Summer Cinema: Atom Egoyan

July 11, July 18, and July 25 – 8:00pm
Atom Egoyan was born in 1960 in Cairo of Armenian parents. He grew up in western Canada, went to the University of Toronto, and has lived in Toronto ever since. He is a classical guitarist, and has written several plays, operas, and films. Of his 23 films, the best known are: Felicia’s Journey (1999, starring Bob Hoskins) The Sweet Hereafter (1997, starring Ian Holme and Sarah Polley) Exotica (1994, starring Elias Koteas, Mia Kirshner, Don McKellar, and Sarah Polley) Calendar (1993, starring Atom Egoyan and Arsinee Khanjian) The Adjuster (1991, starring Elias Koteas, Arsinee Khanjian, Maury Chaykin, and Gabrielle Rose).

The primary concerns of Egoyan’s films are the family and national identity in postmodern culture. The films are known for their tragic narratives laced with wry humor, their fractured chronologies, their exploration of mediated experience through the incorporation of video footage in film, and their subversive use of standard techniques such as point-of-view editing. Egoyan’s films have been screened at prestigious festivals throughout the world, and have won numerous awards, including the International Critics’ Prize at Cannes.

“In terms of craft, originality, and intelligence, there are few young filmmakers in the world today to match Atom Egoyan” (Jonathan Rosenbaum, The Chicago Reader, August 19, 1994).

“Atom Egoyan, whose new film Calendar is the only serious competition Godard’s got at the moment…” (The Nation, March 21, 1994, writer unidentified).

“[Egoyan] is an original who has already created a dazzling body of work, at once cerebral, powerfully dramatic and accessible.” (Caryn James, The New York Times, Sept 24, 1994).

“Atom Egoyan is one of the most impressive and original young directors now working.” (American Museum of the Moving Image publication, Jan-Mar 1995, author unidentified).

“Excepting Godard and Cronenberg, no other film-maker has explored the connection between technology and voyeurism and between home movies and pornography so intensely or intelligently.” (Amy Taubin, Sight and Sound).

“His preoccupations and tropes have been so consistent that he’s practically created his own genre.” (Jonathan Romney, Sight and Sound, May 1995).

Pamela Grace, a film historian who has done extensive research on the work of Atom Egoyan will present the films.

THE ADJUSTER (1991)
Tuseday, July 11, 8:00pm
Starring: Elias Koteas, Arsinee Khanjian, Maury Chaykin and Gabrielle Rose.
In Egoyan’s award-winning offbeat film, an insurance adjuster invades the private lives of his clients as his film-censor wife secretly records the movies that she protects the public from seeing.

EXOTICA (1994)
Tuesday, July 18, 8:00pm
Starring: Elias Koteas, Mia Kirshner, Don McKellar and Sarah Polley.
In this intricately plotted film, a bereaved man obsessed with a lap dancer in a schoolgirl’s uniform investigates the illegal business of a gay pet store owner and makes some discoveries about his own life.

CALENDAR (1993)
Tuesday, July 25, 8:00
Starring: Atom Egoyan and Arsinee Khanjian.
In this rarely screened, very personal Egoyan film about the unusual love life of a photographer, the director himself plays the leading role as his real wife, Arsinee Khanjian, plays the protagonist’s wife.