeal to a variety of moviegoers aged 13 and up, adding that the editing process revealed many different entry points.

‘As we were bringing people in, they brought their own mythology to the film, meaning people see themselves as Ben, or someone would say, ‘I took the trip with my mother before she died.’ The movie features a [vintage] Norton motorcycle, so you also get the motorcycle and road-trip enthusiasts,’ McGowan explains.

The director hopes for the same ‘magical’ sales enjoyed by Saint Ralph, which sold to multiple territories after it opened the Canada First! program in ’04.

‘A lot of things are working in our favor. Josh [Jackson’s] profile is huge…he is in the J.J. Abrams series Fringe, which debuts that same week of our premiere, while the SAG [unrest] and WGA strike have limited the product that’s out there,’ McGowan says.

The fact that the film is ‘unabashedly Canadian’ may also make it more attractive.

Adds McGowan: ‘It might just be that charm that is the greatest thing going for it.’