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Q&A: Shotgun Jimmie

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Jim Kilpatrick on (approximately) everything about his new album, Skype dates, and experimental instruments

Just hours before playing a Pinball Sessions co-presented Kazoo! Fest set at Jimmy Jazz, Shotgun Jimmie (a.k.a. singer-songwriter Jim Kilpatrick) agreed to meet up with me at one of his favourite restaurants for relaxing before a show, The Cornerstone. We talked about (approximately) everything you need to know about his new record, Everything, Everything, Skype dates, what suitcases you shouldn’t use as bass drums, and his connection to Ray Mitchell, the owner of Guelph’s singular antique shop, Dis-a-Ray.

(interview begins after photo)

Shotgun Jimmie at Jimmy Jazz, April 6. (Photo by Tom Beedham)

Tom Beedham: Hey Jimmie. Welcome back to Guelph. We’re at the Cornerstone. Did you want anything?

 Shotgun Jimmie: From The Cornerstone?

TB: Yeah.

SJ: Umm… I just had an incredible espresso. I shouldn’t have another one. That’s already got me wired.

TB: Well, everything’s pretty good.

SJ: I know. This is one of my favourite places to eat before the show.

TB: Are you a vegetarian?

SJ: Yes… are you?

TB: I’m not, but I eat here all the time. I dunno, I like bacon too much or something.

SJ: There you go.

TB: But yeah, everything here’s pretty good, and speaking of everything, your new album’s called Everything, Everything, and tonight you’re celebrating the release of that here in Guelph. At the risk of ruining the rest of the questions I’ve prepared, tell me everything people need to know about that in a couple of sentences.

SJ: Everything, Everything in a few sentences. That’s a pretty tall order. I ended up calling the album Everything, Everything because the last song on the album is called Everything, Everything, and it sort of works with the aesthetic of the record. The cover of the album is a collage – well, it’s an installation that I guess is like a physical collage of sorts – and when I was recording the album I also was thinking about collage and I ended up using different mediums – recording mediums; four-tracking, computer, and that type of thing – and blending them together – not just having some songs that are one format and other songs that are a different format, but actually patching them all together a little bit in different parts and really trying to  put together and assemble the record in that same style. It just felt like Everything, Everything was the right mantra or idea for the record and for that song. It just all ended up tying in nicely.

TB: So far I’ve only heard “Skype Date,” but I guess the track listing can lead people to figure that everything involves California (and, more specifically Big Sur), garden growth, and standing in lines. Would you call that an accurate collage of the essence of everything?

SJ: Yeeeah. I mean the themes that are on the record are definitely sunny in disposition and also just like the everyday everything – like standing in a line – and yeah, I think a lot of the themes on the record are sort of normal on first examination, and then after, with further examination, you see some of the subtleties, and then they become more interesting.

TB: You had this contest for a Skype date. Are you still waiting on your Skype date?

SJ: I have finished the Skype date contest. It was a huge success.

TB: How was your date?

SJ: I ended up having six dates.

TB: Player!

SJ: They were all fantastic. The highlights for me… well it was geographically spread out quite nicely. My favourite was in Ottawa, Ont. I did a Skyped concert for a bunch of children. This mother won the contest and her whole family are fans of my last album, Transistor Sister, and all the neighbourhood children came over to the house and they made posters, “We love Jimmie” posters, and they were all gathered in the living room and I played a children’s concert for them. That was really great.

I also played a concert in Paris, France for some really sophisticated French hipsters. They were really quite friendly and for them it was evening and they were just getting ready to go out on the town but they had cheese and baguette and they were drinking red wine, and it seemed very sophisticated and I enjoyed having that inserted into my day. I also did a concert in Adelaide, Aus., in Vancouver, BC, and in Fogo, N.L. It’s really fun to be playing concerts all over the world from the comfort of my living room. I found it was really rewarding.

Most people invited friends over, so they weren’t very intimate dates – they were very relaxed in nature. So it ended up being a Skype concert contest rather than Skype dates, but I have the song on the record called “Skype Date” so we thought it would be a fun little contest to have. I loved it. It was so much fun. I would love to do that again.

TB: Saves you money on tour expenses as well.

SJ: Exactly, exactly. I think initially the idea was that it was a publicity campaign or something like that. But it ended up being so much more rewarding than that, really. It was really interesting and bares further examination. I would like to try and figure out some other way to further that and do some more Skype concerts with the right people in the right place at the right time.

