Never Steady, Never Still coming to CNC Film festival

Peter Maides doesn't get stumped very often in any game of Canadian film trivia, but he lost one volley this week. He was thrilled.

"What do you mean it's local?" he asked, in a discussion about the films coming to the CNC Film Festival, when the conversation turned to Never Steady, Never Still.

Maides, a College of New Caledonia professor and the curator of Cinema CNC, was the main hand in selecting the movies coming to the 22nd annual festival of Canadian cinema. Over the event's three days, local audiences will see eight feature-length films, a collection of short-films, and enjoy some personal input from some of the local filmmakers involved. What he didn't realize was just how much local there actually was.

"I chose Never Steady, Never Still based on merit. It's one of the films the Canadian film industry is talking about this year. We always have a lot of choices to make about which ones we select, and it had such a great story behind it, and an incredible cast, so that's why I chose it."

What he did not know was that director Kathleen Hepburn was a Central Interior part-time resident and she shot a significant amount of the film in the Fort St. James area where she has a summer cabin. Her mother's side of the family was based in Prince George dating back decades, and Stuart Lake has been a family getaway spot since 1950.

Hepburn said the summer's forest fires blocked their plans to spend time in Fort St. James this year, but she's on her way home in April and will screen the movie in The Fort for the first time since its completion. Prince George gets to see it at Cinema CNC.

"It's been a big year," she said.

"The reception to the film is really awesome. We're going out to Toronto for the Canadian Screen Awards. Hopefully we'll come back with some trophies. We have eight nominations."

The awards night is Sunday, which prevented Hepburn from being in Prince George in person for this screening of her film.

Several other films featured in the CNC festival are also up for this years CSAs.

When Never Steady, Never Still was launched into the world, this past year, it marked the monumental end of a long and arduous artistic struggle for Hepburn.

This movie began as not one but two almost unrecognizable short films that built the story and developed her filmmaking skills towards the chance to make the feature-length version.

On the surface it is the tale of a woman fighting the rebellion of her own body, a mother sinking into Parkinson's Disease and dragging her family down with her. But they also have their own vexations and stresses that mingle with the haunting regressions of the protagonist, Judy.

Maides called it "a devastating examination of the costs of long-term illness on a family."

That stellar cast Maides mentioned has, at the top, Shirley Henderson in the role of Judy. Henderson had standout roles in Trainspotting, Anna Karenina, Bridget Jones's Diary and was turned into an icon with her turn as the ghost Moaning Myrtle in the Harry Potter franchise.

Alongside her on the Never Steady, Never Still screen was Thodore Pellerin, a young darling of the Quebec film industry; Nicholas Campbell (Naked Lunch, Goon, Cinderella Man and the seminal title role in Da Vinci's Inquest and Da Vinci's City Hall); favourite Canadian drama/comedy two-way player Lorne Cardinal (a regular on North of 60, Arctic Air, Corner Gas and many more); and Jared Abrahamson who is especially noted for this and one other movie, Hello Destroyer, which was also filmed significantly in Prince George. It was one of the featured films at the 2017 edition of the Cinema CNC Film Festival.

"It was quite scary at first to put the film out there for the public, after working on it so long in so many forms," Hepburn said. "It is the first time you have to let it go and let people respond to it. It was terrifying. But I'm back on my feet, feeling really proud of it, and really proud of the creative team, and relieved to be at this end of things now. It's challenging when its such personal subject matter, because it's not just your work, it's your life up there on the screen. When they're reacting to it they are reacting to you."

She is already at work on her next project, albeit one that couldn't possibly be as personal in nature for her. She said that is a benefit, to focus on the art for its own sake, not as such a personal mission. On the upcoming film she is co-writing and co-directing with Elle-Mij Tailfeathers (actor-writer-director known for the downtown eastside story-pic On The Farm, among other screen credits). Their collaboration is called The Body Remembers When The World Broke Open.

"It's a quote by (Aboriginal scholar-poet) Billy-Ray Belcourt," Hepburn said. "I'm finding working with other people is a huge learning curve but a huge relief."

To see Never Steady, Never Still in its home region, the showing is Saturday night at the Prince George Playhouse.

The other feature-length films in the collection include Ava, Maison Du Bonheur, Meditation Park, Unarmed Verses, The Breadwinner, Rumble - The Indian Who Rocked The World, and locally produced Sherlock Holmes story (written by Stephen King) The Doctor's Case directed by James Douglas. The other local content at the festival is documentary film The Contender written and directed by Isaiah Berra on the life of local boxing coach Wayne Sponagle.

Tickets and passes are available at Books & Company, CNC Bookstore, UNBC Bookstore and online at www.centralinteriortickets.com.