Image Arts grad heads to Cannes

Filmmaker and Ryerson Image Arts grad Andrew Cividino will make his debut at the Croisette during this month's 2015 Cannes Film Festival. Sleeping Giant, created almost entirely with the talent of graduates from the School of Image Arts, will premiere at International Critics' Week (external link) , a parallel competition to the official Cannes slate held by the French Syndicate of Cinema Critics. It is one of only seven films selected from 1,100 submitted for Critics' Week, which has long been considered a venue for up-and-coming talent: alumni have included Wong Kar-wai, Bernardo Bertolucci and Gaspar Noe.

The debut is being supported by Ryerson University and the Brookfield Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship. The film was brought to life thanks to alumni from Ryerson, says producer Karen Harnisch, a 2009 Image Arts grad. "From the producer to the director to the camera assistant, most of the team was Ryerson alumni," Harnisch says.

"Being at Ryerson had a huge effect on my career trajectory," said Andrew Cividino. "As a film student, I applied for student film competitions and worked exclusively with Ryerson students on those, and it was those opportunities that led me to starting my own company. I've worked almost exclusively with Ryerson grads."

Cividino and Harnisch are based at Film Forge Productions, which was founded by Cividino shortly after he graduated in 2006. It's a successful boutique production company that 'pays the bills' with commercial and corporate work "but feature films are our passion," says Harnisch. "We all just want to make great art, and we're having the time of our lives with Sleeping Giant."

Expanded from Cividino's short film of the same name (which debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2014), Sleeping Giant is about the secrets that arise – and the irreversible events that occur – when a teenager befriends two cousins on his summer vacation. It's a "love letter to Lake Superior and Northern Ontario," Harnisch says.

Cividino's earlier short films include We Ate the Children Last (2011), Norbert (2007), and Sleeping Giant (2014).

With the support from Ryerson and Brookfield, a third-year Image Arts student will be going to Cannes as an assistant to help the team prepare the film to sell to the international market. After Cannes, the company plans to submit Sleeping Giant for other festivals – including in Toronto – and look to a potential theatrical release next year.

As a student, Harnisch was active in the life of the School of Image Arts, serving as director of the Ryerson University Film Festival and an organizer of Maximum Exposure, the annual show of student work. She credits Shirley Lewchuk, director of outreach and communications at the Faculty of Communication & Design, for providing support and encouragement to her and Cividino from the earliest days. "Even when we were producing our first short films, Shirley would come to the screenings and send us encouraging notes afterward," she said. "We've had that same kind of support from across the university."