Reelout Arts Project

An interview with Mark Pariselli, creator of After, a feature which will be playing in our short program “The Queer Kids Are Alright”.

What do you find usually provides the initial spark of inspiration for your work?

I am always reading, watching films, listening to music and checking out art and photography to keep a strong, steady flow of ideas and visuals but the initial spark of inspiration for my work often comes from things I’m struggling with in real life and real life encounters.

Do you consider your work to be specifically queer filmmaking? Is there a common goal that propels all of your work?
I think my work definitely pulses with a queer energy. I am very much inspired by queer artists (Gregg Araki, Gus Van Sant, Andy Warhol, Kenneth Anger) and though ‘After’ is filtered through a queer perspective, as a whole, I don’t think the film is restrictively queer. I wouldn’t say there is a common goal that propels all of my work.

I found your close attention to detail in the film very intriguing. Several objects in particular caught my attention, such as the minnows and the crucifix. Did you place these in the film, knowing their dream symbolism?

Because the film blends reality and fantasy, I wanted to ground the characters with certain props or details that also serve as representative signifiers. Items or images were purposefully chosen to both delineate character in reality and work symbolically in the dream sequences.

What are some of the difficulties you encountered when trying to convert Cooper’s poem to the visual? How closely did you seek to represent the author’s vision of the narrative, and how much do you feel the story became your own?

One of the big issues that came up when converting Cooper’s poem for the screen was working out how graphic the sex would (or could) be visualized. Cooper’s frank approach to sex and sexuality is one of the driving forces of his work. As much as I wanted to stay true to that, I also wanted to create a piece that was more suggestive and left more to the imagination. I say that the film ‘After’ is inspired by (rather than based on) Cooper’s “After School, Street Football, Eighth Grade” because the poem was used more like a foundation or skeleton which was then fleshed out with some of my own preoccupations. Though the action in both film and poem is the same, the thematic focus is a bit different, creating a different meaning to the endings.

Dennis Cooper’s poems are receiving lots of attention these days! Are you familiar at all with Dan Faltz’s film Weak Species?

At festivals over the past year ‘After’ was often programmed along side ‘Weak Species’ but unfortunately I wasn’t able to make it to those screening so I have yet to see it. Though we both adapt Cooper’s work, I hear we take very different approaches and hopefully I’ll get the chance to see Faltz’s film soon.

What are you working on currently?
My sophomore short entitled ‘Frozen Roads’ screened as part of Image+Nation (Montreal’s LGBT Film Festival) this past Nov and was well received. Unlike ‘After’ it contains dialogue and is more of a traditional narrative about three youths coming of age in rural Ontario. Hopefully it will have a successful festival run in 2011. Currently I am working on a few ideas for a follow up short.

Thanks very much for the questions!

Catch After this Saturday January 29th at Ellis Auditorium!

Tags: Ridiculously Radical Reelout Resources

On today’s menu, an interview with Caleb Seguin, one of the creators of Youth in Transition, a part of this festival’s “The Queer Kids Are Alright” program. This locally-produced documentary short looks at what it really means to be a transgender youth in our society. Enjoy!

Tell us a little bit about this project. What inspired it?

I can’t take all of the credit for deciding to create a documentary. I was in a video production focus program called Studio LC, and one of the program’s requirements was to create a documentary. Ben Bray and I decided to team up for the project, and it took us a long time to settle on a topic. I guess you could say that the inspiration came from inside both of us. We both felt very strongly about the issue, and agreed that there is not nearly enough media available on the topic. I especially saw the need for more transgender media resources because I discovered a real lack of them when I was searching for support and representation. The project was a small step toward filling that gap – small, but a step none the less.

Caleb, in the film there is discussion about the confusion and discrimination that transgendered people often experience from within the LGBTQ community itself. Can you expand on this?

I think that Kelly Dear really summed it up nicely in her interview in the film. When we began making it, we wanted to emphasize the point that trans people have a completely different set of challenges from LGB people, and that by throwing that T at the end of the acronym, it’s easy to forget the distinction between sexual orientation and gender identity. One of the things that really exemplifies the fact that there are differences is the discrimination that exists within the queer community is the transphobia that exists within the community. The issue is that the community is so vast. When you get right down to it, a trans person who identifies as straight has nothing at all in common with a cis-gendered gay person. It is completely possible for neither to understand the other, and as we all know, a lack of understanding is the root of discrimination. The only thing that everyone in the LGBTQ community has in common is the fact that they’re all oppressed – but that has never really made a difference. Just as there are homophobic racial minorities, so too are there transphobic LGB people.

What would you say the biggest challenges were in the making of this film?
I think the biggest challenge was overcoming the obstacles that were created by our very limited resources. There were just the two of us, working on a very tight timeline with no budget and cheap equipment. We faced endless logistical problems and technical difficulties – at one point I lost six hours of editing due to a computer crash. In the end, we couldn’t actually get a lot of the footage we had planned on, which is why we ended up having to use to many stills and stock images. To be honest I would love the chance to do the whole thing over with better equipment and a longer timeline.

