That the film business works in strange ways is something of an understatement to Claude Gagnon. The veteran Montreal filmmaker, who has worked extensively both as a director (1987's The Kid Brother, also known as Kenny) and producer ( Rowing Through), now finds himself celebrated by festival juries and audiences again for his low-budget, beautifully understated family drama Kamataki.
The film focuses on one young Montrealer (Matt Smiley) recovering from a suicide attempt after his father's death. The devastated 22-year-old tries to heal emotionally by venturing to Japan to spend time with his uncle (Tatsuya Fuji, the Japanese actor seen in Nagisa Oshima's In the Realm of the Senses).
Gagnon's story of a stranger in a strange land, trying to come to grips with his inner struggle as he takes in the entirely different world of his Japanese uncle, has been winning hearts and minds on the international film-fest circuit. Since winning five awards at Montreal's World Film Festival last year (including best director and the people's choice award), Kamataki landed a special mention from the youth jury at the Berlin International Film Festival and a professional jury award at Vancouver's Reel 2 Real International Film Festival for Youth. "Seeing people connect with this film has been a lot of fun," says an elated Gagnon.
It didn't come easily. Gagnon found inspiration for Kamataki more than six years ago in his daughter's life. Gagnon was shocked at the number of his then-teenaged daughter's friends who attempted suicide. "Six of her friends died by their own hands in a span of about five years. I could not believe it." That set the suicide motif in motion. But the original screenplay called for an older painter to hold the mentor role. And Gagnon was thinking big: He saw Oscar-winning legend Anthony Quinn as perfect for the part. As plans for production proceeded, investors became queasy, as Quinn was in his 80s and not in particularly good health. In order to secure money, Gagnon signed personal guarantees for the film's financing. As bad luck had it, the backing fell through, and Gagnon, left holding the bag, was forced into bankruptcy, losing his home, his car -- "everything, basically," he says.
"You find out who your friends are," Gagnon says, of times like those. He managed to come back, first by writing scripts, then returning to the directing game. Gagnon has even continued to act and he is heard, though not seen, as the narrator in the breakout Quebec hit of last year, C.R.A.Z.Y.
And now there's the growing success of Kamataki. "I have been so lucky with the creation of this film," Gagnon says of the Canada-Japan co-production, budgeted at little more than $2-million. "I had the cast I wanted and the freedom to do as I pleased. I've been blessed."
Kamataki's Toronto release, slated for April 28, was looking dodgy when it was slapped with a restrictive 18A rating by the Ontario Film Review Board, the same rating given such fare as Basic Instinct 2 and Jackass: The Movie. "I was really shocked by this," says Gagnon, though he's relieved that the rating was successfully appealed and now stands at 14A (meaning anyone attending who is under 14 has to be accompanied by an adult).
"I'm not going to let anything stand in the way of the happiness I feel about Kamataki and its reception," says Gagnon. "When success like this comes, you enjoy every single second of it."
Kamataki will have its Ontario premiere in Toronto tonight at 7:30 as the opening film of the ReelWorld Film Festival. It opens in commercial cinemas April 28.