Len & His Spitfire at Fargo Film Festival 2024

Sarah and I attended the Fargo Film Festival March 19-24, and had an absolute blast. The festival is a fundraiser for the Fargo Theatre, which is in the centre of downtown Fargo, and really does feel like the heart of the city. The opening night we attended an amazing screening of a feature documentary called, Show Her the Money, which explains that only 2% of Venture Capitalist funding goes to women entrepreneurs. Sarah and I introduced ourselves to the filmmaker, Catherine Gray, who was touring the film across North America. I let my cousin in New York know that it was going to be screening there next, and she was actually able to attend, and also loved it!

I had the honour of sitting on an Animation Panel Talk with the creator of the Cartoon Network show Infinity Train, Owen Dennis; and Zachary Howatt, an experimental filmmaker, who used animation to tell the poetic story of losing his mother, which I very much related to with having just lost my father. Sarah’s highlight of this was getting to sit at the same table as Margie Bailly, the lady who created the Fargo Film Festival 24 years ago now; oh and Margie’s husband telling Sarah that she reminded him of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel!

We also met a lovely elderly couple who were so proud to talk about their two daughters who had been volunteering with the festival for years. And then the next night we ended up chatting with their daughters (Kendra O’Brien & Lisa Faiman) at the wrap party and had some really fun conversations about psychic powers and aliens!

My screening of Len & His Spitfire was very well received, and I got to do a Q&A afterwards. Got a couple curveball questions thrown at me, but I think I managed to keep my composure! The Canadians joined WWII Sept.10 1939; the Americans joined in Dec. 1941, after Pearl Harbour. From what I gather, the Canadians were key to winning the war because of how proactively we joined it. The representative for the Consulate General of Canada to the United States, in Minneapolis, opened the screening of Canadian films that Len & His Spitfire was apart of. Afterwards he came up to me to congratulate me on my very Canadian-esque film!

The heart, community, and rich culture of the Fargo Film Festival is unmatched. I’m so glad I got the chance to experience this film festival. 10/10 would do again!

 

2023 Wrap up – Len & His Spitfire

What a wild ride 2023 was. I’m so happy to have finished Len & His Spitfire in November of 2022, so that it could spend 2023 on the Festival Circuit. It started out with the premiere in Calgary in March at a grassroots puppet festival that I had taken part in in the past (CAOS Animovies). Then came Dawson City, and Yorkton Film Festival, with a nomination for Best of Sask. And then the Okotoks Film Festival, which was new to me and turned out to be such an amazing festival to attend. I met some awesome filmmakers there, and I was able to visit my old CCS coworkers, who I hadn’t seen since getting laid off together when the pandemic hit in 2020. 

Then the icing on the cake happened in October, when Len & His Spitfire received a couple awards at the Saskatchewan International Film Festival.

There were so many obstacles along the road to finishing this film, I felt at times a little like that Friends’ gif where they’re moving the couch in the staircase and Ross is yelling, “PIVOT! PIVOT!”

Back when I started this project, 11 years ago now, I envisioned the narrator being one of my University Film School friends, Paul Crepeau, who had a very specific timbre to his voice. But the day after wrapping the shoot, he tragically passed away at age 61 of a heart attack. That same week, Sarah’s Aunt, who we loved dearly, passed away suddenly from Strep Throat. Those losses hit me pretty hard and so I took a break from creating. 

I returned to the project a year later and ended up finishing picture lock. But then came the audio, and I still had no ideas for a new narrator. I spent a few years chipping away at the soundscape creating my own foley, from footsteps to doors shutting. I took a bit of time away again, and concentrated on big life events, ie. working a full-time job to save up for a down payment on a house. Once we got our house, I was laid off due to pandemic cutbacks, so I figured there was no time like the present to get back to filmmaking. 

That’s when I decided that I needed my Dad to narrate the film. It only made sense, since he did have a similar timbre to his father, Len. He was very apprehensive when I approached him with the request. In fact he downright refused it to begin with! So I printed the script, highlighted his parts, ambushed him in the kitchen with a microphone and told him to just read it like he was reading one of his grandkids a bedtime story (which I don’t know that he had ever actually done before!). I went into the other room, so that he didn’t have to perform in front of anyone, and then just let him do his thing. 

Dad was so proud to be able to see the film’s success on the Festival Circuit. For the past decade, he would ask me, every time I came home for a visit, “So how’s Len & His Spitfire coming along?” It was that nagging support that gave me the kick in the pants to finally finish the project. And I’m so glad I finished it when I did, because Dad was able to see it and experience it being shared with the world before sadly passing away in November 2023. I haven’t posted since he passed away because I’ve had a hard time finding the words. He was my number one supporter, and I’m just so sad that he’s gone. It just doesn’t feel real. But I know he would want me to continue. 

Below are the festivals I missed announcing at the end of 2023 that Len & His Spitfire was accepted into. I’m just so grateful for this amazing journey that my grandfather’s story has taken me on. Thank you to everyone who has supported me along the way. I see you, and I appreciate you.