TB: It’s a great idea. You were talking about the cover art and how it’s a collage and there’s a pretty wide assortment of things featured on the cover art. Do you want to talk about some of those things and why some of them made it on the cover? Do some of the items have stories?

SJ: I think there are. The art is done by these two artists in Sackville, New Brunswick – Paul Henderson and John Claytor – the masterminds behind SappyFest that also have this design company, Redesign Sackville. I recognize a lot of those artifacts from when I used to live in New Brunswick; some of them have appeared in my various apartments or offices or just everyday places. My accordion is there and some of the items are mine, but I was not responsible for assembling that at all and had no say in the artwork. I just hired these really talented friends and then stepped back and let them take over. But they had a copy of the record so I’m sure that they were considering that. They wanted to make a connection between the music and the actual artwork and I think they did a great job.

TB: It looks awesome. How about the rubber boot? That’s got its own special connotations here in Guelph and especially with Kazoo! Fest.

SJ: Yes it does, the rubber boot. I do not know the origin of the boot, but it did make me think of Wellington Brewery when I first saw it.

TB: Yeah. The cover’s got a lot going on. It kind of reminds me of the place right next door – Dis-a-Ray. And I understand you’ve got a connection to the owner, Ray Mitchell. Can you talk about that?

SJ: Yeah, I know Ray. I’ve known him for many years. I played at The Family Thrift Store [a shop Mitchell owned prior to Dis-a-Ray] – I think maybe one of my first shows as Shotgun Jimmie in Guelph was at The Family Thrift Store, and I played there when I was in the band Shotgun and Jaybird as well.

TB: Did you get to pay the shop a visit today or did you just get into town?

SJ: I just got here basically. I went to a friend’s house for dinner and then came straight here to meet you. But last time I was here Ray offered his shop up for a rehearsal space because I was meeting with the band and we needed to go over some tunes.

TB: That’s awesome.

SJ: He’s a good man.

TB: And a great connection to have, apparently. I guess it’s not such a surprise you’ve written an album associated with everything. I mean you’re pretty resourceful. You’ve turned things like suitcases and cookie sheets into instruments. Have you had any failed experiments making instruments?

SJ: Oh. Asking about my failures – interesting interview technique. I really enjoy experimenting with that stuff. Some things end up working better than others. I don’t know that… nothing jumps into mind. Like if I’m unhappy with something I guess that ends up not… I had one suitcase I used to use as a bass drum that for some reason had this overtone that wasn’t really audible to the human ear, but whenever someone tried to mic it at a big rock club it had this terrible feedback problem.

TB: A suitcase had a feedback problem?

SJ: I wouldn’t have suspected that a suitcase would have a feedback problem because you think of guitar amps and PAs and stuff like that feeding back and not really a suitcase. But yeah, this thing was terrible. But I like to experiment with different things and I’m not afraid of failure, but it does come up from time to time.

TB: Can you recall what brand or style the suitcase was so other people can avoid using them for bass drums?

SJ: I’d say it was a late ’80s, early ’90s Samsonite. Not the kind that is made out of Fiberglass, but the hard plastic version. They’re pretty rare actually. Generally speaking Samsonites make wonderful kick drums, but this hard plastic one – probably because of the shape of it or something, it was a rather large suitcase – I would recommend staying away from the large royal blue Samsonites.

TB: Are there any new instruments people can hear tonight?

SJ: No, on this one I decided to use real instruments. I had been doing a lot of experimenting with different things on previous tours, but for the Everything, Everything tour, I decided to pull all the stops and bring out real guitar amp and real drums and… Yeah. No bric-a-brac on this one at all.

TB: I hear there is a special backdrop you’ve set up for the tour, though.

SJ: There is a fancy backdrop that I’m on tour right now. And it’s also reminiscent of the sort of collage type of thing I guess in some respect. It’s like found objects. It’s one of my first forays into visual art. I’m excited to see how people feel about it.

TB: Wrapping things up, what’s next after tonight’s show?

SJ: After tonight, I play one more show in Southern Ontario, and then I’m heading to the East Coast of Canada to play some shows out there as far as Newfoundland. And then I’m going to head out west, do a western tour, and then play some festivals this summer. Business as usual.

Kazoo! Fest reviews: Not the Wind, Not the Flag @Silence, April 6

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Not the Wind, Not the Flag at Silence, April 6. (Photo by Tom Beedham)

Not the Wind, Not the Flag at Silence, April 6. (Photo by Tom Beedham)

When you arrive late to an afternoon set at a place called Silence and Brandon Valdivia is peppering his drums with chaotic-yet-deliberate attacks and Colin Fisher is squealing away on his saxophone in a kind of Colin Stetson-y way, you’re bound to be some kind of overwhelmed.

