Tag Archives: Inside Out Film Festival

Award-winning film ‘Tru Love’ Gets October Release

PIXEL 51 - STIMULI (The Blog) Posted on by

tru-love_dvd_art

UPDATE: 30 September 2014 – TRU LOVE can now be pre-ordered from iTunes (Canada & US), for a 7 October release. The DVD, which can be pre-ordered from Wolfe Video, will be released on 4 November. (DVD bonus materials include deleted scenes and the short film Stormcloud from director Kate Johnson

Shauna MacDonald as Dean Peretti on LOST GIRL.

Shauna MacDonald as Dean Peretti on LOST GIRL.

“We actually wrote a version of the film that took place in spring, but it just didn’t feel right. We needed the isolation of winter. And it was indeed cheaper to shoot in February and more crew were available to work! The scene where Tru and Alice are sitting in big Muskoka chairs under the pink umbrella by the lake as snow is falling got a lot of laughs at the London BFI Flare film festival. Someone commented, ‘Are you Canadians crazy?? Sitting in those chairs in the snow?’ Just for the record, we had about seven months of winter in Toronto this year – and yes, that does make you crazy enough to sit in chairs outside in a snowstorm!!”
—— Shauna MacDonald on why Tru Love was filmed in winter (from SDGLN)

TRU LOVE was screened on the final day of the 2014 Inside Out Festival in Toronto. And because of that, Shauna MacDonald and Kate Johnston were interviewed about the film by Arthur Young of Radio Regent in Toronto (below is audio). MacDonald talks about the making of the film, (she envisioned Kate Trotter‘s character Alice as “Greta Garbo of the north”), and says they are aiming at a Toronto theatrical release in October. (The connection faded a bit in the last minute, so at that point, sound quality is diminished.)

TRU LOVE’s main character, commitment-phobic lesbian Tru (Shauna MacDonald), forms an unlikely but deeply touching bond with Alice (Kate Trotter), helping her to pick herself up and move on with her life and the possibility of a relationship between the two sparks into life. When Suzanne (Christine Horne) witnesses a tender moment between mother and friend her subsequent actions stress the relationship of all three women, leading to a heartbreaking climax.

The film won the grand prize for Best Feature Film at the 2014 Mumbai International Queer Film Festival, which also named Kate Trotter Best Actress for her portrayal of Alice. MacDonald and co-director Kate Johnston won the Emerging Canadian Filmmaker Award at the Toronto Inside Out Festival, which also gave TRU LOVE the Best Audience award.

Co-directors Shauna MacDonald and Kate Johnston with Inside Out festival director Andrew Murphy

Co-directors Shauna MacDonald and Kate Johnston with Inside Out festival Director of Programming Andrew Murphy

NOTES

TRU LOVE will next be screened at the Frameline Film Festival in San Francisco on 20 June (6:45pm at The Castro Theatre). Another Canadian film, GERONTOPHILIA, directed by Bruce LaBruce and starring Pier-Gabriel Lajoie and Katie Boland, will follow at 9:30pm.

Shauna Macdonald will appear as an as yet unspecified character in Season 2 of the Netflix series HEMLOCK GROVE. She will also appear in a Hallmark movie called MIDNIGHT MASQUERADE, currently filming in Sudbury, Ontario.

What Could Possibly Frighten a Valkyrie?

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LOST GIRL – Season 4 Episode 13 – SPOILERS

Kenzi looking like a DaVinci painting prepares to close the portal.

Kenzi (Ksenia Solo) looking like a DaVinci painting prepares to close the portal.

BO: Well maybe it’s time I got a little out of control.
DYSON: That’s good to hear, because she needs you.
BO: You’re not going to tell me to save the world instead of the girl?
DYSON: You’ve taught me well. And she’s my friend too.

Evony (Emmanuelle Vaugier) "We're all going to be barbequed anyway. Might as well have a little fun."

Evony (Emmanuelle Vaugier) “We’re all going to be barbequed anyway. Might as well
have a little fun.”

Bo heads out to save the girl (Lauren), leaving Dyson in charge of defending against the dead guys coming out of the cinvat, but not before putting on that necklace Lauren gave her.

In this episode at least, Dyson behaves like a proper wolf. He is not the leader of the pack. Once he recognizes that Bo is the leader and not Trick, his role becomes clear to him.

MYTHOLOGICAL NOTE: The cinvat is (in Zoroastrianism) the bridge between the world of the living and the world of the dead. It appears narrow for the wicked, allowing them to be more easily snatched by demons on their way across and dragged to the “house of lies” (hell). For the good, the bridge seems wide, allowing them to pass easily across to the afterlife.

