Sean of the Bread
Interview with Sean Garrity, Director of Lucid
Peter Vesuwalla



Sean Garrity wasn’t one of the most prominent faces at this year’s FilmExchange Canadian Film Festival.

He flew in from Vancouver for the premiere of his second feature, Lucid, on March 2 and then immediately headed to San Jose, Calif., for the U.S. premiere.

“I wish I was there (in Winnipeg) longer,” says the ’Peg-based director. “I actually like to show up at a film festival the day a film is showing and stick around for a couple of days so that folks see me on the street or in a café or something and say, ‘Hey man, I saw your movie and it sucked’ or ‘Hey man, I saw your movie and I dug it’ or ‘Hey man, I saw your movie and I didn’t know what the fuck happened. Tell me about it.’

“It helps me know what I’m doing.”

So far Lucid, which is far less overtly arty than Garrity’s first feature, 2001’s Inertia, has been getting a great response.

“The Americans fucking love it,” he says. “Audiences just absolutely flipped over it. Our first screening, the house was a quarter full because it was a Canadian film and nobody had heard of it. Then the repeat screening was a full house. The third screening had sold out before I left.”

One fan even tracked down Garrity’s e-mail address so he could voice his appreciation.

“I set out to make a more audience-friendly, fast-moving, commercial kind of film — not that it was a commercial film, but you always want to make something that critics and audiences are going to like.”

A big part of his success is Garrity’s ability to take a, shall we say, ‘Canadian’ budget of only $2 million and stretch it for all it’s worth.

“There’s always a struggle when you have a little bit of money,” he says. “This is one of the reasons I produced Lucid as well. I like to have a seat at the table when the budgeting decisions are made because that determines how your film is gonna look.

“I find that a lot of producers who come from bigger-budget things, their first instinct is to cut the number of days when they’re over budget. I think that’s totally the wrong way to go. If you don’t have any time, then it’s just going to look like shit.”

Now that the movie has been made and Garrity has successfully presided over its premieres, the tricky part is getting the film shown in regular-run cinemas. It’s being released in Toronto, Vancouver and Winnipeg on March 17, but the filmmaker is still frustrated by a business in which Canadian films aren’t really given a fair shake next to Hollywood fare.

He’d like to see indigenous movies get more advertising space on TV, perhaps by counting Canadian movie trailers as Canadian content.

And he wouldn’t mind seeing his film on some more screens in the U.S., either.

“I don’t know what we can do to insert ourselves more in that market, but whatever it is we should try it,” he says.

Sleepless in Winnipeg
Interview with Jonas Chernick, Star of Lucid
Peter Vesuwalla

“Can I call you back?” Jonas Chernick asks. “I’m having the most insane day of my life.”

An hour later, the actor rings from his home in L.A. and explains.

“I had an exciting day as far as L.A.-pilot-season drama and excitement,” he says. “I got to meet Anna Paquin (the Winnipeg-born Academy Award-winning actress) today and was reading for a role in a film they’re shooting in Winnipeg. It’s an American indie film that Anna Paquin is the lead in, and it’s a huge opportunity.

“It all came very quickly yesterday, and it’s kind of this whirlwind day where I’ve been whisked off to the Warner Brothers studio lot and met with Anna and then had to whip to an audition for another project.”

On top of that, the 32-year-old former-Winnipegger is still promoting Lucid, the made-in-Winnipeg feature he starred in and co-wrote with director Sean Garrity. The film, which premiered in Winnipeg on March 2 at the FilmExchange Canadian Film Festival, opens March 17 in Toronto, Vancouver and Winnipeg.

Chernick opted to stay for the rest of FilmExchange and missed Lucid’s U.S. premiere in San Jose, Calif., where a critic rated the movie with the work of Guy Maddin and David Cronenberg as helping to define the new language of Canadian cinema.

That’s a nice reward at the end of a process that began seven years ago, when Chernick began his script about an insomniac psychiatrist having trouble holding his life together.

“My father has always suffered from really horrifying insomnia,” he says. “So I grew up in a house where my dad didn’t sleep — ever — except for intermittent spurts on the couch during the day. I was only mildly aware of that as a kid, but there was something very unsettling about it.

“The research came much later. I’ll credit Sean (Garrity) with all the research. All I used were personal experiences my father had as an insomniac. Sean was really diligent with the research, which was good for me when it came time to put on the acting hat and play a psychologist. I didn’t have to do any research because he handed all the material to me.”

By that time, the project had already progressed further than Chernick had ever thought it would.

“When you get that deep into development on a script, you start to think that it’s never going to be finished,” he says. “So many projects get into development and never find their way to completion. That’s just the nature of the business.

“To see (Lucid) at the festivals and now being released theatrically in Canada is so gratifying. It gives me a motivation to stick with the other projects. I’ve got a number of other scripts to develop as a writer.”

Currently Chernick has two scripts that have been optioned by production companies — meaning that they have paid him for the first rights to possibly make a film from the scripts. He’s also received funding to further develop a third project.

Between that and his acting career, Chernick anticipating some more ‘insane’ days to come.

“It’s actually right now killing me that I’m not gonna be in Canada for the opening weekend,” he says. “It’s just killing me, but I need to be here.”

Hope he’s not losing any sleep over it.