Half an hour into their set, as if anticipating a sensory overload felt on part of the crowd, Valdivia switched to a melodica, Fisher swapped his sax for a six-string, and they dove into a post-rock slow jam that stood to balance the frantic, free form jazz of their offering thus far.

Although they were already drenched in sweat after an hour of playing to a seated crowd, the duo told the crowd to take five and dove right back into it afterwards.

Offerings like these are what make festivals like Kazoo! Fest so great. They stick out like a sore thumb in a lineup heaped with garage-birthed rock variants and experimental electronic groups, but the exposure to something new is refreshing and… well, just cool.

Kazoo! Fest: Dusted @Guelph Green Party Office, April 5

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Dusted at the Guelph Green Party Office, April 5. (Photo by Tom Beedham)

Even though his “old” band Holy Fuck made a triumphant (if quietly promoted) return to the stage at February’s edition of Toronto’s Long Winter series, Brian Borcherdt isn’t putting Dusted to bed. The answers to material by Borcherdt that was otherwise incompletely realized when written between shows with Holy Fuck and his solo work, Dusted sees Borcherdt team up with producer Leon Taheny, who carved a reputation producing Owen Pallett’s Final Fantasy albums and has also worked with Ohbijou and the Wooden Sky.

While Borcherdt sang ran his voice and guitar through some heavy feedback, Taheny, who just had Esther Grey between Dusted and the Rituals set he’d played earlier in the night, took on double duties playing drums and synth simultaneously. For a performance that relies on an equipment list that includes overblown amplifiers, the converted Green Party garage made the perfect setting for Dusted’s atmospherically minded offering of fuzzy post-folk.

Kazoo! Fest reviews: Esther Grey @Guelph Green Party Office, April 5

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Esther Grey at the Guelph Green Party Office on April 5. (Photo by Tom Beedham)

Esther Grey have made a tradition of playing Kazoo! Fests, and it’s not hard to see why. Mixing creeping guitar progressions, innocent vocals, and some relaxed drumming that climax in crispy lo-fi jam outs, the group has developed a sound that is both idiosyncratic and self-aware. And here’s a coincidence: Esther Grey played at the Green Party Office garage, and the band began as guitarist Steph Yates and drummer/bassist Tyson Brinacombe’s humble, yard sale-inspired brainchild.

Kazoo! Fest reviews: Rituals @Guelph Green Party Office, April 5

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Rituals at the Guelph Green Party Office on April 6.

Rituals at the Guelph Green Party Office on April 6. (Photo by Tom Beedham)

Applying ooh-ah-eee-oos to a post-punk aesthetic, Rituals ultimately serve up a crackly kind of surfgaze. At times hazily atmospheric, and at others laying the sludge on thick, it kind of comes off more as a sound experiment than something you want to sit around and rock out too, but in a spacious setting like the Green Party Office’s garage in Guelph, it’s a force you can’t help but pay attention too and absorb. Even if it gives you a light headache, it’s worth taking in.

 

Kazoo! Fest reviews: Scattered Clouds @Guelph Green Party Office April 5

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Scattered Clouds at the Guelph Green Party Office on April 5. (Photo by Tom Beedham)

Positioned somewhere between brooding, jangly no-wave and an artsy kind of horror country, Scattered Clouds are kind of like a falling apart Bauhaus meets the Wild West. While the band boasts a name that echoes weather forecast and they were the second opener to play a five-band show, they shouldn’t be mistaken as anything short of a focal point, lest their peculiar sound should go unobserved.

 

Kazoo! Fest reviews: The While @Guelph Green Party Office April 5

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The While performing from behind a shadow screen at Kazoo! Fest's Green Party Office pop up venue. (Photo by Tom Beedham)

The While performing from behind a shadow screen at Kazoo! Fest’s Green Party Office pop up venue. (Photo by Tom Beedham)

If you said The While hid behind a screen for their opening slot at Kazoo! Fest’s Guelph Green Party office pop up venue, you wouldn’t be entirely wrong. Camera tricks, mood lighting, video, and a shadow screen were all called upon by the band of visual artists to blur the line between themselves and infinity. The special effects made them look bigger than they physically are in terms of headcount and equipment stock, but whether that was as a defense mechanism or just a proper representation of their essence was a debate given legitimacy as they looped not just their visual presence but their instrumentation as well. Adding their visual presence to a foreboding brand of indie folk that relies on a sound mix of foreboding contralto vocals, xylophones, organ, and drums, it was surrealism for your eyes and your ears.

