Chandler Levack grew up in Burlington, Ontario, and lives in Toronto the place she studied cinema on the University of Toronto and screenwriting on the Canadian Film Centre. She has directed quite a few music movies, incomes two Juno nominations, and is a veteran journalist and critic who has earned a number of National Magazine Awards for publications that embody The Globe & Mail, The Village Voice, and Maisonneuve. Her quick movie “We Forgot to Break Up” (2017) premiered at TIFF and SXSW. “I Like Movies” is her function debut.
“I Like Movies” is screening on the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival, which is operating from September 8-18.
W&H: Describe the movie for us in your personal phrases.
CL: “I Like Movies” is a narrative a few pretentious teenage cinephile named Lawrence who will get a job in a video retailer the place he places all of his longings and frustrations on his older feminine supervisor, Alana.
It’s set in Burlington, Ontario within the early 2000s which is the place I grew up, and our forged, led by Isaiah Lehtinen, Romina D’Ugo, Percy Hynes White, and Krista Bridges, are actually wonderful.
W&H: What drew you to this story?
CL: I labored at Blockbuster in highschool and needed to jot down a narrative a few budding movie bro. I needed to make an empathetic character examine of a younger man who is usually fairly ridiculous and have him come of age by means of his relationships with girls, notably his mom and his supervisor at his retailer who really name him out and maintain him accountable for his actions.
As a lady working as a critic and a filmmaker for the final 17 years, I’ve encountered many. I’ve dated them, labored with them, been mentored by them. I’ve spent my complete life attempting to know these males and the artwork they cherished, however I additionally need them to alter.
I needed to create a movie that might monitor their growth on the most pivotal formation of their identification and ego and set them on a course of therapeutic earlier than it’s too late.
W&H: What would you like folks to consider after they watch the movie?
CL: How a lot they miss video shops.
W&H: What was the most important problem in making the movie?
CL: If it’s okay, let me check with you to this private essay I wrote for the Globe & Mail, which particulars my four-year journey of constructing “I Like Movies” in all of its oversharing glory.
W&H: How did you get your movie funded? Share some insights into how you bought the movie made.
CL: I made my movie with Canadian arts grants from Telefilm’s Talent to Watch Program and the Canada Council of the Arts.
We are a completely indie, arts grant-funded manufacturing and our funds was $225,000.
I additionally put $10,000 of my very own life financial savings into the movie as a result of COVID prices took an unexpected 15 per cent out of our funds.
W&H: What impressed you to change into a filmmaker?
CL: I don’t know! From a little or no child, I at all times needed to carry out and write and inform tales and make everybody round me be within the performs and little films I created. My mother and father would at all times inform me that I used to be bossy and demanding and too obsessive about minute particulars, which I assume are good qualities for a filmmaker, however perhaps not nice qualities for a bit woman. I instantly imprinted on films, literature, and common tradition from a really younger age, particularly “The Simpsons,” which I believe shaped my complete cerebral cortex as a bit child.
As I received a bit older, I began watching films that strongly resonated with] me, which have been made by filmmakers like Cameron Crowe, Catherine Breillat, Paul Thomas Anderson, and Stanley Kubrick. And once I labored at Blockbuster, I began to binge hardcore on cinema as a result of I received 10 free leases every week.
Then I went to the University of Toronto and began studying in regards to the historical past of movie and movie concept and have become an expert movie and music critic. However, I believe it was actually arduous for me to personally admit that I needed to be an artist. Basically, the journey of the final decade of my life from age 25 to 35 has been slowly however absolutely discovering my voice and making my very own work.
I’ve been fortunate to have been mentored by loads of supportive, wonderful girls like Patricia Rozema, Semi Chellas, and my story editor Jill Gollick. And I’m very grateful to my producer Lindsay Blair Goeldner and my EP Vicki Lean for serving to me get my first movie made by means of the Canadian movie system.
W&H: What’s the most effective and worst recommendation you’ve obtained?
CL: Worst recommendation: To preserve directing music movies with my ex-boyfriend as a result of I wasn’t ok to make my very own work, which was mentioned to me by an govt proper after our co-directed video premiered on the Museum of Modern Art. Reader, I cried within the lavatory.
Best recommendation: That the job of the director is to maintain shifting ahead and making the film, which was actually mirrored by my badass producer Lindsay Blair Goeldner, who has three movies at TIFF this yr — my function “I Like Movies,” and the superior quick movies “Scaring Women At Night” by Karimah Zakia Issa and “Diaspora” by Tyler Evans. We had so many insane setbacks in the course of the shoot — an lead actor who wanted to be recast the day earlier than capturing the second half of the movie, places and crew members who dropped out mid-shoot, the COVID of all of it —- and she or he by no means ever let me surrender, even once I was completely spiraling.
