Framing our March 7-14 film series Heimat NOW, we are asking filmmakers from different places What's your #SoundOfHeimat. Here is what Toronto indie filmmaker Kazik Radwanski, who just pondered in the Globe & Mail that the secret to Canadian film success lies in lentils & luck, pitched in from his hyper-local perspective of living and working in the city's west end:
"There’s a
scene in my latest film HOW HEAVY THIS HAMMER where the protagonist, Erwin, who has recently separated from his wife, shows his new place to his two sons. He chooses to first take them to the roof, pulling them close so he can point out the local landmarks: Ali Baba’s, Coffee Time and Bloor Street West. Since I am an independent filmmaker working with scarce resources, Erwin’s apartment in my fictional film is of course my literal home in real life.
So, I suppose my instinct was also to first establish my home by going to the roof. There is some intended humour in that scene because Erwin’s landmarks are so unremarkable. However, there is still a vitality found in the proximity to that noisy intersection, and the kids are impressed. I’ve always lived near Bloor and when I was younger I grew up by the east end version know as The Danforth. Living on that major artery that connects to the entire city has always felt essential. The sound of its traffic is the sound of home."
Kaz Radwanski, born in Toronto in 1985 and an alumnus of the Ryerson University film program, is an independent filmmaker known for TOWER (2012) and HOW HEAVY THIS HAMMER (TIFF 2015, Berlinale 2016), for which he accepted the Toronto Film Critics Association Rogers Best Canadian Film Award alongside fellow nominees Hugh Gibson and Matt Johnson.
Email me by 5pm EST March 8 for your chance to win a pair of tickets to either of the 5 GOETHE FILMS screenings. Only the winners will be notified.
Feel inspired? You can pitch in too. Share your sound of home with us on social media to win swag at our author reading wtih Frank Goosen at the Goethe-Institut Toronto on March 10.
