BANFF – By Susan Tolusso – Documentary filmmakers from a hot shop in Montreal locked up first and second prizes Wednesday in the richest pitching event at the Banff World Television Festival, the CTV Canadian Documart competition.
EyeSteelFilm, a Montreal-based production company that has done very well at Documart in recent years, captured the $30,000 first prize with its pitch for Boy Genius & Bobby Fisher (John Christou, writer/director and Daniel Steel, producer) and the $20,000 second prize for Taqwacore (Omar Majeed, director). Third prize of $10,000 went to Murder For Love: The Jadah Walker Story (Larry Day and Erin Lawrence, producers).
While the cash available at Documart is $40,000 less than in previous years, the $60,000 pot nevertheless attracted many applicants; ultimately, six teams faced off for the prize money, much of which the winners say will be spent pushing development forward on their films. As the event sponsor, CTV has first opportunity to license the docs as first window broadcaster.
The strong line-up of competitors meant Christou was very worried about his chances. But he says he can resume development shooting now while he looks for production financing. “There’s been some interest already from (CTV vice-president of documentaries) Bob Culbert, and Canal Plus is interested.”
Boy Genius & Bobby Fisher is the story of Canadian Jeff Sarwer, a chess prodigy who won the 1986 under-10 championship at age eight and seemed destined to take on world master Bobby Fisher before long. That plan was abandoned when Sarwer, his father and sister ran from authorities and began living under assumed names. But now, Sarwer wants his old name and chess career back and will take Christou along with him on the search for chess supremacy and, ultimately, a match with Bobby Fisher.
Majeed, meanwhile, galvanized the competition with his music-driven Taqwacore pitch because the film will look at the efforts of several groups of young Muslims to make room within the faith for traditionalists and reformers both. One storyline, for instance, will follow musician Basim Usmani and his punk band, The Kominas, whose lyrics repudiate many of Islam’s conservative ideas.
Majeed, who notes that the Sundance Film Festival has shown interest in his film, says the Taqwacore movement represents religious reformation at the street level. “I do feel we live in a very polarized world, that I’m a child of divorced cultures.”
Murder For Love, from Calgary’s Pyramid Productions, tells the story of Jadah Walker, a small-town Prairie girl who became addicted to morphine after taking up with a local drug dealer. When her father couldn’t persuade Jadah to leave her boyfriend, he feared for her health and sanity. Eventually, desperate to save Jadah, he shot the boyfriend and is serving time in jail for murder; on the outside, Jadah sees him as a hero and is assisting his appeal.
– Susan Tolusso