 

Q&A: Army Girls

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Army Girls at eBar April 3, 2013. (Photo by Tom Beedham)

Making perfect sense as the act to open the first (non-secret) concert of Kazoo! Fest 2013, Army Girls is a two-piece garage pop duo that thrives on the do it yourself ethos that defines the annual Guelph concert series and the organization that birthed it. I sat down with guitarist Carmen Elle (DIANA, Donlands and Mortimer, Austra) and drummer Andy Smith (Doldrums) to talk about managing conflicting schedules, their near kitchen-related band name, getting Fucked Up guitarist Ben Cook to produce their 2011 EP Close to the Bone, as well as what the future has in store for them.

Tom Beedham: Hi Carmen. Hi Andy. Welcome to Guelph. I understand this is your first show here.

Andy Smith: We’ve both been here many times, but our first show, yeah. Indeed.

TB: Your first show in Guelph as Army Girls, at least.

AS: Yeah.

Carmen Elle: Yeah.

TB: For the people at home reading this, can you just explain what Army Girls is all about?

CE: Yeah! We are a two-piece rock-and-roll band consisting of guitar, drums, and vocals, and we write songs about fear and loneliness, um, pretty much exclusively.

AS: Yeah. All the simple things in life.

CE: All the simple things in life – yeah.

TB: I hear Army Girls was almost named after a kitchen appliance instead.

AS: Really?

CE: Really?

AS: Who said that?

TB: It was in an interview you guys did. You were talking about looking around the kitchen and just putting the word “The” before things.

AS: Fork? Spoon?

CE: Spoon? Fork?

AS: Knife? And then we were ladle.

CE: Ladle. Yeah, it’s true. The act of finding a band name was a lengthy process full of disappointing realizations about the limits of our imaginations.

AS: Yeah. Every time I stop to think about it, it’s always like… you know… whatever I come up with there would probably be something that is 10 times better, and then something that is 10 times better than that.

CE: I feel like everybody thinks that they’re more creative than maybe they actually are. Which isn’t to say that people aren’t creative; it just means that we don’t apply ourselves very often.

AS: Or it’s that fear and we’re self-doubting.

CE: Yeeeah. Especially for bands. “We can come up with a name.”

TB: So how did you end up with “Army Girls”?

CE: I saw someone on the street who was… she was a girl wearing an army jacket, she had a cool haircut, and I just went, “Oh, Army Girls.”

AS: And I said yes. Because—

CE: He said, “I don’t hate it.”

AS: Yeah. “I don’t hate it,” and, “Let’s use that and get it out of the way and continue.”

CE: Yeah. Like try coming up with a band name right now.

TB: Uh, I was going to say Army Ants, but that’s probably because Army Girls is right in front of me.

CE: And I thought The Macaroni and Cheese in my head.

AS: That could work, you know?

TB: More stuff in the kitchen!

CE: Yeah!

AS: It’s all about the kitchen.

CE: It’s hard.

TB: Makes sense. So you’re here for Kazoo! Fest. How did that get set up?

AS: Email, basically.

CE: Well, we got asked to play Wavelength Music Festival in Toronto last February with PS I Love You, um that was a super-super awesome show.

AS: It was a great show, yeah.

TB: Ah. And Kazoo! was a co-presenter with Wavelength this year.

CE: Well, a few of the guys who I guess run Kazoo! were at that show, and they offered us a slot in the festival that year but we I believe were out of town for that. So they followed up this year and we were happy to do it.

TB: You’re both involved in other projects. Can you talk about them and what it’s like balancing being in different bands?

AS: Well currently I’m not too involved in anything else.

TB: Aren’t you still involved in Doldrums?

AS: No, no. I only played the first eight shows back in like 2010.

TB: Oh, my mistake! I wasn’t sure so I’d actually tried to find videos of recent Doldrums gigs, and the ones I did find didn’t really give a clear view of who was on the kit, but it looked like it could be you, so I just figured it was.

CE: But his stage setup – Airick [Woodhead, a.k.a. the mastermind behind Doldrums], who’s a friend of ours – it evolves I would say like every album, but he’s super prolific and his stage requirements change a lot and so he’s always getting cool other players.

AS: Absolutely.

CE: Like our friend Steve [Foster] who I’m also in a band with, is his drummer right now.

TB: Is that DIANA?

