The Manitoba film industry is busy, going by the $120 million dollars worth of production the province has hosted in the past year.
\nBut Manitoba film isn\u2019t necessarily glamorous. Films get made. They often play festivals. Occasionally, they show up on local screens, or they premi\u00e8re on cable services.
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\nWednesday night was an exception, with a gala screening of director Tyson Caron\u2019s romantic comedy Lovesick at the Centennial Concert Hall. The invitation-only screening was the local culmination of Canadian Film Day, a nationwide celebration of Canuck cinema that saw about 1700 free screenings from coast to coast.
\nLovesick\u2019s stars flew in for the occasion \u2014 Jacob Tierney from Montreal and Ali Tataryn from Vancouver. But the invitations were also accepted by stellar homegrown talent including Adam Beach (with his wife, Summer, and daughter, Phoenix, by his side), Tony Award-winning actor Len Cariou, Jonas Chernick and Vancouver-based Aleks Paunovic (who said he was crashing the party as he was in town working on the Keanu Reeves thriller Siberia).
\nThe last time Cariou shot a movie in Winnipeg was for the 2004 Richard Gere-Jennifer Lopez comedy Shall We Dance, which Cariou laughingly recalls as “the one I got cut out of.” Even so, the St. Boniface-born actor says he was happy to accept the invitation to celebrate Canadian film in his old hometown.
\n“When I got the offer and I read what it was about, I said, \u2018Thank God! Finally!\u2019
\n“Telefilm Canada and Canada itself is saying: \u2018We\u2019re pretty damn good. Now we\u2019re going to toot our horn and let\u2019s do it really proud. Let\u2019s not just do it in Toronto or Montreal, let\u2019s do it across the country!\u2019
\n“I think it\u2019s mightily important to the industry,” Cariou said. “I think what happens culturally and economically is huge (for Manitoba). And I remember a time you couldn\u2019t get arrested in this town if you wanted to do a film.”
\nIf Lovesick was getting a movie premi\u00e8re treatment, no one was calling it a premi\u00e8re.
\nIn fact, it played at Cinematheque in January and February \u2014 a not especially glamorous local premi\u00e8re \u2014 acknowledges one of the film\u2019s producers, Kyle Irving.
\n“But there\u2019s something kind of Winnipeg about that, isn\u2019t there?” Irving said, asserting the run was a solid hit. “It sold out 17 screenings in a row and we turned away 400 people at the box office.
\n“There\u2019s never been a more Winnipeg movie than Lovesick,” Irving said. “There\u2019s been great movies about Winnipeg, but never one that shows the city the way we do. It\u2019s the bright side of Winnipeg. It\u2019s the fun, cool, hip side of Winnipeg.”
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