The Victoria Film Festival (VFF) is back, once again featuring new, unique films from filmmakers from around the world. Each year, film enthusiasts and filmmakers come together at various theatres around the city to watch these newly released films. There’s voting, there’s competition, there’s a whole lot of fun.
“The great thing is always about expanding your community and connecting with filmmakers,” says Toronto-based director Charles Officer. “You get to kind of experience each unique spirit of each city.”
Having been involved in making movies in Toronto since 2000, Officer—who has also directed television shows like Private Eyes—has attended many film festivals. Officer will most likely not be able to attend this year’s VFF, but he is excited to see how his new film Unarmed Verses will play out here. As a director, Officer says, there’s always the anticipation of finding out where your film has been selected to be played, and then finding out in which cities it does well.
“Each festival reflects a portion of the city, of what they’re interested in,” he says. “Sometimes it is very surprising.”
Unarmed Verses is a documentary that follows the emotional journey of the residents of the Toronto housing complex Villaways as the complex is being demolished and its members displaced to make way for high-rise condos.
“The idea was to look at a broader scope of racism in North America,” says Officer. “Because we are Torontonians, we wanted to focus on a community in the city where we grew up, particularly a black community that we are familiar with. A lot of the media and everything really focuses on things that are happening in the United States and we don’t deal with our [issues] here.”
Officer says that residents of Victoria and Vancouver should be able to relate to the housing crisis shown in this film. However, due to our social dynamics here, it’s less likely to be a reflection of racism.
“People from Toronto Community Housing are becoming completely disenfranchised and have no voice,” says Officer, “but the whole idea about developers and housing and the market and the basic things that we need to survive in our society is being treated as if it is for the elite. There aren’t plans that are going in place for affordable housing. It’s not part of the development scheme for a lot of the developers across the country.”
Officer says he wanted to display what was happening in these communities without any preconceived notions. He listened and watched, and the story emerged on its own. The story follows a 12-year-old girl as she finds her voice though writing and performing poetry to music.
“I spent about a year and change in the community before I even brought a camera in there,” he says. “It led us to this young girl and the youth that are in the film.”
If Officer were to give one piece of advice to someone starting out in filmmaking it would be to find your voice and use it. His success has come from telling the stories important to him, in a way only he could tell.
“Do you have a film you want to make?” he says. “What is it you want to make and why? Why now? Why [are you] the best person to tell the story? Be critical of yourself and what you want to put out in this world.”
First-time director Daniel Leo’s Man Proposes, God Disposes will premiere this year at VFF. Leo, who lives in Vancouver, shares Officer’s opinion that directing is really about using your unique thoughts and experience to tell an original story.
“You could make a movie about aliens or about whatever you want,” says Leo, “but I think that normally, the people that succeed in their artform are the ones who do what they know how to do or something that is personal to them that maybe nobody else can express how they can.”
An avid world-travelling backpacker, photographer, and cinema-goer, Leo decided he wanted to put it all together and make a movie. He came up with the plot idea of an unplanned international, intercultural pregnancy. Then things started to fall into place.
“I just started asking friends to help me make a movie,” says Leo, “to act or something. I met this Polish guy in Cuba who was taking videos. He sent me a short film that had his friend acting in it, who was Polish. I asked [the actor] if he’d be interested in acting and he said, ‘Yeah.’ So I knew I had a Polish guy. The Brazilian girl was a friend I met in Sao Paolo who studied acting and she said, ‘If you come to Brazil, I have friends and we can help you.’”
And just like that, the 27-year-old finds himself with his directorial debut screening at VFF. And there’s no better place for it, as Leo says he enjoys movies that are off the beaten path.
“I grew up watching mainstream films,” says Leo. “When I discovered this world of arthouse films, I was like, ‘Wow, it’s way more realistic.’”
Victoria Film Festival
Various times, Friday, February 2 to Sunday, February 11
Various prices and venues
victoriafilmfestival.com