Producers of the film Eighteen have withdrawn the entry from the Whistler Film Festival citing post-production sound problems.
The Vancouver production was one of six contenders for the inaugural Philip Borsos award for best Canadian feature film making its world premiere at the festival.
Directed by Richard Bell, Eighteen is a story about a street kid forced to confront his past upon receiving his grandfather’s WWII memoirs. The film’s score was composed by maestro Bramwell Tovey and recorded by the entire Vancouver Symphony Orchestra at CBC Radio’s Vancouver Studio One.
The Borsos competition will proceed with the remaining five films.
Screening in place of Eighteen on Saturday, Dec. 4 at 5 p.m. at Village 8 Cinemas is a second showing of Jill Sharpe’s Weird Sex and Snowshoes: A Trek Through the Canadian Cinematic Psyche. The world premiere documentary film based on film critic Katherine Monk’s book of the same name established itself as an early hot ticket and was expected to sell out at the time of Eighteen’s withdrawal. Sharpe and Monk will attend both screenings.
It appears documentaries are hot sellers across the board. The festival has added a second screening of North Vancouver director Stan Feingold’s film Prisoners of Age, also a world premiere at the Whistler fest. The film examines the issues surrounding geriatric prisoners based on a project by photographer Ron Levine. Prisoners screens twice on Friday, Dec. 3 at 1 p.m. and 5 p.m. at Village 8 Cinemas.
It should also be noted that the documentary Call it Karma , director Geoff Browne’s chronicle of a pilgrimage across Tibet with a Buddhist monk, is in fact a world premiere screening and not a North American premiere as listed in the festival program. The film screens Friday, Dec. 3 at 7 p.m. at Village 8 Cinemas.
For all the most up to date festival information check out www.whistlerfilmfestival.com.
Three Vancouver writers shortlisted for Short Scripts
Prize winner to be chosen at Filmmaker Forum’s Script Analysis workshop
Vancouver screenwriters Jessica Bradford, Robert J. Kirbyson and Kirby Morrow have been selected as the three competitors for the Whistler Film Festival’s inaugural Short Scripts competition.
An initiative of the fest and Vancouver-based script development/promotion agency Alibi Unplugged, the contest called for original eight-minute scripts on the theme of "Canadian Adventure."
Short list subject matter ranges from arranged marriage in Bradford’s A Canadian Affair , to hockey traditions in Morrow’s The Boxing Day Classic to a relationship road movie in Kirbyson’s Stuck .
The three finalists were chosen out of 90 entries and will participate in Script Analysis-Elements of a Short Film Screenplay workshop, taking place Saturday, Dec. 4, 11 a.m.—1 p.m. at MY (Millennium) Place, part of the festival’s Filmmaker Forum.
The judging panel includes festival director and filmmaker Carl Bessai, Vancouver CityTV’s Prem Gill, Sue Biely, acquisitions editor for CBC Television’s ZeD TV and Canadian director/actor/screenwriter/indie icon Don McKellar.
The panel will critique the scripts following a live reading at the workshop, before deciding the winner of a production prize package valued at $20,000 to bring the script to the screen. The winner will be announced at the festival’s Awards Brunch on Sunday, Dec. 5. The resulting short film must be finished in time for screening at the Whistler Film Festival in 2005.
Oscar buzz surrounds WFF films
Nominations for the 77 th Annual Academy Awards will be announced on Tuesday, Jan. 25, 2005 and several films in this year’s Whistler Film Festival lineup are among those being touted by film critics and Oscar-soothsayers as early predictions to end up on the list.
Among the buzz generators is The Motorcycle Diaries – Brazillian filmmaker Walter Salles’ road-movie about the formative years of Ernesto "Che" Guevera starring hot tamale Gael Garcia Bernal. Early predictions are also giving the nod to Finding Neverland, director Marc Forster’s ( Monster’s Ball ) period drama about Peter Pan author and playwright Sir J.M. Barrie, the portrayal of whom by Johnny Depp has been touted as a genuine shot as the Best Actor statuette. Sean Penn’s performance in the tense dramatic film The Assassination of Richard Nixon is also generating its share of Best Actor boosters. The Motorcycle Diaries screens Thursday, Dec. 2 at 9:30 p.m. at Village 8 Cinemas, The Assassination of Richard Nixon (a B.C. Premiere) at Rainbow Theatre at 1 p.m. on Saturday, Dec. 4. Finding Neverland closes the festival, screening at 9:30 p.m. at Rainbow Theatre on Sunday, Dec. 5.
Festival Celeb Watch
A number of familiar faces from the silver screen are expected to visit Whistler for this year’s film fest including hottie couple Katie Holmes and Chris Klein, and character actress Deborah Kara Unger (Hurricane, The Game, The Salton Sea, Thirteen), a member of the Borsos Prize Jury. Canadian jack-of-all-film trades Don McKellar will be in town as a jury member for the Short Scripts competition and to represent two films in which he appears: Clean and Childstar, which he also directed. McKellar is expected to attend the screenings of both films.
