AT THE EDGE OF GLORY
Thunder Bay teens in coming-of-age movie Sleeping Giant, revel in sudden stardom at Cannes Film Festival,
CANNES, FRANCE— It’s nearly 7,000 kilometres from Thunder Bay, Ont., to the Cannes Film Festival, but for teens Jackson Martin, Reece Moffett and Nick Serino, it’s like a big leap from one beach to another.
And these sudden movie stars aren’t sure if they prefer the Cannes sand and water to what they’re used to back in Thunder Bay, where they made Sleeping Giant, Andrew Cividino’s coming-of-age drama that has charmed the festival.
“The water’s too blue and the sand’s too soft,” says Serino, 17, as he squints into the bright sun of the Riviera coastal resort town.
“Sun’s too hot,” adds Moffett, also 17, “but the water’s much colder in Thunder Bay.”
Not that they’re complaining, mind you, just marvelling at their new surroundings and how they ended up here.
These Thunder Bay natives, along with their Sleeping Giant co-star Martin, 14, who hails from Toronto by way of London, Ont., have never before been to Europe, or even left Canada.
Moffett and Serino, friends and also cousins, hadn’t acted before, although Martin had previous experience, including a lead role in a short film called Boy by Toronto’s Melanie Chung that is also screening at Cannes, in Telefilm Canada’s Short Film Corner.
The three high schoolers are feeling the same sense of adventure they felt making Sleeping Giant, titled for the name given to the distinct topography of their Lake Superior home turf. The first Cannes screening of Sleeping Giant was their first time seeing the film with an audience.
It’s the story of teenagers Adam (Martin), Riley (Moffett) and Nate (Serino), who live in a small beach community. Both pals and rivals, they risk their necks and friendship with dangerous tests of bravery during one momentous summer, as they try to answer an important question: Is it scarier to leap off a 100-foot cliff or talk to a girl?
Sleeping Giant is the feature debut of Toronto writer/director Cividino, 31, who also travelled to Cannes. The film, which has been playing to large and appreciative audiences here, was selected to have its world premiere as part of International Critics’ Week, one of the sidebar programs at the 68th Cannes fest, which concludes this weekend.
The film is eligible for Critics’ Week prizes at the festival’s end and Cividino could also win the Caméra d’Or, the prize given at Cannes for the best first feature film.
It’s been quite a journey for a story that began as a short by the same name co-written by Cividino and Aaron Yeger, which premiered at the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival. After that it was chosen as one of the 10 shorts in Canada’s Top Ten Festival, TIFF’s annual celebration of the best in new Canadian film.
The original plan was to make a feature right away, along the shores of Thunder Bay where Cividino spent summers as a youth, but money problems forced him to downsize.
But he turned a negative into a positive by creating a short version of Sleeping Giant that stands on its own. The feature version expands on the story, changing it slightly, and also develops the characters. Moffett and Serino, chosen through an open casting call, kept their roles for both films, but Martin was a new hire for the feature, since Cividino thought a professional actor was needed for the pivotal character of Adam.
“I wanted to keep Nick and Reece who play Nate and Riley, because I feel what they have and what they bring to it is really something special,” Cividino says in an interview.
“Reece has a vulnerability to him that I really wanted to inject into the story with the Riley character. The feature is just a much larger canvas, so I was able to give him an arc and a purpose in a way that elevates him from just being a bully or whatever.”
Whether they realized it or not going in, the three teens really had to act. The script calls for Adam and Riley to feel vague and confused stirrings of attraction for each other, although the feelings aren’t acted upon.
“There was obviously some stuff that Andrew wanted us to do that we didn’t really want to do that much, but we ended up just doing it,” Martin says.
“If we couldn’t do something, he wouldn’t force us to do it. Everything worked out really well and we were pretty comfortable.”
Adds Moffett: “We didn’t get put in any situations that we didn’t want to be put in.”
Serino has an important scene where he unloads secrets and emotions about Adam’s family that he’s been keeping bottled up.
“We actually did that one more than a couple times, just because of the different conversations that were going on in that scene,” Serino recalls.
“I feel like I put a lot of energy into that character: his outgoing spirit, how he’s always on the move, he’s just go, go, go. I think that was partially me, including a lot of the comedy. I would say I would put a decent-sized chunk of myself into the character.”
All three lads had to contemplate the literal leap off Todd’s Cliff, the rocky challenge that represents the passage from boyhood to manhood. The cliff’s a real 100-footer in the Thunder Bay area, and pivotal to both the short and feature versions of Sleeping Giant, although none of the actors actually jumped off it. Way too dangerous.
“I’m more of a cautious kid in real life,” Martin says.
“I wouldn’t be jumping off cliffs in real life. But at the beginning of the film I’m cautious and not really wanting to do stuff like that. I turn into this kid my parents don’t recognize, causing trouble and that kind of stuff.”
Martin, Moffett and Serino all hope to continue film work and, based on the reception to Sleeping Giant at Cannes, they’ll likely be on the fall festival circuit, with a stop at TIFF a good bet.
They still have high school to finish, too: Martin is in Grade 9, Moffett and Serino in Grade 12.
They learned a couple of things about life making Sleeping Giant. Teenagers are frequently misunderstood, but maybe parents are, too.
“Honestly, I think it made me feel more sympathetic toward teenagers,” Moffett says. “We actually got to see how we act as teenagers, even though we obviously live as them every day.”
Serino felt some sympathy for parents.
“You never really know what your kids are doing,” he says.
“A really good kid can get mixed up in the wrong crowd and start stealing and get sucked out of a really close family. That’s pretty much how it is. Great bonds can be ruined. This movie is all just about a teenager’s life.” @peterhowellfilm