| 01.25.00 |

DON AT B.C. FILM FEST?
According to Lizybones at the Official Twitch City Message board, Don is slated to appear at a film festival in Victoria, B.C. He is also (supposedly) going to be teaching a "seminar" of some kind. I've tried looking for info about this festival, but I've turned up nothing so far. If anybody out there can provide any more details, we'd greatly appreciate it!

VCR ALERT REMINDER!
A couple weeks from now, Bravo will be airing Peter Lynch's acclaimed film short Arrowhead February 9th, 2000 at 4pm EST. Don's role in the film is widely regarded to be one of his funniest and quirkiest performances -- check it out if you can! :-)

And speaking of which...
Kitana was one of the few who braved the sub-zero temperatures to catch the free screening of Arrowhead and Project Grizzly at the University of Toronto. Peter Lynch was also on-hand to answer questions about the films. Here's a brief excerpt about her experience:

"After the films screened, Peter went up to the podium and answered all of the audiences questions. When someone asked how much of Arrowhead was scripted and how much was improvised, he responded with, "Oh, I would say about 15% of it was improvised by Don." She also asked how much of it was autobiographical, and he laughed and answered, "Oh, isn't everything autobiographical?" but then said that some of it was, in terms of some of the things he'd done. (I'm guessing that some of the things Don said in the river valley were reflective of that...)

When someone asked about upcoming projects, he said that he has a documentary about soccer and World War II that is untitled as of yet, and a drama that he *has* titled, but I can't remember the name.

After the audience questions, he also stuck around to answer individual questions. A lot of the questions were from people who were aspiring writers/filmmakers/etc., and one older man who was an engineer trying to get involved in acting and writing was very complimentary towards Don, saying how much he loved seeing his work, and how funny he was. Everyone there was also pretty much in agreement, which was nice to see. :) Peter gave some people advice on how to break into filmmaking, as many of the people there were students, and answered some questions on the films.

At the end, I asked him about what he meant about Arrowhead having personal meaning for him, and he elaborated on the answer he gave to the girl who asked whether any of it was autobiographical -- turns out that he lived in those buildings when he was younger, so he decided to make the film there. I also asked about The Herd, and explained that I was interested in seeing it, having heard about Mark McKinney [of Kids in the Hall fame, and Rex Riley in Twitch City's second season] and Don's roles in it... He said that he's working on a deal for it to be shown on television, somewhere. When I mentioned Mark, he sort of went, "Ohhhhhhhh..." like he was a littlesurprised to hear it, and mentioned that Mark's brother, Nick, wrote it with him, and that he was fun to work with."

Thanks Kitana! I'm totally envious... ;-)

GOLDEN GLOBES
At this year's Golden Globe Awards, The Red Violin was nominated for "Best Foreign-Language Film", but it lost out to the Spanish film All About My Mother. Ah well...

| 01.12.00 |

ARROWHEAD SCREENING AT U OF T
According to Kai, the University of Toronto's Cinema Studies Student Union is presenting a free screening of Peter Lynch's "Project Grizzly" and "Arrowhead" this Friday January 14th, at 7pm. And as a special treat, Peter Lynch himself will be there to introduce the films and answer any questions. For more info, visit http://www.utoronto.ca/fff/. Thanks again Kai! :-)

(Anybody attending the event, feel free to mail us about your time at the screening!)

VCR ALERT
Before you head off to the screening, whydoncha catch another run of Highway 61, also airing Friday January 14th, at 4pm EST on Bravo? (Thanks to Kitana for the info! :-)

TWITCH TO AIR IN MARCH?
According to an anonymous source at the Official Twitch City message board, it now appears the episodes will now be airing in Canada this March. The person provided no further explanation, nor any positive proof, but I guess we shouldn't rule out any rumours at this point...

And the winner is...
Just a brief follow-up about the "Showcase New Year's movie poll" that was previously mentioned on this page: Without much surprise (well, not to us Don fans at least) When Night Is Falling ended up as the winner of the viewer's choice!! Aww yeah.

| 12.22.99 |

DON AT TEDCity CONFERENCE
From June 7th to 10th 2000, Toronto will be hosting the TEDCity Conference (Technology, Entertainment and Design) at the Lawrence Centre for the Arts. A large list of notable Canadian speakers will be attending the event, including Atom Egoyan and Don McKellar.

If you have $3,000 readily available (yes, you read that amount correctly), you can register to attend the conference. In disbelief of the enormous registration fee, I had emailed to ask if they had offered some kind of "student discount" to those (like me) who don't have three-grand to spare, but I've yet to receive a reply... :-P You can find more info at the official site, or by calling (416) 591-7400 ext. 2790 ...

"WAY DOWNTOWN" & "YUMMY FUR"
Here's some info I found at Playback regarding Don's upcoming film Way Downtown:

"Twitch City's Don McKellar and Fabrizio Filippo of the Fox series Action are starring in Gary Burns' latest feature Way Downtown.

Currently in principal photography, the $1-million feature is being shot entirely on location in Calgary using digital Beta. Several scenes will use 35mm and computer monitor footage that will be merged with the video in post.

Way Downtown, coproduced by Burns and Shirley Vercruyffe, follows a group of twentysomething office workers who bet on who can go the longest without stepping outside. The wager - one month's salary.

The film marks the first Canadian digital video project to be picked up by Odeon Films, which is distributing in Canada and selling u.s. rights. Alliance Atlantis has taken the u.k.

Financing partners include Telefilm Canada, the CFCN Production Fund, the Harold Greenberg Fund, the Alberta Foundation for the Arts, and Citytv. Principal photography wraps Nov. 5."

Here also, is a blurb from Playback, regarding Don's unproduced script for Yummy Fur:

"Also in the works with Shadow Shows is Yummy Fur, the passion of [Bruce] McDonald who's been persevering in development on this feature film project for years.

McKellar and John Frizell are writing the script based on the cult comic book by Chester Brown. The film is described as "a wild, dark adventure that pushes the boundaries of what is acceptable."

A snippet from the film's collection of scenarios finds lead character Ed the Happy Clown in trouble when the head of a president from another dimension becomes attached to his penis. And just how did that happen? It's very complicated, says [Susan Cavan, head of Accent Entertainment].

The feature will be a combination of live action and computer animation. The search for an animation company is underway.

Cavan says they are hoping to start production in early '96, with McDonald at the helm. The Ontario Film Development Corporation and Telefilm Canada are funding development."

The above article was written back in '95, so obviously the progress of the film is a bit off schedule. The latest prognosis on Yummy Fur is that the script is currently in the hands of the production company that produced Todd Solondz's acclaimed flick Happiness.

VCR ALERTS!
According to Showcase's program schedule, the Once A Thief episode featuring a guest stint by Don will be airing TODAY (Wednesday Dec. 22) at 8pm EST (sorry for the late notice... :-P )

And this just in from the fine folks at Bravo: Don's acclaimed film short Arrowhead will be airing again February 9th, 2000 at 4pm EST. Yes, I do realize it's a bit premature to announce this, but I absolutely adore this film, so I just couldn't help myself... :-) I'll post up another reminder of this alert again closer to the actual air date.

[ News page six | News page eight ]