Winnipeg filmmaker celebrates theatrical release of feature-length film, The Burning Season
Posted May 10, 2024 1:03 pm.
The Burning Season, a movie directed by Winnipeg filmmaker, Sean Garrity, is making its theatrical debut Friday in Winnipeg, Toronto, and Vancouver cinemas.
Theatrical releases are still a rarity for local filmmakers, and Garrity says he’s hoping that will change.
“This year, it might happen twice. So I encourage people to come out and check it out. Support the film and show cinemas that there’s a place for our movies on our screens, that there’s an audience for them, that people come out to watch them ’cause we’re interested,” explained Garrity.
The movie, which stars actors Sara Canning and Jonas Chernick, is about “an illicit affair, but told backwards”.
“We start at the end of the affair as it’s breaking up, in spectacular fashion, actually, at a wedding. I’ve always wanted to destroy a wedding and so I get to do that in this movie,” said Garrity.
The Burning Season was filmed primarily at Algonquin Provincial Park in Ontario, and Garrity says the setting nearly becomes its own entity.
“It was [filmed at] a lovely camp that’s like, a hundred years old, and it’s got lots of secret passageways and old overgrown trees. It just felt like a place where you could have secrets, so it really almost becomes a character in the film,” explained Garrity.
Canning, who has been in projects such as The Vampire Diaries and A Series of Unfortunate Events, stars as the character of Alena.
“There’s some real patience required, that’s the way I think of it, as an actor, in how I get to lay out certain breadcrumbs for the audience … I think it also requires patience on the audience’s part to really dig into the heart of this secret,” said Canning.
WATCH NOW: Actress Sara Canning talks about The Burning Season
Garrity says he hopes audiences make it out to see the film. On opening night at the McGilivray Theatre in Winnipeg, he’s hosting a Q&A panel after the 6:30 p.m. show.
“I think so many of us now, we watch stuff by ourselves on our computers, or on our phones while we’re on a bus or something. You kind of lose that sense of sitting in a big room with a whole bunch of other people and having this emotional experience together,” said Garrity.
“I love that my films still have the opportunity to be screened that way.”
“I’ve seen this movie x amount of times, like every movie, right? But there’s something about, even just watching it with the director, it’s not the same as when you finally see it with an audience,” said John Gurdebeck, who serves as the film’s editor. Gurdebeck, a 30-year veteran in the industry, is also a regular collaborator of Canadian screenwriter and director, Guy Maddin.
He says getting into theatres is not the only hard part.
“It’s not easy and it’s also not easy to stay in the theatre. It depends, for this screening, it will be however many numbers they get on the first two days of the weekend. Those numbers will dictate whether they get a second week.”
Canning offers another reason audiences should get out and see the movie.
“I think anyone who’s looking for, just a good old-fashioned look at why humans do the things that they do and the ways that we approach love, I think will really enjoy this film,” said Canning.
FULL INTERVIEW: CityNews reporter Joanne Roberts speaks to The Burning Season’s lead actress, Sara Canning, who plays the character of Alena in the film
