After 16 years of filmmaking and with a slew of critically acclaimed movies under his belt, when you ask Calgary director Gary Burns what kind of filmmaker he is, he doesn’t miss a beat.
“A novice,” says the 48-year-old. “I always feel like I’m learning each time.”
With his own brand of cynicism, clever social satire and themes of cultural alienation in such films as The Suburbanators, Kitchen Party, waydowntown, A Problem with Fear and his latest documentary hybrid with CBC Radio’s Eyeopener host Jim Brown, Radiant City, Burns’ films have struck a chord with international and local audiences and put him in the company of Canada’s top directors.
He’s won a Genie Award, been invited twice to Sundance and garnered accolades on the festival circuit, namely at the Toronto International Film Festival where waydowntown was awarded Best Canadian Feature. In 2007,
Radiant City made its American premiere at Canadian Front, a survey of eight notable
Canadian films that year at New York’s Museum of Modern Art.
However, unlike many successful Canadian filmmakers who eventually head due south, Burns still resides in and works from Calgary.
“Obviously because I’m from here, the films have a real Calgary bent, but the urban/suburban setting is unique here,” says Burns.
“I talk about that [in my films] and that’s what Calgary is.”
The city features prominently in his films, from the back alleys and drab streets of
The Suburbanators to the labyrinthine Plus-15s in waydowntown and the homogenous subdivisions in Radiant City, but the city also has an “anywhere” quality that lends itself
to Burns’ telling commentaries on middle-class North America.
Next year, Burns takes a different approach from his usual sardonic critiques of urban life and turns his eye instead to crafting a cinematic ode to Calgary.
Along with six other Canadian film heavyweights including Thom Fitzgerald, Atom Egoyan and Don McKellar, he is part of a documentary project titled My Canada. Each filmmaker’s doc about their respective hometowns is expected to premiere around the 2010 Winter Olympic Games.
Burns is also putting Calgary on the map with his success.
With the advent of the Calgary Cinematheque Society, of which he was a founding member, he is also helping to bring rare films and international filmmakers to Calgary audiences.
“There are so many movies out there that don’t seem to make economic sense for those who run the theatres to bring to Calgary,” he says.
Burns is currently working on his next film — another collaboration with Brown — titled The Future is Now, inspired by Nicole Vedres’ abstruse ’50s modernist French film Life Begins Tomorrow.'
Ryan Correy — Distance Defier
Dr. Aru Narendran — Cancer Cure Crusader
Anouk Kendall — Energy Innovator
Light Up the World Foundation — Light Bearers
Nathan Armstrong & Motive Industries — X Prize Fighters
Gary Burns — Alberta Auteur
Yvonne Tollens — Innovation Sensation
Honen's International Piano Competition — Classical Music Mentors
Robert Allen Sulatycky — Culinary Celebrity
Raghav Mathur — Hip Hop Hope
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