CE: Donlands and Mortimer.

TB: Another one?

CE: Another one, yeah. [Laughs]

AS: You can’t keep up with her.

CE: Yeah. I guess I’m in three bands, which is kind of time consuming and it’s kind of confusing. There’s like a Google Calendar that nobody checks. Donlands and Mortimer is a band that I’ve been in for six years and we like to joke that we’re a reverse super group. You know how sometimes famous musicians will get together and they’ll be like, let’s start a band? Like Foo Fighters or whatever. Wait. Queens of the Stone Age.

TB: Well, Foo Fighters, too sort of, but yeah moreso Queens of the Stone Age.

Well Donlands… we all started playing together before we could play our instruments too well, and now Johnny [Spence] the keyboard player is in Tegan and Sara’s band, Steve’s in Doldrums, I’ve got this other band DIANA that’s doing really well… So yeah, it’s challenging for sure—

AS: But it’s to be expected, really.

CE: Yeah, but it’s awesome.

TB: So I was going to say both of you were at this year’s SXSW, but I guess you [Andy] were not.

AS: I was not.

TB: But you [Carmen] were there with DIANA. How was that experience, showing your music off to people that might have never heard of you before?

CE: Oh, it was super super awesome. We were on tour for the entire month opening for Tegan and Sara. We toured down to South by with them, so the entire month was kind of this huge high for us. We were super, super, super grateful and by the time we got down to South by, um… I think we were really tight as well, which, you know, felt really, really good for a band like that. Yeah. I had an amazing time at South by. I like Texas.

TB: So [Carmen], as you were saying, DIANA really took off over the winter and you went on tour with Tegan and Sara. What was that like?

CE: Oh, um, it was kind of a bad first tour to go on, because it spoiled us, and now every other tour we go on will not be as good.

TB: Did you get an extensive rider?

CE: We got a rider. And that was amazing.

TB: Did you put anything crazy on it?

CE: Batteries. Nine-volt batteries. They’re so expensive.

AS: Super Nintendo?

CE: Um, no [laughs]. We put dark chocolate on there – like 85 per cent – the good stuff, one grapefruit…

TB: I’ve actually got a pretty cool story about DIANA. My girlfriend and I went to the Long Winter show you guys played back in November for our first date. So we actually had our first dance during your set.

CE: Really?!

AS: That’s fancy.

CE: To what song? Was it like a slow jammer?

TB: All I can remember is it wasn’t “Born Again.”

CE: Might’ve been the other one, “Perpetual Surrender.” Like with the saxophone solo?

TB: Yeah! That’s totally it.

AS: Saxophone did it.

CE: Well, you’re welcome.

TB: Thank you. She’s probably going to make fun of me. I’m embarrassing. Anyway, Speaking of Long Winter and tying this back in with Army Girls, the two of you wrote and recorded your EP, Close to the Bone in 2011 with Ben Cook of Fucked Up, who presented that series. What was that process like?

CE: I knew of Ben Cook through a friend of mine, Simone TB, who’s in a band called Tropics and another called The Highest Order, and she kept throwing these Young Governor seven-inches at me and being like, “Ben Cook sings like an angel,” so I listened to a bunch of his stuff on MySpace, and agreed with her and also additionally thought that the sonic quality of his recordings was pretty similar to what I though that Army Girls should sound like on recording. So I cold called him, and he said yes, and then four hours later we have this record.

AS: It was a very good chemistry I suppose where we just kind of banged it out super quickly and it sounded kind of how we wanted it to sound.

TB: Any plans to set up some shows with his other band, Yacht Club? That’d be a good fit.

CE: Yeah. [I’d] love to play a show with Yacht Club. Actually we keep trying to book shows with Yacht Club and either we’ll pitch one or they’ll pitch one, and almost always it doesn’t fit with our schedules. But yeah, hopefully sooner rather than later. And I mean Ben Cook’s name is faithfully in every single conversation we have about who to work with in the future. We’re pretty happy with that dude in our lives.

TB: Wrapping things up, what does the future have in store for Army Girls? Any studio time lined up? Tour plans?

AS: I suppose our EP is being reissued by Blocks [Recording Club] with updated artwork—

CE: And two new tunes on it.

AS: And two new tunes. And I guess that’s kind of to-be-determined – the release date – but it’ll be available probably within a month or two, and then I guess just working towards doing our first full length.

CE: We’re writing pretty hardcore right now. We’re taking our time with it so that it sounds nice and shiny.

