HITTING THE BIG SCREEN
City teacher-director releases film
Tom Simes, a Saskatoon teacher who moonlights as a movie director, is about release his biggest project yet. Because of Gracia, a high school drama/comedy, premieres in Nashville Thursday and will be released in 30 theatres in the United States in September.
It’s a “faith-friendly” film with a Christian message but Simes says it’s mainly the story that’s won people over in test screenings and attracted distribution funding.
“I never wrote it as a message, I wrote it as a story,” he said recently.
The project actually started as a play about a nervous high schoolboy trying to phone a girl. It was staged and went over well.
Next, Simes shot a rough version of the film in Saskatoon in 2013. That screened at the Roxy Theatre and attracted $500,000 from a local investor.
“I thought it’s going to be easy to raise the money. It turns out nothing is ever easy,” he says, laughing.
Simes considered shooting in Edmonton for almost $6 million but was connected with a Louisiana producer who said it could be done there for about $1 million. Just like that, they were shooting in February and March of 2015.
Simes’ son Brett, who appeared in the previous version, impressed the U.S. producers, so they brought him down as well in a principle role.
John Schneider from Dukes of Hazzard, a friend of the casting director, was cast as the high school principal. Simes says they bonded over their shared sense of sarcasm.
Simes maintained a low-key directing approach, inspired by Clint Eastwood’s style. He would often do only one or two takes because he knew what he needed. At first, the crew had their doubts about him but by the second week, they were won over.
“I didn’t want them to be stressed to the max because if you’re stressed, you don’t do good work,” says Simes.
One of Simes’ most cherished compliments came from a reviewer who compared his style to that of John Hughes (Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off ).
“I loved the fact that his films were quite smart, they didn’t dumb down teenagers. They dealt with serious issues. And deep down his film had heart. There’s a lot of films today that are so cynical, especially around teenagers. They want to be cool rather than heartfelt.”
Simes has made several sports documentaries like Season of Dreams about the Saskatchewan Roughriders and A Winning Tradition, about the Saskatoon Hilltops. His feature Run, Broken Yet Brave came out in 2010.
Because of Gracia should have been released by now but its initial distributor backed out. The reach had to be scaled back from 400 screens to 30. It was a letdown but “after I put my ego away, I started thinking, strategically, this is brilliant,” Simes says.
He likes the idea of starting small and seeing the film catch on, which worked for La La Land and The Big Sick. Feedback has been positive so far. A focus group screening in Nashville resulted in a 100 per cent approval rating.
The film has been entered into eight festivals and won seven awards, including best picture. At the Life Fest Film Festival in Los Angeles, Simes won the Frank Capra award for best director.
Other deals are in the works, like a video-on-demand arrangement in South America for mobile phones, a market of 785,000 million. Anything can happen, Simes says.
“The connective tissue with everyone we’re working with is that they love the film. We don’t know if it’s going to find any audience at all but it’s been a fun ride to find out if it does.”
Simes has four other movies in mind, including two by Saskatchewan authors. Even so, he’ll be back teaching at Evan Hardy in the fall.
“It’s the oddest thing in the world,” Simes says of the movie industry. “I like messiness, I mean that’s why I became a teacher. I like the messiness of every day with kids. ”