Film Fest a unique window to independent film

Kristine Berey

In 2004, before Chris Landreth’s short film about Montreal animator Ryan Larkin was screened at that year’s Festival du Nouveau Cinema, Larkin gave an interview to a local journalist. The profile was headlined “With a little help from his friends, Montreal prodigy turned panhandler Ryan Larkin is ready to get off the streets and back into animation.”

At the time, Larkin, who died in 2007, talked about a new film he was planning with his friend Montreal musician Laurie Gordon, and his hopes of finding a “good creative team of computer graphic animators” to work with. The film was to be about his “happy-go-lucky” life as a street person. Now, Larkin said, he was “panhandling for hundreds of thousands of dollars” for his new film called Spare Change. “It’ll be anything but spare change, I can tell you that!”

Few, except Gordon and others closest to him, believed him at the time, as Larkin was then living at the Old Brewery mission and still dealing with alcoholism.

However, the headline must have been prophetic, because in an eerie coincidence, Spare Change is scheduled to premiere before Adrian Wills’ film about the Beatles, composers of the classic With a Little Help from My Friends, at the 37th edition of the Festival du Nouveau Cinema ­October 9. In Larkin’s film, described as “a surrealistic journey through the extraordinary imagination of Ryan Larkin,” Larkin’s unforgettably melodious speaking voice is heard once again, in his alter ego Astral Pan, as he guides the audience through the streets of Montreal and some unlikely places. The film’s whimsical and unexpected images are enhanced by the soundtrack, created by CHIWAWA’s Laurie Gordon and Krassy Halatchev, revealing Larkin as the artist he has always been, his soul irresistibly playful and joyful.

In All Together Now, Adrian Wills chronicles the extraordinary partnership between the Beatles and the Cirque du Soleil which led to LOVE, a sold out run in Las Vegas. The project grew out of a friendship between Beatle George Harrison and Guy Laliberté, founder of Quebec’s most beloved Cirque. Filmed in London, Montreal and Las Vegas, Wills focuses on the human side of the mega-production from the first glimmers of the project to the first night performance. Archival footage and interviews offer a window into the creative processes of artists Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Yoko Ono Lennon, Olivia Harrison, George Martin, Giles Martin and LOVE director Dominic Champagne. A great celebration, open to the public, will follow the screening of these two films.

The Festival of Nouveau Cinema brings 250 independent never before seen films to Montrealers. Formerly known as the Montreal Festival of New Cinema and New Media, its raison d’être remains steadfast. It is dedicated to fostering and promoting new approaches to film and media and to screen the best and most original new films from around the world. All genres of film figure at the festival, including shorts, feature-length films, documentaries, fiction and animation, from 60 different countries.

The Festival du Nouveau Cinema runs October 8 to 19. The Festival Info Line can be reached at 866-844-2172.