Movies are these fully inorganic issues that don’t need to be made. Every day, there are unexpected challenges that threaten to derail every part you’ve labored so arduous for, and you may’t afford to wallow. I’m so glad I had somebody in my nook providing powerful love, going, “Yes, it’s awful Chandler, but what are you going to do next?”
W&H: What recommendation do you might have for different girls administrators?
CL: Find a technique to make your personal artwork, even when it’s not for very a lot cash, even when it’s arduous. Your profession will solely have the ability to transfer ahead while you make one thing that appears and appears like your self. Don’t get caught in self-destructive cycles of doubting your self and abusing social media like me — simply do the work. Rejoice within the work. The work is God. Trick your mind into pondering that you just love writing, even when it’s arduous. Collaborate with different girls, even when persons are telling you they don’t have the correct credentials or expertise ranges. If somebody’s sensibility and soul matches your movie, they’re best for you.
Create a tribe of feminine artists and craftspeople that you just love, rent them and advocate them broadly to your mates, so you possibly can carry different folks up alongside you. Don’t examine your self to others — a rising tide lifts all boats.
Challenge your self to observe 100 films made by girls so you possibly can create a brand new canon for your self. Teach different folks the canon, so these films don’t get misplaced in time. Befriend the opposite girls you meet at movie festivals. Watch their movies, take them out for espresso and hearken to their experiences. Support their artwork and market it on-line.
Take care of your self and preserve making films. We want you.
W&H: Name your favourite woman-directed movie and why.
CL: “Toni Erdmann” by Maren Ade is a really deep touchstone for me. I’ve by no means been extra delighted, shocked, or moved by a film. It’s fully impressed me to do loopy comedian set-pieces, write braver, extra kinetic characters, and taught me that comedy can solely be deepened by soul.
W&H: What, if any, tasks do you suppose storytellers should confront the tumult on the planet, from the pandemic to the lack of abortion rights and systemic violence?
CL: I believe it’s very important for movies to symbolize actual folks in society, and mirror social points, and there have been so many instances the place we’ve seen cinema assist folks really feel much less alone. All of that is wonderful, and there have been so many films made by girls and non-binary filmmakers even during the last yr or two— Janicza Bravo’s “Zola,” Emma Seligman’s “Shiva Baby,” Eliza Hittman’s “Never, Rarely, Sometimes, Always,” Danis Goulet’s “Night Raiders,” and Jane Schoenbrun’s “We’re All Going to the World’s Fair” — which have tackled controversial subjects of intercourse work, abortion rights, the residential faculty system in Canada, on-line alienation, simply to call just a few, with a lot cinematic verve throughout many genres and modalities of filmmaking.
I believe what turns into harmful is when cinema turns into tremendous didactic and stops reflecting the identical nuances and issues that exist in human beings. People are flawed and complicated and have loads of tensions of their lives. If characters solely should be representational, if we’re solely funding films as “content” as a substitute of tales, there’s a hazard of constructing propaganda as a substitute of artwork.
W&H: The movie business has an extended historical past of underrepresenting folks of shade onscreen and behind the scenes and reinforcing — and creating — detrimental stereotypes. What actions do you suppose have to be taken to make Hollywood and/or the doc world extra inclusive?
CL: This is only one instance, however in Canada, we’ve this granting system by means of Telefilm referred to as Talent to Watch which permits first-time filmmakers to obtain $125,000 to make their first function. There’s a committee of different filmmakers who determine who will get the funding as a substitute of granting our bodies at a studio, and also you don’t should pay it again. If they award you the funds, they don’t put any stipulations on you for what sort of movie you need to make. They are really simply funding first options for artwork’s sake. While $125,000 is a really troublesome technique to make your first movie — and naturally there are loads of systemic questions inherent in who can survive for the years it takes to make a microbudget film — there are loads of touchpoints in historical past of filmmakers like Spike Lee, Lena Dunham, Leslie Harris, and David Lynch who made their first options by any means obligatory on $100,000 or much less.
I simply know that if I had been ready for a million-dollar funds to make my first movie, I might be ready for the remainder of my life. No one was gonna give me an opportunity except I gave it to myself. I really feel like in relation to first options, the pleasure is within the discovery of a brand new voice, or perspective we’ve by no means seen earlier than. Your movie doesn’t should be excellent — it simply must be you.
I’d like to see extra funding alternatives out there for filmmakers of shade and marginalized artists to make their very own work in methods that help their imaginative and prescient in a hands-off approach, so everybody could be inspired to comply with their very own inventive instincts. I simply need to see 50 mind-blowing films from the sorts of voices and views I’ve by no means seen earlier than, which hopefully propels them to make their second function with correct business help.
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