Festivals
Selected Film Festival Screening List:
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Official Selection, Local Heroes International Film Festival 2000
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Official Selection, 1999 International Forum of New Cinema, Calcutta
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Official Selection, 1999 Mumbai International Film Festival
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Official Selection, 1999 Victoria Independent Film and Video Festival
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Official Selection, 1998 Vancouver International Film Festival
Selected Festival Guides:
Following Kurt Cobain's suicide in 1994, a group of twentysomethings leave Lethbridge, Alberta, on a journey to join the vigil for him in Seattle, learning about life, love and death along the way. A wry and appealing road film.
Local Heroes International Film Festival 2000
Justin MacGregor's heart-felt feature debut begins with The Pursuit of Happiness tune "I’m An Adult Now," and ultimately this is a film about a displaced generation coming of age. The benchmark here is the 1994 suicide of Kurt Cobain, the catalyst for this story of a group of twentysomethings who leave Lethbridge, Alberta, to join the vigil in Seattle. When his younger brother arrives at his door the morning after Cobain's suicide, Simon (Damon Johnson) is convinced to pull the 38-foot Winnebago out of storage and head off to Seattle for his generation's version of Woodstock. As the trip progresses and they pick up hitchhikers, long-buried feelings arise between Simon and his brother Jase (Trevor White), setting in motion tensions which threaten to tear the whole group apart. A strong ensemble piece, the content of the film is the young people themselves, as who they are and why they are heading to Seattle become the core of the film. Along the way this humorous drama takes up a potpourri of issues including vegetarian politics, sibling miscommunication, post-structuralist analysis of fairy tales, the evils of hair spray rock, global warming, the consequences of over-scooping ice cream, dysfunction, mourning and suicide. With plenty of kick-ass music, this is a film for anyone who has received final notice from the Royal Bank giving them two weeks to pay their student loan in full, vegetarians who have worked flipping hamburgers to avoid their final notices and anyone who wanted to join the vigil at Seattle Centre.
Ken Anderlini Vancouver International Film Festival