Despite a successful career as a still photographer shooting pro sports, live music and celebs, it’s filmmaking that really excites Toronto’s Christine Chew, left. Her latest short, Slow Burn, debuts at the InsideOut LGBT Film Festival Saturday (May 28) and Chew is thrilled to be showing to a hometown crowd, at the TIFF Bell Lightbox no less.
Slow Burn is a quirky dramedy, a lesbian Western about a mysterious woman who wants to mark a transition in her life with a new tattoo. Two sultry female tattoo artists face-off for the right to ink the sexy stranger. It’s all very tongue in cheek, not laugh out loud funny but sly and ironic.
“I always wanted to make films,” says Chew, “but I thought I needed to wait awhile before I was ready to play with others.”
“When you’re shooting stills you’re much more in control at every stage,” she observes, “but film is one of the most collaborative art forms, which makes it the most exciting and also the most challenging.”
Technology has been democratizing filmmaking for years and it’s gotten to the point where Chew was able to shoot Slow Burn with a $1,300 camera, the amazing Canon 7D, above, and edit the digital file on her Mac laptop.
“This camera levels the playing field for indie filmmakers,” she acknowledges, “but there’s still a lot of expenses. I called in a lot of favours to get this film made.”
Chew named her production company Girl Watch Films because she’s devoted to telling stories about women: “Stories by and about women are too rare,” she says as we chat over coffee on Harbord Street, in the heart of UofT. “These particular women just happen to be gay,” she says of the gals in Slow Burn.
Slow Burn cast features, from left, Bebe Templeton, Kat Letwin, Cat Oliver, Renita Fillatre
Chew’s first film, 2009’s Falling For Caroline, won audience awards at film fests in Switzerland, Montreal and Rochester and screened in Toronto, San Francisco and Los Angeles. Yet despite the kudos, Chew says she finds it hard to watch the movie now: “All I see are the mistakes,” she says.
“You have to wear a lot of hats when you’re starting out because you can’t afford to pay other people to do those jobs. But it was a good way to learn the medium. I was incredibly touched by how popular the film became; fans wrote to me from all over the world. They all said they wanted to see more and before I knew it they were donating money to help me make Click.”
Originally conceived as the pilot for a web series, Chew’s co-producer Paul Lee convinced her to turn Click into a feature, a process that’s on hold pending further funding. In the meantime, the director will be at the Frameline festival in San Francisco next month for a screening of Slow Burn. She’ll be pitching the movie to other festival poobahs and maybe even find a backer for Click.
“I put my photography career on hold for a year,” she says, “and this is a short so there’s no money in that. It’s sheer love. I was very lucky that my first movie made money but this one I put on my credit card and called in favours. I would never have been able to afford the incredible talent on this film and I hope you’ll express my undying thanks to the entire cast and crew.”
Consider it done.
WHERE/WHEN: InsideOut continues through May 29; Slow Burn shows at TIFF Bell Lightbox Cinema 1 on Saturday, May 28 at 2:30 pm.
Photos by Christopher Jones, movie still courtesy of Girl Watch Films
Social bookmarks
Scroll to the Form to leave a comment.
Currently there are no comments related to article "Slow Burn Ignites InsideOut".