Seeing Double: Interview with Zack Russell

Christie Pits Film Festival presents an evening of doppelgängers on August 18th as part of its summer-long Dynamic Duos programme, with the sci-fi cult classic Gattaca. The film takes place in a world where advanced genetic manipulation technology has created a society in which those conceived without the technology, called in-valids, are considered inferior to those with pre-selected traits. Vincent (Ethan Hawke), an in-valid, dreams of space travel but his genetics bar him from the opportunity. In an attempt to pursue his dreams, he impersonates another man who is part of the privileged class. Paired with Gattaca is the short film She Stoops to Conquer, directed by Zack Russell and making its second appearance at TOPS (it screened alongside Cabaret at Corktown Common in 2018). In the short, a woman meets her drag king persona’s double at an after-hours club.

Exploring Memory: Interview with Anna Maguire and Charlie Tyrell

In keeping with Christie Pits Film Festival tradition, on Sunday, July 14th, look forward to one evening’s programme featuring the best in veteran and emerging Canadian filmmaking. As part of our summer-long Dynamic Duos programme, the all-Canuck night is headlined by Bruce McDonald’s Weirdos, which follows 1970s teens Kit and Alice as they hitchhike their way to Sydney, Nova Scotia. Paired with Weirdos are the shorts Your Mother and I, directed by Anna Maguire, and My Dead Dad’s Porno Tapes, directed by Charlie Tyrell (which won a Canadian Screen Award this year). Your Mother and I represents one evening of a girl (Julia Sarah Stone, also the lead in Weirdos) and her dad (Don McKellar) preparing supper as he tells her outlandish stories of how he and her mother supposedly solved the world’s problems. My Dead Dad’s Porno Tapes is about filmmaker Charlie Tyrell’s recollections of his relationship with his father told through phone calls and found objects.