Kenzi's ring in Bo's hands at the gravesite. Might it serve a plot function similar to Buffy's Claddagh ring (insert)?

Kenzi’s ring in Bo’s hands at the gravesite. Might it serve a plot function similar to Buffy’s Claddagh ring (insert)?

BO (to Massimo): I’ll bet human mommy tastes delicious.
LAUREN: Delectable, but don’t take my word for it.

Tamsin to Dyson at the gates of Valhalla -

Tamsin to Dyson at the gates of Valhalla – “You can’t let Bo find that other hell shoe.”

Evony, after a flirtatious discussion with Trick, goes to Lauren’s place to rescue her because she needs Lauren to make her Fae again. Bo gets there first, and when The Morrigan arrives, takes her hostage and, after lots of chi sucking by Bo and Massimo, Evony lies dead. Massimo pleads with Bo to revive her. Bo takes chi from Massimo and does that, then kills Massimo with a sword. (This seems a bit vindictive. She could have killed him by sucking all his chi. Perhaps Bo really is more than a bit dark.)

Unknown Hieronymus Bosch work found in the Dark Archives

Unknown Hieronymus Bosch work (?) found in the Dark Archives

Bo and Lauren sort out their feelings for one another (see previous post) and Bo heads back to the Temple of the Women of the Horse to help Trick, Dyson, and Tamsin battle her father’s revenants at the cinvat. On the way, she discovers that Kenzi has slipped her engagement ring into Bo’s coat pocket. When Bo arrives at the Temple, Kenzi is already walking toward the portal.

The death of Massimo

The death of Massimo (Tim Rozon)

The Buffy series finale involved Spike closing the hellmouth after Buffy appointed him her “champion”. Spike died in the process, but the hellmouth was sealed. In “Dark Horse”, Kenzi, upon careful re-reading of Fae prophesies, decides that she is Bo’s heart, and walks into the cinvat, closing the portal and dying (somewhat less spectacularly than Spike) in the process. Tamsin (Rachel Skarsten) attempts to convey Kenzi’s soul (and apparently her entire body as well) to Valhalla, but Dyson finds her collapsed outside Valhalla’s gates. She tells him that Kenzi is “gone”, and cautions him that he must not let Bo find the other hell shoe. She sounds and looks frightened. “What did you see?” he asks her, and gets no answer.

Buffy also wore a necklace when she left Angel's ring in the mausoleum (Episode 3.3)

Buffy also wore a necklace when she left Angel’s ring in the mausoleum (Episode 3.3)

As Dyson carries Tamsin away, the gates vanish and are replaced by an alleyway artistically vandalized by graffiti. The implication is that Valhalla, Irkalia, et.al. might be accessed by looking at reality in a different way.

The final scene has Bo, still wearing the necklace, placing sunflowers on Kenzi’s grave. (From the tombstone we learn that Kenzi’s last name is Malikov and that she was born in 1991). Bo fishes the engagement ring from Hale from her pocket and vows aloud that no one else will die on her watch. Here’s something else to remember from Buffy (Season 3 Episode 3). When Buffy decides she’s over Angel, she removes the friendship ring he gave her and places it on the floor of the mausoleum. Angel, who has been trapped in a hell dimension, somehow uses the ring to climb, naked and a bit insane, back into Buffy’s reality. Kenzi’s engagement ring might have a similar function in season 5.

Some months ago, a video of the song The Wanderer as sung by Emilie Mover was posted on YouTube. In it, Bo drives to the graveyard, as she does in 4.13 (perhaps to a different entrance to the graveyard), but is carrying white roses. In “Dark Horse” The Wanderer is replaced by Keaton Henson‘s “You”. Was there an alternate ending to Season 4?

Rainer (Kyle Schmid) dies about ten minutes into this episode, and remains a mystery. Is he The Wanderer or just a wanderer? When he left the train, what happened to the Handmaiden?

NOTES

Below right is an intriguing tweet from Emily Andras. The video she’s talking about is an ad for Hochtaler that ran in the 80’s. Might another excursion into cabaret singing be in store for Zoie Palmer?

TRU LOVE, which stars LOST GIRL’s Kate Trotter, Christine Horne, and Shauna MacDonald, will be screened at the Inside Out Film Festival in Toronto, 24 May at 7:30pm.

THE RETURNED, a 2013 zombie flick with Kris Holden-Ried and Shawn Doyle, can now be pre-ordered on DVD from Amazon Canada. (It will be released on 22 July.) In the US the film is on Amazon Instant Video. Another Holden-Ried film from 2013 that also has Shawn Doyle in the cast, HUNTING SEASON, is available on FIOS VOD (Verizon) from time to time, but otherwise has only had general release in Spain.