Director writes book about film experience
A film about an autistic boy’s journey to acceptance through his school’s solitaire team became a story in its own right thanks to its rocky road to success.
Directed by Stuart Cresswell and filmed in and around Tatamagouche, The Only Game in Town hit various snags including the scrapping of the provincial film tax credit, a move that angered many in the industry. He tells about the experience in his book The Only Film in Town: How a Little Film with a Big Heart Was Made in Rural Nova Scotia.
Shooting of this feel-good comedy first began in December 2014 before the film tax credit fiasco erupted and included actors from Pictou County. Another big burst of shooting in the summer of 2015 finally wrapped up the filming.
“That wasn’t the way we planned it,” recalled Cresswell. “I was just feeling particularly determined to get it finished.”
The film itself was produced using a crew of young and sometimes not very experienced talent, who nonetheless managed to pull together.
“Working with young people, there was something in the region of 40 and they were very talented,” said Cresswell.
However, their story’s main character Cormack Vertue is equally intriguing.
As someone living with autism spectrum disorder, he finds social interaction and showing emotions difficult. He is also used to a structured, ordered lifestyle without any disruption.
However, Vertue’s one great talent was playing solitaire and his skill led to him becoming captain of his school’s team.
In doing so, his once quiet social life blossoms and also becomes more complicated, when he falls in love with the girlfriend of a star hockey player and comes under pressure from a teacher to perform.
It is how Vertue manages an increasingly chaotic school life that becomes his true test of character.
“It’s some kind of personal growth for him and acceptance in the wider school community,” Cresswell told The News. “I see him as a bit of a superhero really.”
Both the film and the book will be formally launched next month with a screening at the de Coste Entertainment Centre in Pictou, after which it will be shown elsewhere. Cresswell said the fact that the film and book are being released at the same time is simple coincidence.
Originally from England, Cresswell has decades of experience of writing, producing and directing movies on both sides of the Atlantic. Now a full-time resident of northern Nova Scotia, he runs his own production company Simple Films Ltd.