Uh, what city was this filmed in?

From time to time there are certain things that preoccupy me about a movie. It may have nothing to do with the plot or characters. Indeed, that was the case with the new film by Norwegian director Kristoffer Borgli, screened this week by the Windsor International Film Festival (WIFF), Dream Scenario. Sure, the plot was intriguing and fantastical, about a man who starts showing up in hundreds – nay, multitudes – of people’s dreams. Poor bearded Paul Matthews (Nick Cage), mild mannered biology professor at some obscure college named Osler. Learned, middle class and envious of colleagues’ professional achievements, Cage finds fame in today’s world of social media-like influencers, by benignly making guest appearances in an ‘I‘ll see you in my dreams’ sort of way. The film did and didn’t work for me. Quirky and interesting, yes. But pedestrian and predictable too. But, say what you will, what I’m really trying to get at here is that, watching it, I wanted more than anything to know where the movie was made. There were certain background or atmospheric scenes that raised the question. Obviously, it was set in the autumn but with astonishing maple tree colors, so it has to be in the North American Northeast. Massachusetts, Vermont? I thought I spotted a Massachusetts license plate. But there was something different about the streetscapes. They didn’t especially look “American.” Nor the houses. Where had I spotted streets like this before? But the greater giveaway was in the institutional college settings' emergency exit signs showing the international green running figure, which Canada adopted a few years ago. Even the house that the Matthews family lived in had a “Montreal or Toronto” look. And those deep leafy streets and vivid fall colors? Even the college’s name was a giveaway “Osler,” a TO institutional name if ever there was one. Sure enough, the movie was shot in The Big Smoke.

I re-subscribed to Netflix this summer, opting for the cheapest ad-based plan at only $6.77 (Cdn) a month. And what I got hooked on, for the first time, were binge-watching TV series, like Maestro in Blue (from Greece), The Tailor (Turkey), Catastrophe (UK) and Love and Anarchy (Sweden). While I watched a few movies – among them Despite Everything, Le Weekend and Fair Play - more numerous were all the ones I discarded as utterly unwatchable – slow-paced, derivative, cliched, losing the plot. Here they are: Do Not Disturb, Side Effects, The Age of Adaline, Forgotten Love, NYAD, Capitani, Rebecca, Crazy Stupid Love, Manifest, Transatlantic, Florida Man, Love is in the Air, Bodies, Sleeping Dog, Marcella, Love….Glad I’m only paying $6.77 a month!

Film clips: Windsor the next Telluride?

After receiving a WIFF email today the thought occurred to me that Windsor could be the next Telluride or Sundance. Such has the festival’s gravitas picked-up, like an increasing snowball – and now garnering national recognition – that WIFF is taking on the trappings of the “small festival that could.” International stars increasingly are attending, as are audience members from outside the area with Windsor more and more being seen as a destination festival. Accordingly, says WIFF in the email recapping the past year and most succesful yet, with 186 features and over 300 screenings. “Most importantly, we had people from all over North America visit Windsor to experience film and community at WIFF, affirming our vision of becoming a nationally recognized, industry-leading cultural destination.” 

The Globe and Mail recently did a story about the Toronto’s film festival’s touring series called the Film Circuit, which distributes TIFF films to communities across Canada. Windsor’s fest director was quoted. “We were part of Film Circuit for 18 years and grew with them, learned from them about building relationships with distributors and filmmakers and how it all works, and now we’re here,” says executive director Vincent Georgie of the Windsor International Film Festival. “We then forged our own path forward, but absolutely with a debt due to TIFF.”

I’m in Greece. But before leaving home in Canada I had re-signed with Netflix but to its low budget platform for less than $10/month but which includes commercials. Really no big deal as they are few and far between and don’t last long and are sometimes even interesting. I was able to watch Netflix in England but this cheaper platform isn’t supported in Greece. Different strokes for different countries, I guess.

In England, in Exeter in southwest England, there’s a little idiosyncratic gem of a museum at the city’s university, The Bill Douglas Cinema Museum (photo above). Douglas, now deceased, was a British filmmaker and as importantly a major collector of thousands of pieces of cinema paraphernalia. What’s most intriguing is the display of early 20th century and pre-20th rudimentary moving image machines or contraptions that mimicked motion such as mirrors, peep shows, optical illusions, dioramas and phantasmagoria or modified magic lanterns to project “supernatural” images.