In 2009 Canadian director Dylan Akio Smith shot a twelve minute short titled simply Big Head. The story of a young boy with a big head - literally - the film was a dryly absurd commentary on body image and the pressures placed on children at increasingly young ages to conform to a standard of beauty. It's smart and funny and impeccably well crafted and one of my very favorite films of any length of that year. Smith, bluntly, is a huge talent just waiting to be discovered.Perhaps Doppelganger Paul will be the film that makes that happen.Smith co-directs his second feature with writer Kris Elgstrand, with the duo riding a premise sure to draw comparisons to Charlie Kaufman. See? There's one now! But...
- 8/15/2011
- Screen Anarchy
In 2009 Canadian director Dylan Akio Smith shot a twelve minute short titled simply Big Head. The story of a young boy with a big head - literally - the film was a dryly absurd commentary on body image and the pressures placed on children at increasingly young ages to conform to a standard of beauty. It's smart and funny and impeccably well crafted and one of my very favorite films of any length of that year. Smith, bluntly, is a huge talent just waiting to be discovered.Perhaps Doppelganger Paul will be the film that makes that happen.Smith co-directs his second feature with writer Kris Elgstrand, with the duo riding a premise sure to draw comparisons to Charlie Kaufman. See? There's one now! But...
- 4/20/2011
- Screen Anarchy
A great favorite of mine when I caught it at this year's Toronto International Film Festival, Dylan Akio Smith's Big Head is, in my opinion, one of the more glaring omissions from Tiff's recently announced Canada's Top Ten list. A sharply observed, bleak piece of absurdist comedy, the film revolves around a young boy with an unusual problem:
Childhood isn't easy and, in the case of 10 year-old Billy (aka Big Head), it's made no easier by an unusually large head. Inspired by a fellow student's success with rhinoplasty, Billy seeks the aid of a plastic surgeon to solve his problems, but learns that he will have to take matters into his own hands. Big Head is a dark comedy about childhood, plastic surgery and self-acceptance.
Blessed with a very strong script, an even stronger young cast and a director who understands that absurdism works best when rooted in something very real,...
Childhood isn't easy and, in the case of 10 year-old Billy (aka Big Head), it's made no easier by an unusually large head. Inspired by a fellow student's success with rhinoplasty, Billy seeks the aid of a plastic surgeon to solve his problems, but learns that he will have to take matters into his own hands. Big Head is a dark comedy about childhood, plastic surgery and self-acceptance.
Blessed with a very strong script, an even stronger young cast and a director who understands that absurdism works best when rooted in something very real,...
- 12/10/2009
- Screen Anarchy
[Our thanks to Andrew David Long for the following wrap up of the 2009 Whistler Film Festival.]
Whistler itself is a gorgeous destination, world-famous for skiing and mountain biking, and the Whistler Film Festival (Wff) largely concerns itself with discovering new, independent voices. On those points alone, it's hard to avoid thinking of Sundance, a comparison that can't really be made. Now in its ninth installment, Whistler remains a very intimate festival and is still potentially in the early stages of its development.
Opening Night is at the Whistler Conference Centre, which is licensed, so many of the screenings there are rather more festive. Though the opening speeches are on the long side, the crowd is still happy. While I'm wary of converted screening spaces, the digital projection there is mercifully very good. Back at the hotel, I stare again at the screening schedule and rue the fact that everything screens only once.
Suffice it to say, these few days in Whistler can be packed. Wff is...
Whistler itself is a gorgeous destination, world-famous for skiing and mountain biking, and the Whistler Film Festival (Wff) largely concerns itself with discovering new, independent voices. On those points alone, it's hard to avoid thinking of Sundance, a comparison that can't really be made. Now in its ninth installment, Whistler remains a very intimate festival and is still potentially in the early stages of its development.
Opening Night is at the Whistler Conference Centre, which is licensed, so many of the screenings there are rather more festive. Though the opening speeches are on the long side, the crowd is still happy. While I'm wary of converted screening spaces, the digital projection there is mercifully very good. Back at the hotel, I stare again at the screening schedule and rue the fact that everything screens only once.
Suffice it to say, these few days in Whistler can be packed. Wff is...
- 12/9/2009
- Screen Anarchy
The 28th annual Vancouver International Film Festival (Viff) will be held October 1-16, 2009. Founded in 1982, Viff's mandate is "...to encourage the understanding of other nations through the art of cinema, to foster the art of cinema, to facilitate the meeting in British Columbia of cinema professionals from around the world and to stimulate the motion picture industry in British Columbia and Canada..." Over 150,000 people are expected to attend 640 screenings of 360 films from 80 countries. Here is an up-to-date list of directors, confirmed to attend Viff 2009, along with their films : "1428" Du Haibin "1999" Lenin Sivam "65_RedRoses" Philip Lyall & Nimisha Mukerji "Adelaide" Liliana Greenfield-Sanders "The Agony and the Ecstasy of Phil Spector" Vikram Jayanti "Ana & Arthur" Larry Young "The Anchorage" Anders Edström & Curtis Winter "Antoine" Laura Bari "Argippo Resurrected" Dan Krames "The Art of Drowning" Diego Maclean "At Home By Myself... With You" Kris Booth "At The Edge Of The World" Dan Stone...
- 9/27/2009
- HollywoodNorthReport.com
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