Blue Mountain Film Fest Wrap: Sports-Com Racewalkers Saunters to the Top Prize
By Jim Slotek
BLUE MOUNTAIN VILLAGE, ONTARIO - It’s appropriate that the feel-good Canadian comedy Racewalkers was awarded the quirkily titled Unstoppable Feature prize at this year’s Slamdance Festival in L.A.
The film about the goony-bird Olympic sport of competive walking - directed by and starring the Toronto duo of Kevin Claydon and Phil Moniz - continued its winning ways at the verdant Blue Mountain Film + Media Festival, where it was the opening night gala.
Phil Moniz teaches Kevin Claydon a victory walk in Racewalkers.
In a festival-long fan ballot, Racewalkers – which has yet to be released to Canadian theatres - was voted this year’s Festival Fave. It followed that win with a trip to Australia for the Sydney Film Festival, where winners in various categories will be announced this weekend.
Meanwhile, back in the shadow of the Niagara Escarpment, the Blue Mountain Film Festival also honoured Vasili Manikas’ Cancer Kid as the winner in the Canadian Shorts Competition. The win carries a prize of $10,000 in post-production services from Toronto’s Urban Post Production. Urban Post is also offering support – along with fellow sponsors Fasken and Henry’s – to Live Pitch Competition winner, Shani McKenzie.
(On a related note, some Blue Mountain participants recently made a splash at the Canadian Screen Awards. From this year’s BMFF lineup, Winnipeg-native Matthew Rankin was named winner of Achievement in Direction for the absurdist social comedy Universal Language - Canada’s entry in thie Oscars. Among Blue Mountain participants, the CSA for Best Picture went to the Donald Trump biopic The Apprentice, starring Sebastian Stan, which was produced by veteran Canadian producer Daniel Bekerman. And Jeff Chan received the award for Achievement in Visual Effects for the Canadian superhero science fiction action film Code 8: Part II.)
The BMFF choices capped a lively and loud weekend of events at the theme-parkish Blue Mountain Village, with music, outdoor screenings and slightly below seasonal temperatures as wired gondolas traversed the Escarpment above and the waters of Georgian Bay beckoned below.
The screening rooms were a village experience of their own, with crowds seated on meeting chairs in two different conference rooms. It’s an environment that caters to both families and seniors, and the lineup of films had a generally feel-good vibe that suited the demographic.
Where else could you see uplifting features on the theme of cheese on consecutive days? Louise Courvoisier’s Holy Cow is a French young adult favourite, about an orphaned teen forced to become the man of the house, and who embraces a scheme to win money, making award-winning cheese from stolen milk.
Meanwhile, Ian Cheney’s Shelf Life is a documentary that travels the world gleaning the philosophies of cheesemakers from the Pyrenees to Japan, and notes the pragmatic parallels between cheese, death and decomposition.
But my highlight was Dog Night, a trio of programmed films that included an outdoor screening of the classic Christopher Guest film Best in Show, The Friend (a cute mutt story starring Naomi Watts and Bill Murray), and a true revelation in Guan Hu’s film Black Dog, about a Chinese ex-rock star turned ex-convict, who becomes the protector of a fugitive dog in a wannabe-gentrified town that’s trying to purge stray dogs.
There’s a unique buzz to Blue Mountain Village that spills over to its festival. Kudos to programmer Jason Gorber and assistant programmers Rachel West and Pat Mullen for finding the sweet spot on their first try.