Chris Ferguson says the Whistler Film Festival has been ‘foundational’ to his development as a filmmaker.Supplied
Common wisdom has it that there are three centres of industry when it comes to the Canadian film sector: Toronto, Montreal and, well, Los Angeles. But producer Chris Ferguson retains a stubborn insistence that B.C. can be its own centre of the universe, too. And, perhaps against all odds, that bet has been paying off, with Ferguson’s Vancouver-based production company Oddfellows Pictures enjoying an unprecedented hot streak over the past year and a half thanks to Longlegs, The Monkey, Dangerous Animals, and last month’s Keeper.
Later this week, Ferguson will be participating in a masterclass session alongside his frequent filmmaking partner Oz Perkins at the Whistler Film Festival, which is celebrating its 25th anniversary at the same time that the mountain-top event is also trying to redefine the West Coast cinema scene. Ahead of the fest, and in the midst of filming his latest collaboration with Perkins, a thriller titled The Young People starring Nicole Kidman, Ferguson spoke with The Globe and Mail about selling it on top of the mountain.
Before we get to Whistler and everything else, I’m trying to picture just how busy a fall you’re having, because you also just closed on a deal to help take over the Park Theatre in Vancouver, after Cineplex planned on shutting it down.
It’s cool but crazy, yes. The landlord from the Park knew that Cineplex was potentially backing out, who approached Corinne Lea at the Rio in Vancouver, who then called me and asked if I could put together some money, so we all went in on it. We have the lease now, and we’ve ordered all the new equipment, including getting a 70mm projector in there. Hopefully we’ll open at some point in December.
So right around Whistler, then. Speaking of: How important do you feel a festival like Whistler is? It feels like it can so easily be overshadowed by every other event in the fall, including the Vancouver International Film Festival.
Well, I didn’t go to film school or anything like that, I just made movies with my friends. So when it came time to professionalize everything that we were doing, I did so by hitting up VIFF, and then also going to Whistler. We rented a cabin with 20 people, filmmakers just sleeping all over the floor, and hit the festival up there in a big way. It’s been a foundational piece of me learning how to make films. And it made me realize that I could make cool movies and stay in Vancouver. That’s where I saw Beyond the Black Rainbow, which aesthetically spoke to me and showed me that it was possible to make with the people who I already knew out here.
A still from Longlegs.Supplied
How do you think the West Coast film scene has evolved since your early days?
It has been very centred in Toronto, you know the organizational pillars are out there. The Canadian Film Centre, the CBC, Telefilm, it’s all out there. That’s the system. But for someone who came up outside the system, I think it’s very different out here. What we do have is a massive amount of production infrastructure. If you’re going to go your own way and push your own path, everything is here for you to do that.
Do you find yourself now being placed in a mentorship role for younger B.C. filmmakers coming up after you?
There’s always a generation coming up and trying to figure out how to break out, and it’s hard out here. There’s a lot of opportunity in the crew world, but it is hard. At a certain point, they have to decide whether they can make it in Vancouver or move to Toronto or L.A. But any point where I can jump up and say, well, you don’t have to do that. You can stay here, like I did. ... I have young producers come to me all the time and say, “I’ve got to go to L.A.” Well, no, you don’t have to move to America. You know how hard it is for a new producer to get started there? Here, you can go to the government and they might give you a couple hundred grand to make your first movie, which is an incredible thing to give up. Focus on that, and then when you break out, if you can break out, then you can decide what to do. But as an incubator, Canada has a unique thing that America simply does not have.
This year seems to have proven that point – you’ve had your busiest year yet, with three movies coming out theatrically.
It’s been a wild and satisfying ride. But prior to Longlegs coming out, I’ve had a bunch of projects that also hadn’t come out for a while. But it is hard. Oz is a guy who works 24 hours a day. And we also shot a lot of these movies a while ago. We shot Keeper and The Monkey prior to Longlegs coming out. We’ve had a very aggressive production run.
So when The Young People comes out, will that represent a break in the cadence of Oz’s movies – is there going to be more time built in between the projects?
Yeah, I think there will be more time. The Young People is the first movie that we have set up with Oz since the success of Longlegs. It feels as if that, after Longlegs, we just went and did The Monkey and then Keeper, but we actually made all those movies and then Longlegs hit. This is going to be the real first post-Longlegs movie, so it’s bigger in scale and ambition.
This is another project that, like Longlegs, is a bit shrouded in mystery. What can you say about it?
I can’t say a lot, but I can say that any movie that contains both Nicole Kidman and Johnny Knoxville is like nothing we’ve ever done before.
The 25th edition of the Whistler Film Festival runs Dec. 3-7.
This interview has been condensed and edited.