What were your hopes and goals in making this film? Did you ever think it would reach such a large audience?
When we first made the film, I never thought I’d see it screened outside of my school. It made it’s first appearance at the presentation night we held for the purpose of screening all of the films made that semester in the Studio LC focus program, however I assumed it would retire after that. I never imagined it could have made it to a film festival. I was shocked and honoured when Reelout requested that I submit my film. It’s far beyond what I had in mind in the very beginning.

There is a section in the movie with quotes from other transgender youth. Where are these from and why did you choose to include them? I got the quotes that appear in the film from an online FtM community called, The Men’s Room. It’s an international community that I found to be an excellent resource whenever I had questions or needed support. A lot of trans-identified youth had shared heart-wrenching stories for the community to read, and I really felt that the powerful words of those youth needed to be heard. I contacted a number of the individuals and explained my project to them, asking if they would mind me using their words in my film. All of them replied that they would love the opportunity to share their stories with a larger audience, and hoped that they could, in some small way, make a difference.

What would you say has been the biggest challenge since making the decision to speak out about your new identity, and the most rewarding aspect of your choice?
I don’t think there’s one challenge that I would consider the biggest. It’s really a whole lot of little ones. My life has just generally gotten a lot more complicated. My ID confuses people. I just got my name legally changed, but the gender marker doesn’t match, so I’m forced to come out to anyone who sees my ID. I’ve had to come out to everyone – my neighbours, my extended family, my piano teacher – everyone. I don’t get to choose who to tell based on how well I think they’ll take it. The worst part is probably the waiting. I started the process of trying to get hormone replacement therapy a year and a half ago, and I’m still waiting. I’m hoping I’ll be able to start before I go to University next year. There have been countless rewarding aspects of my decision to start transitioning. I don’t know how I survived before I came out. I have way more confidence and optimism than ever before. It just feels like a huge relief.

If people could glean only one thing from watching this film, what would you hope it would be?
My hope is that my film will bring the idea of the “trans youth” into reality for viewers – take it from the realm of the abstract and make it real – put a face to it. The film was created for an audience with little to no education on the topic, and so at a queer film festival it will likely seem a bit elementary, but the message, I think, is still the same. My intention was to answer the question, “what is it really like to be transitioning in high school?” I want people to know that parts of it are really tough, but that the others make it all worth it.

Youth in Transition! Catch it Saturday January 29th at 4 p.m in Ellis Auditorium

Tags: Ridiculously Radical Reelout Resources

Only a few more weeks till Reelout 2012, people! So today, a look at a past Reelout gem available in the resource library. Dare directed by Adam Salky and starring familiar faces Emmy Rossum (Phantom of the Opera) and Zach Gilford (Friday Night Lights), is a high school drama with a twist. Winner of numerous awards at Sundance in 2009, the film is based on a short of the same name. It follows three teenagers in their final semester of senior year: Alexa the good-girl drama keener; her social misfit best friend Ben; and Johnny, the mysterious and unattainable bad boy rich kid, who winds up starring opposite Alexa in the school play after his various rebellions land him in drama club.

After Alexa is told by one of her acting idols that she will never be a great actress because she’s too naïve, she sets out to gain practical life experience and overcome her goody–two-shoes image by throwing herself at Johnny. The ensuing romance causes a rift between Emmy and a very jealous Ben, however the twist comes when a late night encounter between Ben and Johnny reveals that it is not Emmy that Ben has feelings for, but Johnny, and that Johnny’s willingness to go along with the strange romantic triangle is caused by his own carefully hidden emotional baggage. What results is a story which breaks free of the cookie cutter high school romance flick, to take an honest look at the complex dynamics of teenage relationships. Ben and Alexa struggle to negotiate their love for each other with their mutual attraction to Johnny, while Johnny perpetuates his romance with both in order not to lose their friendship.

Writer David Brind emphasizes that Dare does not set out to be a specifically “gay film”, but rather an honest look at the way sexuality of all kinds both shapes and is shaped by relationships. Dare brings together three very different people, with very different perspectives, and breaks the mould by wandering into twistier psychological territory than most teen flicks dare. Admittedly the character’s transformations seem a bit abrupt in parts, (Alexa in particular transforms so abruptly and completely that it seems a bit implausible), but solid acting from the leads glosses over hiccups. Zach Gilford does a particularily convincing job with a difficult role, and the affection between Ben and Alexa is warm and real. And of course, all the necessaries of a legitimate teen move are there: the poolside party, the over-enthusiastic drama teacher, the bubbly girlfriend who specializes in caterpillar to butterfly beauty transformations. Salky has created a movie that “dares” to take the old and make it new again.

Tags: Ridiculously Radical Reelout Resources