20 questions

1. What is your full name?

Christian Andrew Sparks.

2. Where and when were you born and where do you live today?

I was born at the Grace Hospital in April of ‘79. And I live now probably about 15 minutes from there in Outer Cove, Newfoundland. Just on the outskirts of downtown.

3. What is one thing you would like people to know about you?

I’d like them to know the exact reason we’re here is because I’m a filmmaker and I make movies and I specifically make movies about Newfoundland’s people and culture.

I think a lot of people know and love movies. But, in a place like St. John’s, they probably don’t know anyone who makes them, (as opposed to) if you were in Toronto or LA or something. I think it’s fairly novel. People love movies so much.

4. What will people be surprised to learn about you?

When I was born, I was born cross-eyed and I had to get laser surgery. If I get too tired now, one eye starts to wander back to the middle, it’s hilarious.

5. What is the hardest thing you’ve done?

Just making independent movies is extremely difficult. Trying to match your ambition with the money that you have and trying to make those two things meet can be very challenging.

6. Can you describe one experience that changed your life?

Since we’re on the topic of film, I had a friend in high school named Tina Borgess, (who) lent me a VHS copy of Space Odyssey, 2001, and I’d always been a film fan, but watching that film completely changed my thinking on what was possible with film.

7. What is your greatest indulgence?

Sleep.

8. What is your favourite television series?

Chernobyl. I think it was on HBO, it was a show on Chernobyl, Russia, and the nuclear meltdown. It’s fascinating and the series is so well made. Side note, one of the actors in Chernobyl is the lead of a film that I have coming out soon called Sweetland. Mark Lewis Jones, he’s been in Chernobyl, Last Jedi, and Game of Thrones, really talented Welsh actor.

9. What is your favourite movie?

This changes all the time, but the one I go back to the most as a stylistic reference and an inspiration is probably Steve Mcqueen’s Hunger.

10. What music do you like to listen to?

Right now, I’m listening to a band that has a new album called Khruangbin. They’re a band out of Houston. It’s very chill, it’s a bassist, a guitarist, and almost has a very laidback kind of stoner vibe. It’s mostly instrumental, almost music, you would imagine hearing on a beach just chilling out.

Radiohead has probably been my long-standing favorite band or the band I’ve returned to the most. In Rainbows and OK Computer in particular.

11. How do you like to relax?

I’m lucky I have a property in Outer Cove with a lot of land, so being out in the garden, cutting down trees, or taking care of the property is my favourite way to relax.

12. Who would play you in a movie about your life?

I would say Woody Harrelson, probably. I’ve been told that’s who I look like, which I find very funny.

13. What is your greatest fear?

Probably just health issues. Poor health.

14. What is your greatest joy?

Family and filmmaking.

15. What is your most treasured possession?

I don’t have a kind of treasured material possession. All my friends and family are treasured. My mother’s kidney. That’s my most treasured possession. She gave me a kidney 22 years ago.

16. What is the best advice you got from a parent or mentor?

My father once asked me if I wanted to be an artist or technician. And he didn’t say it in the nicest way. That really kind of spurred me on to consider that question in a deep way.

17. What would you say is your best quality? And what would you say is your worst quality?

The best quality, hopefully I give others space to talk and be themselves. And my worst quality, sometimes I can rush to judgment, rush to a harsh judgment.

18. Where is your favourite place in the world?

Probably Bowring Park the public park that grew up next to. I spent every day growing up with my three brothers getting up to no good.

19. What advice would you give your 12-yearold self?

Just be confident.

20 . Which three people would join you for your dream dinner party, living or dead, doesn’t matter.

Stanley Kubrick great filmmaker. Tom York and my father, he’s not with us anymore.