Alrighty then!

How’s everyone enjoying the “90s, Baby!” series? I’ve been looking forward to this summer-long event for years after the VIFF Centre presented the seasonal retrospectives of the American movies from the 70s and 80s. I haven’t had this much fun since the Summer of Brian De Palma a decade ago. Tonight I am incredibly honoured to be presenting “The Truman Show” (1998).

Its director, Peter Weir, is a brilliant filmmaker. Lyrical, bold, soul-searching, and a romantic. Weir is most passionate about adventurers and the mysterious forces that conspire against them. The moving image, his acute sensitivity to its poetry is matched by his love of the soundtrack – he always carries a boombox on set and is all the ready with stories and ideas to inspire the crew. When he received his an Honorary Oscar Award for Lifetime Achievement, Weir said that he considers the actors usually separated as “the cast” to very much a part of “the crew”.

In awe of the original script by Andrew Niccol whose own directorial debut “Gattaca” (1997) is just as wonderful, it was Peter Weir’s cinematic vision to mask the dark and disturbing horrors of “The Truman Show” with the stifling calm and instant smile sunniness of inoffensive “don’t change the channel” programming. The ambition and world-building in this film is astonishing. You can speculate for hours about Truman’s world and what’s happening in the background as well as what’s happening off-screen.

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Here are my Favorite Pre-2023 First-Watches and Discoveries of 2025:

“The Cat” (1988)
“Ju Dou”
“The Doors: The Final Cut”
“The Apartment” (1996)
“Peter Ibbetson”
“Hollywood 90028”
“Kill Me Again”
“The Dead” (1987)
“Amorosa”
“Brief Encounters” (1945)

“Reliance” (“Förtroligheten”)
“China Moon”
“Peppermint Candy”
“Brighton Rock” (1948)
“Misunderstood” (1966)
“Green Fish”
“Black Gravel”
“A Tale of Sorrow and Sadness”
“Another Woman” (1988)
“Let Joy Reign Supreme”

“Doktor Glas” (1968)
“Ulee’s Gold”
“Sunday” (1997)
“Lianna”
“Gal Young ‘Un”
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A woman suspects she is being watched.

My new short film “A Variation on the Old In ‘n Out” (2025) will make its World Premiere at the FogFest Horror Film Festival on November 7-10th in St. John’s, Newfoundland! It is wonderful to be welcomed back by the same supporters of independent film that screened my award-winning “SIREN: A Police State of Mind” (2020) in 2022.

This is the first time I shot a movie on analog film.

Last summer I attended a 8mm filmmaking workshop so I could work with analog film for the first time. I had only made my movies using digital cameras and wanted to change that. My instructors at Cineworks, an independent filmmakers society that I belong to as a member, were amazed that I brought in an actor and storyboards for the filmmaking session. Nobody had ever made a short movie in that program before. In back of mind were some of my favourite silent films such as “The Man with a Camera” (1929) and “Begotten” (1990). Without deliberation in the making of the movie, this film ultimately pays homage to one of the greatest scenes in film history that belongs to “Un Chien Andalou” (1929). I even scanned my developed film several times using a variety of changes in exposure and resolution size. After a very rewarding period of post production, I completed my first short shot in 8mm film, “A Variation of the Old In ‘n Out.”

The actress starring is Eryka Alanna who was featured in “SIREN”.

The music is by film composer Suzanne de Montigny.

Special thanks to everyone who made this film possible with me.

IMDB

On the evening of August 30th, I volunteered to introduce the VIFF Centre’s screening of Charlie Kaufman’s film “Synecdoche, New York” (2008). This is my speech in its entirety.

Good evening, everyone.

I am very grateful that I get to introduce Charlie Kaufman’s film “Synecdoche, New York” (2008) tonight. Out of all the inspired films that were selected as part of the 21st Century Classics at the VIFF Centre, I agree that this extraordinary directorial debut by one of the most important voices working in cinema today is the one to close out the series.