(first published by The Ontarion on April 4, 2013)

Kazoo! Fest reviews: Army Girls @eBar April 3

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Army Girls opening up Kazoo! Fest on April 3 at Guelph’s eBar. (Photo by Tom Beedham)

Setting garage and pop sensibilities high in their MO, singer/guitarist Carmen Elle (DIANA, Donlands and Mortimer, Austra) and drummer Andy Smith (Doldrums) are a two-piece, but no small force to be reckoned with. The group’s performance wasn’t without some technical hiccups (Elle’s guitar kept unplugging), but where that denied the group an opportunity exhibit to what are really some irresistibly catchy songs that are cushioned by Elle’s vocals – ranging from soothing and soft to passionately unrestrained – the group made up in charisma. Definitely a group (and performers) to keep your eye on.

For an interview with Army Girls, Click here

Guelph strip club story to open Hot Docs

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Guelph strib club documentary ‘The Manor’ opens Hot Docs April 25.

Manor documentary to open largest documentary festival in North America

If you’re heading to Toronto this April for the 20th edition of Hot Docs, North America’s largest documentary festival, don’t be surprised to catch a naked portrayal of Guelph strip club The Manor.

With The Manor, strip club manager-turned filmmaker Shawney Cohen offers viewers an inside glimpse at what goes on at the film’s family-owned and -operated namesake in a directorial debut that focuses a lens on a cast including a “motley crew of patrons, staff, drug-addled tenants, strippers, and extended family members,” according to a press release. The documentary will open the festival of over 205 films from 43 countries on April 25.

But it probably won’t be what you expect.

“Very little of the ‘strip club movie’ takes place in a strip club,” Cohen told The Ontarion in an interview following a Hot Docs media release that saw widespread media attention given to the idea of the documentary as a film about a strip club. “I think that frankly a film about a strip club would be a little boring.”

Rather, Cohen insists his film is about his family.

“It’s an intimate portrait of my family running a strip club and the consequences of our livelihoods,” said Cohen.

Cohen was six years old when his father bought The Manor, though he spent ten years working as a computer animator following undergraduate studies before becoming a part of his family’s business five years ago.

“I was way more on the fence about [working at The Manor] at the beginning,” Cohen admitted. “I think it was eye-opening for me because it was a life I wasn’t used to and now – five years later – I kind of love it.”

“For me it almost feels like living in a Bukowski novel,” Cohen added. “I kind of appreciated the lifestyle and I think a lot of the stories that come out of there were kind of vulnerable and beautiful, and I found that in many ways just as beautiful as stories you see in literature and film today.”

Cohen says his film is more about those vulnerabilities – specifically those relating to his family. Upon returning home to Guelph after working in Toronto, he found his father grossly overweight at 400 pounds and about to undergo stomach reduction surgery, while at the same time, his 85-pound mother was refusing to acknowledge her relationship with food.

As a result, Cohen says his film has a lot to do with “body image, weight, and addiction.” To him, The Manor is more of an intriguing setting than an actual subject in his documentary. “I found that to be an interesting juxtaposition.”

In the midst of all this, his younger brother Sammy was struggling to run the club.

The entire project required between two and three years of filming, a process Cohen says involved close to 80 or 90 days of shooting.

“I think films of this nature… you really need to film a lot,” said Cohen. “You also wanna get people comfortable with the camera, so it’s important to film a lot and eventually have the camera be a fly on the wall so that when you’re in your hundredth hour of footage people aren’t aware of it.”

It’s a film about Guelph, but don’t expect to see much of the Royal City in The Manor, Cohen says.

“[There’s] a sign that says ‘Guelph.’ That’s the only indication that you know you’re in Guelph. For me it was important to stick to two locations: The Manor, and my parents’ house. And maybe the hospital.” said Cohen.

The Manor will not receive a theatrical release in Canada until May 10, and has only so far been showcased at film festivals around the world. As a result, the film has yet to receive a rating.

Among many more, other films announced on the Hot Docs docket include Gus Holwerda’s The Unbelievers, a film following the studies of evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins and theoretical physicist Lawrence Krauss; Marta Cunningham’s Valentine Road, about an eighth-grader that fatally shoots an LGBTQ classmate; Penny Lane’s Our Nixon, toted as a “revealing look at one of the most controversial presidencies in US history”; and Charles Wilkinson’s Oil Sands Karaoke, a story of oil sands workers that kill time off at their local karaoke bar.

The festival runs April 25 through May 5.

 

(originally published by The Ontarion on March 28, 2013)