Canadian Detective Story Premieres In Locarno
YOU ARE HERE, a meta-detective story produced by ZeroFunction Productions and Scythia Films, will have its world premiere in the Filmmakers of the Present competition at the Locarno International Film Festival this week. Reminiscent of the mind-games of Charlie Kaufman and the experimentation of Steven Soderbergh, YOU ARE HERE is the first feature by internationally acclaimed Toronto-based video artist Daniel Cockburn.
The film weaves a Borgesian fantasy composed of multiple worlds, circling and weaving
around each other in always-unexpected ways. At the centre of this
narrative labyrinth is a reclusive woman (played by Canadian veteran actress Tracy Wright)
who searches for meaning in the mysterious documents that keep
appearing to her. She forms deep connections with the
people contained in these documents -- the Lecturer, a Prisoner, an
Inventor --each of them, like her, struggling with the unknowable laws
of their own worlds.
The film features one of the last performances of Canadian stage-and-screen icon Tracy
Wright, who passed away in June 2010. Her performance in the film, as well as her turn in Bruce MacDonald’s upcoming feature TRIGGER, is a bittersweet memento of her dedication to her
characters, and her ability to invest every role with her unique
charisma and humanity.
Daniel Cockburn’s short films and videos have been screened at over 80 festivals and galleries worldwide. He is a subject of Mike Hoolboom’s recent book Practical Dreamers: Conversations With Movie Artists, a recipient of the K.M. Hunter Artists Award for Film & Video, and a 2009 guest of the prestigious DAAD Berlin filmmaker residency. In September 2010 he will be a participant in the Toronto International Film Festival Talent Lab.
A retrospective of Cockburn’s work, entitled You Are in a Maze of Twisty Little Passages, All Different,
has toured thus far to Seoul, Rotterdam, Berlin, and Toronto. The show
was accompanied by the publication of a book about Cockburn’s work, with
essays by other notable artists, including Steve Reinke, Sheila Heti, and Don McKellar.
Sandy Mandelberger, Festival Circuit Editor