This century is twenty-five years old and it’s begun to produce less collagen and lose its metabolism. I believe within the next seventy-five years that Charlie Kaufman will be regarded as one of the most influential thinkers of the 21st century. Having Kaufman’s films playing on the world cinema stage is just as novel as when Sigmond Freud and Carl Jung set foot in America and inevitably transformed the psyche of an entire nation. People will be thinking and talking about “Synecdoche, New York,” God willing, well after we’re dead.

It is quite extraordinary that a movie this profound and strange and challenging and raw and ambitious exists at all. There’s so much ingenuity and invention. Every ten minutes fulfills the promise, “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet!” A movie that doesn’t just circle around the abyss, but plunges wilfully into the abyss, damn the consequences. A movie so human that it really smarts. A movie so generous and overflowing with such charged and illuminating ideas. As the makeup artist played by Maggie Gyllenhaal in “Adaptation” (2002) would say, “It’s like a brain factory in here.”

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Here are my Favorite Pre-2022 First-Watches and Discoveries of 2024:

“The Son of the White Mare”
“Pin: A Plastic Nightmare”
“Simple Men”
“Joan the Maid, Part 1: The Battles” /
“Joan the Maid, Part 2: The Prisons”
“The Devils” (1971)
“Henry Fool” / “Fay Grim” / “Ned Rifle”
“My Heart Is That Eternal Rose”
“Gangster No. 1”
“Camouflage” (1977)
“Perfect Love” (1996)

“Life as a Fatal Sexually Transmitted Disease” /
“The Supplement” (2002)
“White Heat”
“The Strangler” (1970)
“Felicia’s Journey”
“Act of Violence”
“Code 46”
“The Vast of Night”
“Lost Illusions” (2021)
“The Kid Detective”
“The Bed You Sleep In”

“The Public Eye” (1992)
“Hotel” (2004)
“Scene of the Crime” (1986)
“Exile” (“Exil”) (2020)
“Hold Your Man”
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Welcome everyone to The 2024 CINELATION Retrospective.

As I said at last year’s “First Cinelation Retrospective”: This is going to be fun.

And it was.

And now we’re going watch these films again and get more out of them: Thrills, thoughts, shocks, chills, wickedness and elation. The more you love cinema, the more elated you’ll get tonight.

Speaking of which, along the previously screened “Bridge No. 29” (2014), “Socket” (2016) and “Siren” (2020), these three were filmed in clinical, inhuman digital code that peer and fall into the dark abyss of the human condition – full of rage, tension, obsession, mayhem, cruelty, despair, primal lust and madness (Again, these movies are fun!), I have constructed a brand new one with more raw, austere, tactile and vintage material than I’ve ever worked with as a filmmaker to create a work of art that lives up to its substance.

It’s a rare feat that the very location – right where you’re sitting, Luigi – is where I shot my very first 8mm film and where we’ll watch it first thing.

And I want thank Luigi Alvarez, Inanna Cusi, Dan Small, Colin Williscroft at Cineworks and especially, my gaffer and workshop partner Joe Gin Clark who unfortunately couldn’t be here with us tonight, for their support and teaching me to work with analog film.

Outside of Cineworks, nobody here knows anything about this new short, which makes things more intense for all of you and me. It’s like an experiment! Just imagine being in outside in complete darkness, unaware that you’re standing above a high precipice and here I am pushing you off.

I also had the good fortune to work with many talented friends, artists, actors and technicians crafting these films that I conceived and executed for the past 10 years. My gratitude knows no bounds.

Brace yourselves, these four films are coming at you now as a single monstrosity – a savage work of art.

Enjoy the show.

Here is a photo that was taken during the Q&A by cinematographer Danny Nowak (CSC). On the left is Luis “Luigi” Alvarez, the magnificent interviewer who asked really inspired questions about my work. On the right, I am in the zone explaining what compels me to make these films.

And my films looked brilliant projected in their DCP format. CONTINUE READING ►