ATOM EGOYAN’S LAST-MINUTE JITTERS
Peter Howell

Toronto Star
May 23 2008
Canada

Canadian film icon identifies with newbie Collingwood filmmakers

CANNES, France-Atom Egoyan laughed yesterday when he heard the story
about two Canuck neophytes attempting to sell their homegrown horror
film here.

"I made that, actually!" Egoyan quipped, referring to Scarce,
a cannibal hillbilly flick by hoser horrormeisters Jesse Cook and
John Geddes.

"I wrote and directed it. I paid them to pretend they were me."

Egoyan, 47, was in a bit of a giddy mood, doing breakfast interviews
on scant hours of sleep after arriving in Cannes late the night before
from Israel, where he received an award for his 2002 film, Ararat.

Before going to bed he had to attend a 2 a.m. technical briefing at
the Palais des Festivals, to prepare for last night’s world premiere
screening of his film Adoration.

Egoyan can easy identify with rookie filmmakers arriving in Cannes
for the first time. He feels that way himself, even though Adoration
is his 12th feature and the fifth to premiere in competition at the
Cannes Film Festival.

"This is a very weird experience for me. I’ve never come into a
festival like this because I’m usually around, but I had to be
away. I now have no idea of what the alchemy of this festival is,
which is both a blessing and a curse."

He was alarmed to find that the press screening for Adoration would
overlap with the press conference for Steven Soderbergh’s Che, a
four-hour, 28-minute opus about Latin revolutionary Ernesto (Che)
Guevara that also kept critics up late the night before.

Egoyan was concerned his film wouldn’t be viewed with fresh eyes.

"At this point of the festival, I would imagine people are kind
of exhausted.

"So I’m not quite sure how attentive people can be after eight days of
very intense film watching. But it’s a risk you take and I’m excited
to see what happens to it."

On the other hand, the sensory overload at Cannes might work in
Adoration’s favour.

One of the movie’s themes is the proliferation of Internet chat-rooms,
which Egoyan sees as developing into online substitutes for community
meetings. The film also deals with hidden truths and the distortion
of facts through gossip and misperception.

It stars Scott Speedman, Arsinée Khanjian, Rachel Blanchard and
newcomers Devon Bostick and Katie Boland.

"What I get excited about are structures where your mind is racing and
you’re wondering, What is going on, what are the connections?" Egoyan
said.

"There’s a play between what the viewer is imagining and where the
film is moving and I’ve always found that really exciting. I love to
be in that zone, but I know some people might find it frustrating."

Adoration is a return to the more minimalist style of Egoyan’s earlier
work, following the grander scale of Where the Truth Lies, his Cannes
competition entry from 2005.

The new movie was proudly filmed in Toronto on a budget of $6 million,
which is a small sum for a filmmaker of Egoyan’s stature.

But like those horror lads from Collingwood, he’s excited about the
freedom you get when you don’t have a lot of money to account for.

"You can experiment a lot more. There’s not that same set of
expectations and I think it’s really a question of finding that
threshold where you’re allowed to do what you do best."

Now if only he could get some sleep, too.

–Boundary_(ID_4RkET9nLkGbpLIzwYCgxJA)–