Banff’s Kevan Funk has had a good month.
Two of his short films, Destroyer and Yellowhead, garnered honourable mentions during the Toronto International Film Festival in early September, while the 20-minute Yellowhead was also awarded the Alberta Spirit Award on Sept. 21 during the Calgary International Film Festival.
Destroyer, a story of violence in hockey, received its honourable mention – and a $5,000 prize – as part of the 2013 RBC Emerging Filmmakers Competition, while Yellowhead garnered honourable mention in the YouTube Award for Best Canadian Short Film during TIFF.
“My craft has reached a different level this year. I was in university for four years and I’ve been out two years now, but realistically I’ve been interested in making films since I was 12 years old. I feel like I’ve been doing this for quite a long time. I’ve made a lot of short films that I think are good short films, but not complete short films. I’ve also made short films I think are terrible short films,” Funk said Monday (Sept. 24) from Vancouver where he now lives.
“These are two films that are very definitive of my voice as a storyteller. When you can ground yourself in your practice or your voice that makes the work stronger because it has an identity.”
Funk is currently working on his first feature film, which will explore similar issues as Destroyer, with plans to begin filming in February.
“It’s not the same story as Destroyer, but it deals with a lot of the same issues in terms of using hockey more as a device to illustrate larger institutions and cultures. It specifically is about violence in our culture and the issues around it,” Funk said.
The short film is about a sexual assault witnessed by a hockey player committed by his teammates.
“There’s a big case in the states where two football players raped a girl and there was some really weird reaction in the town where a lot of people didn’t want to charge the kids just because they were on the football team.
“It was really strange. Essentially what happens in Destroyer is the lead character witnesses this and he’s carrying the burden and he’s really torn in terms of moral obligation and also stuck between that obligation and the fraternal pact of the hockey players,” Funk said.
“At the end of the film he comes clean to his coach, but he’s met with institutional indifference and the incident is swept under the rug.”
Yellowhead, meanwhile, is also dark, Funk said. It follows an alcoholic middle-aged work site safety inspector in the midst of a mid-life crisis. He has problems with health and his marriage and as Funk said, “is in complete aggressive denial about these things.”
At its heart, Yellowhead is a road film with an environmental message that takes the protagonist from Fort McMurray to Kitimat, B.C., following the route of the proposed Enbridge pipeline.
And there’s a certain irony involved with Yellowhead winning the Alberta Spirit Award: Enbridge provided the $2,500 prize.
“The debate over the pipeline made me interested in this,” Funk said. “Irony was the real winner that night. That was fantastic.”
Where Funk likes dark dramatic stories, his younger brother Tyler, who is also having a good month, has taken a different path.
The brothers are sharing the CIFF bill, and this isn’t the first time they’ve had films at the festival at the same time.
Tyler graduated from the University of British Columbia film program a year ago, but unlike his brother who is drawn to drama, his interest lies in dark comedies.
And one of these dark comedies, Wanta Sext? – billed as “a comedic look at sexting gone terribly wrong” – is running in both the Calgary International Film Festival and the Edmonton International Film Festivals.
Wanta Sext? can be seen at the Globe Theatre in Calgary on Saturday (Sept. 28) at 7:30 p.m.
“My last three films have been dark comedies. I enjoy watching dark comedies so as a result that’s what I make,” Tyler said.
“We started off working on films in Banff and we’re still very tight, but we went to different film schools and have gone our own paths.
“I definitely found a source of inspiration in the relationship, but it is really what you are drawn to. I could never make the kind of film that he makes, it’s just not what I do.”
When he’s not making short comedic films, Tyler runs his Vancouver-based production company, North of Now, shooting commercials, including a recent one for Ford.
“The way advertising has changed it is giving us a lot of freedom. It allows you to tell short stories. I really want to work my way into a feature film, but to be honest my focus is working on commercials and pushing that and there’s really cool stuff in the medium right now,” Tyler said. “It’s becoming a really fun element that I love doing.”
