�DOUGLAS COUPL<strong>AND</strong> Do you enjoy the rush of TIFF? � COUPL<strong>AND</strong>: “I can’t stand people. I’d rather be at home.” � � film festivals | TORONTO What do you hope to get out of TIFF? COUPL<strong>AND</strong>: “My sanity returned to me intact.” Tell me about this film. COUPL<strong>AND</strong>: “It’s about being a certain age and suddenly realizing that all the doors that used to be wide open to you are slamming tight very quickly.” Nearly every character is involved in some scam. Why did you feel it was time to explore the concept of corruption? COUPL<strong>AND</strong>: “It’s not corruption. It’s amorality. Everyone likes to flatter themselves that they’re not corrupt, but being amoral isn’t too different. Remove those rose-coloured lenses.” Who was this film made for? COUPL<strong>AND</strong>: “If we knew, then it wouldn’t be genuinely new and interesting. Any movie — or book — made for a ‘target audience’ is defacto flawed…kind of cynical and probably empty. I think it’s the biggest issue in film today.” Was Paulo Costanzo similar to who you’d envisioned when you wrote the script? Did you have a say in casting? COUPL<strong>AND</strong>: “I had no say in casting. For God’s sake, I’m the writer. But Paulo did a wonderful job.” How was the experience of writing for the screen different from writing for the page? COUPL<strong>AND</strong>: “Most people aren’t visual thinkers. It’s a scientific fact. But I am, so it makes scriptwriting faster/easier/ funner for me than other people. Possibly.” Why haven’t any of your books been made into movies? COUPL<strong>AND</strong>: “Books don’t have to be made into movies. To think they do presupposes books are somehow lower down the food chain, and I don’t think that to be true.” What’s your advice for someone coming to TIFF for the first time? COUPL<strong>AND</strong>: “Rent your hotel room 11 months in advance and remember, anybody who’s really in movies is asleep by 10 p.m.” ZACHARIAS KUNUK <strong>AND</strong> NORMAN COHN SOOK-YIN LEE Tell us about this film. COHN: “About 80 years ago, 4,000 years of Inuit oral history was ruptured by the introduction of Christianity, which is what our film is about. To find out what really happened back then you have to go to the sources, people like Knud Rasmussen, who was one of the only people who witnessed it and wrote it down.” KUNUK: “We wanted to touch upon that breaking-point when everybody started to turn to Christianity, how their personalities changed, and how they started looking forward to dying, when Inuit were happy about living.” � So the words spoken by the Inuit characters are quotes from Rasmussen’s journals? COHN: “Yes. We see ourselves fulfilling Aua’s own intention of putting his knowledge into the safekeeping of Knud Rasmussen for 85 years until the Inuit were capable of recovery. Some of his descendents are in the film and most of the cast or crew are related to someone in the film. Zacharias’s great grandfather and great grandmother are in the film.” Was this film easier, or more difficult, to make than Fast Runner? KUNUK: “I think the approach was the same, but we had more money and more investors this time. With Fast Runner there was a small crew and mainly we were the bosses and everything was a lot faster. But now with the amount of money and the amount of crew it was different. The production managers are talking to you all the time and every time the camera starts rolling someone is yelling ‘Stop Walking’ and stuff like that. It was too much. Next time I do a film I don’t want unit managers, it’s distracting.” Who was this film made for? COHN: “What’s important to us is when an audience like the TIFF audience or an art-house audience see the film they do so with the sense that the film is actually made for people who are in it.” What’s your advice for someone coming to TIFF for the first time? KUNUK: “I don’t know, I’m from so far up north I feel like I’m in the same boat as a newcomer.” famous 34 | september 2006 between love and relationships in and around a modern-day polysexual underground salon.” � � How tough was it to shoot your sex scenes? LEE: “It was the anxious fretting about the sex scenes BEFORE we did them that did my head in. But when it came time to shoot them, it was a lot easier than I expected because there was a closed set and I was working with a sensitive team of people who are also my friends.” People talk about the sex being challenging to film, but how about just the acting? LEE: “I made a decision to throw myself into the role with everything I had. To avoid becoming self-conscious I never looked at the monitor or at the dailies.... I wanted to portray Sofia warts and all. It worked well during the making of the movie, but the first time I saw Shortbus projected on a jumbo screen at the Cannes Film Festival I was mortified! I guess that’s when vanity crept in!” Why do you think most people have such difficulty with openly talking about sex? LEE: “I’m afraid of being vulnerable, at the core, I suppose there is a fear of annihilation. Sex is an incredibly intimate physical and social interaction that involves an invasion of personal space.” Has the film changed your idea of sex? LEE: “Yes, I am making room for myself to get to know my desires and needs.” Who was this film made for? LEE: “Open-minded, open-hearted people. Anyone grappling with their own sexuality. That pretty much includes everyone!” What do you hope to get out of TIFF? LEE: “Personally, I’m looking forward to being with my extended family again, my pals from the movie. We’re putting on a Shortbus party where the cast members who are also musicians are performing songs, including John Cameron Mitchell!” What’s your advice for someone coming to TIFF for the first time? LEE: “Wear something comfortable. And if you’re doing a day of press outside under the sun, wear a strong sunscreen or you’ll end up like me, with a Star Trek tan.”
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