Film festival brings ottawa to big screen
Event provides look at flicks in which national capital played a part,
This city has “doubled” for American cities in feature films so many times that it has almost become a cliché to report it.
But the films that are passing Ottawa off as just another U.S. city are rarely easy to find at your neighbourhood cinema. That imbalance will be redressed somewhat this week, when two feature films that were shot here premiere at the Ottawa International Film Festival.
The now four-year-old festival will screen 10 feature films, shorts and documentaries Thursday Oct. 3 through Saturday Oct. 5 at several venues around town. Ticket prices are $10 for a single-day pass and $75 for a pass to all festival-related events. For more information visit www.oiff.ca. Most of the entries have never been seen here.
One feature-length film on view that features Ottawa as a backdrop is Penthouse North, a thriller shot in January 2012, starring Michelle Monaghan and Michael Keaton. The story sounds like a remake of the classic 1960s film Wait Until Dark, which starred Audrey Hepburn. In Penthouse North, a blind woman, who lives in a New York penthouse, has her life turned upside down by a sadistic criminal looking for a hidden fortune in her apartment. Many scenes were filmed around town, with most of the action taking place at The Mayfair apartment building on Metcalfe Street.
Ottawa was transformed into New York City through the magic of special effects that were added in post production.
It is being screened Oct. 5 at the Ottawa Little Theatre.
Crook, directed by Adrian Langley, stars Adam Beach and Leah Gibson in, what else, a crime drama. Once again Ottawa doubles for a big American city. It debuts Oct. 3 at the Rainbow Cinemas (St. Laurent Shopping Centre).
The festival will debut Thursday night at the Rainbow Cinemas with The Game Changer, which is in effect an 11-minute promotional film celebrating Ottawa’s actors and featuring Dan Aykroyd.
“We chose The Game Changer because it really shows the different talents and diversity of actors in this city. Ninety-nine per cent of the actors in the film work regularly in this city and the film is a nice way to celebrate our actors and the filmmaking that we have here,” said Nina Bains, head of the Ottawa International Film Festival.
The plot concerns a mysterious package sought by some of the city’s most powerful people who want to know the contents of the package. Along with Aykroyd, it stars Pete Dillon and Sally Clelford.
Aykroyd came to Ottawa in March to film his cameo at Fenton Studios in the southeast end of the city where about 75 local actors and crew had gathered. Ottawa actor Pete Dillon, president of Big Time Productions, helped get Aykroyd to town for the film and financed the project with Sally Clelford, president of ACTRA Ottawa.
The film will be posted on the websites of Ottawa ACTRA and the Ottawa film office, which will promote it at trade shows and other film events.
“When Ottawa was being marketed as a place to shoot films, nobody was talking about the on-screen talent, that always bothered me,” said Dillon, who began We Work Ottawa, a project to showcase local actors.
This year, the film festival moved to October from its traditional mid-August date.
“We moved the festival to the fall because ... the opportunity to engage more of the audience is available to us. And we really feel as we grow, our program is developing. In the future we hope to attract much more diverse films,” Bains said.
She said October also positions Ottawa as the last major Canadian film festival before the Academy Awards, and she says, she hopes that might help create more of a buzz around the films shown here.
The other films in the festival include: Much Ado About Knotting (Oct. 4, St. Paul’s University Theatre, 223 Main St.) is a lighthearted documentary about the obsession in India of parents marrying off their children by using classified ads, matchmaking bureaus and websites. It is directed by Geetika Narang Abbasi and Anandana Kapur. Fire in the Blood (Oct. 4, St. Paul’s University Theatre, 223 Main St.) is a documentary examining how big pharmaceutical companies and governments blocked access to low-cost AIDS drugs and the people who fought back. It is directed by Dylan Mohan Gray. It’s All About Me (Oct. 5, Ottawa Little Theatre, 400 King Edward Ave.) is a feature documentary that looks at the inflated sense of entitlement among youth, its consequences and the solutions for a better future. It is directed by Antoine Gaber.