Chandler Levack wishes to uplift emerging writers and directors

Chandler Levack likes movies.

The Toronto filmmaker’s breakout movie, “I Like Films,” premiered at the 2022 Toronto Worldwide Movie Festival, quickly grabbing the notice of Oscar-profitable screenwriter and director, Sarah Polley. The movie went on to win 4 awards at the 2022 Vancouver Movie Critics Circle Awards, as very well as a nod for Most effective Modifying at the Canadian Display screen Awards earlier this week.

Set in the early 2000s in Burlington, Ont., “I Like Movies” follows Lawrence Kweller, a neurotic, knowledgeable, movie-obsessed teenager on the cusp of adulthood. University looms in the not-so-distant future, but Lawrence understands he’ll be alright: he has the expertise and the brains to make his dreams of a vocation in cinema come true. Certain, he’s battling to join with the people around him, and his film obsession is blocking him from generating many buddies.

But at least he has flicks.

And Levack, with Polley as her cheerleader, is just obtaining started out.

“She’s a hero of mine,” mentioned Levack on Polley. “She’s been an extraordinary supporter. I sent her a website link to my movie, and she watched it, and she sent me the kindest, most encouraging, most effusive email. The working day immediately after she received an Oscar, she posted a picture of herself keeping her Oscar with Florence Pugh, but then she also mentioned to go see ‘I Like Flicks.’ It’s just been astounding to have that assistance. She’s the best publicist in the environment.”

Talking with CP24.com before this week, Levack mentioned she believes that Canadian cinema is at a “really outstanding time.”

“You’re commencing to see this young technology make alter. It’s going on. It is cool…I’m motivated by my rapid community of friends,” she stated.

Levack is also an occasional film critic for the Globe and Mail, a apply she states complements her individual filmmaking.

“I genuinely hope I can carry on both tactics,” she said. “Making movies has certainly manufactured me a significantly far better critic, due to the fact I recognize the craft of it. Due to the fact I know how really hard it is to make everything, allow on your own a thing great….when you interact with other filmmakers critically, you study so considerably about your taste, and your assessment of what’s essential to you in a film. I’m at a little bit of a crossroads about it, a minor bit of an identity crisis.”

As Canadian film proceeds to evolve, Levack stated she hopes the landscape becomes additional sustainable for early-vocation artists.

“There demands to be far more guidance for filmmakers to create and produce is effective in excess of their occupations,” she reported. “It’s not just, like, ‘wow, congratulations, you have bought $125,000 to make your initially aspect.’ You have lots of queer, non-binary, woman filmmakers creating videos, which is wonderful, but earning them on these very small budgets, which are not sustainable in phrases of being able to pay back your crew sufficiently, and currently being able to pay your self. There requires to be much better help, and more sources for these rising voices.

“I want to see additional prolific professions above time. And much better advertising for these motion pictures when they’re in theatres. There’s a stigma all over Canadian film, and there is this massive squander of talent and means. There are awesome movies that ought to have to be found by as huge an viewers as attainable,” Levack additional.

On Countrywide Canadian Film Day on April 19, Levack will be in Argentina, screening her film and talking on a panel about getting a Canadian filmmaker. It is an honour she mentioned she under no circumstances could have anticipated as lately as two many years in the past.

“When I was making my movie, I was hauling out previous pc from an empty Blockbuster, choking on asbestos. I never ever imagined I’d be presenting my movie in Buenos Aires. It is tremendous interesting,” she explained.

“I adore Canadian films, and I’m honoured to be part of this neighborhood,” she ongoing. “We’ve only just scratched the area of what types of stories are out there, and what really magnificent voices are however to arrive. I just cannot wait around for the next ten years.”