Film festival offers glimpse into Nova Scotia’s past

In this Friday, Sept. 6, 2013 photo, an old "start" frame of a film reel sits in a projector. (AP Photo/Wally Santana)

The streets of Halifax are littered with remnants of history – from the ever-constant Citadel Hill to the Old Burying Ground that houses people who died centuries ago – but the recent past can often get lost.

Buildings that were once iconic to all residents can get torn down or remodeled and are soon forgotten in the span of a few years. Businesses can open and close on streets as time ticks by, leaving only altered storefronts and fading memories. A major city like Halifax is always on the move, always evolving, which makes documenting its distinct eras important.

Carsten Knox – a self-described film critic and lover – enjoys travelling back in time with the help of the silver screen. Rewatching a movie like “Touch and Go,” which was filmed in Halifax in 2003, is like peering into a keyhole to a different-looking city.

“It’s captured a moment in our city that’s now changed,” Knox said. “It’s changed a lot in 20 years.”

Knox, the senior programmer with Carbon Arc Cinema, is hoping to share the power of time travel with audiences in Halifax this month. He’s the founder of the upcoming Nova Scotia Retro Film Festo, which will spotlight four homegrown films from the late 1990s to the mid-2000s.

“I’ve been having conversations with fellow film lovers in Halifax about how hard it is to see homegrown films here,” Knox said. “They’ve been released and had festival runs and maybe show up on streaming and then tend to vanish from the culture itself. That struck me as a shame for feature films that are made here.”

“Touch and Go” will be one of the films under the spotlight at the festival. Scott Simpson, who directed, produced and co-wrote it two decades ago, said he wanted to explore the directionlessness many people in their late 20s can feel.

“I was interested in exploring that, a coming of age where the characters are older,” Simpson said. “We wanted to do something very local, wanted to set it in Halifax.”

The film, which features performances by Jeff Douglas and Elliot Page, follows a tour guide in Halifax as he navigates personal changes. Simpson said he thinks the story still rings true more than 20 years later.

“Some of the places we filmed are different but I think of the story elements more than I do about the people and places,” he said. “I’m 20 years older but I think a lot of the things that were relevant (are still relevant).”

The film festival will also feature “New Waterford Girl,” (1999), “Love That Boy” (2003) and “Poor Boy’s Game” (2007). Knox said they went on a “bit of a treasure hunt” to track down the movies.

“I made a long list of films that I thought would be of interest to audiences, then I consulted with Carbon Arc’s team of programmers,” Knox said. “Maybe 25 films on the long list and narrowed it down.

“We managed to find them, then had to find copies of the film.”

If the festival is a success, Knox would like to make it an annual event with other Nova Scotia films, although he noted it can be hard to find movies that are more than 40 years old.

“Once you go past 1980, it’s more than a treasure hunt, they just might not exist,” he said. “I’ve heard about films that there might no longer be copies of. We have ambitions to find those films.”

Simpson, who will attend the screening of “Touch and Go,” said one of the biggest changes over the last two decades has been the scope of the film community in Nova Scotia.

“If anything, what I loved being part of was the nascent community,” he said. “There were Nova Scotia filmmakers before us, but I think the recognition of the local arts community has grown. That’s the thing I would acknowledge the most.”

The Nova Scotia Retro Film Festo will run from Jan. 30 to Feb. 2 at Carbon Arc Cinema on Summer Street.

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