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A Toronto film crew was in Kincardine on the weekend, shooting scenes for a movie to be released later this year.

Led by photographer and artist Lisa Murzin, who lives in Mississauga and Kincardine, the team used the park area at the end of Kingsway as the backdrop for the show.

"I have roots here," says Murzin. "There's a beautiful, wild, natural environment here that works for the film."

Murzin is a passionate and spiritual artist, contributing her skills on a number of levels in photography and film. With a background in classic photography, she brings into the digital contemporary media her wide range of professional skills and life experiences.

The movie, yet to be named, features actor Corey Swiergosz as a Young Urban Professional (YUPPIE) who goes through a transformation. At the start he is consumed by the dissonance created by the man-made environment, but with the help of some nature spirits, he establishes a new connection to the world and finds an organic and natural reality.

He struggles against the change but emerges into a renaissance of his own existence, going back to co-exist with the old and adapt to the new-found world and a self-connection to a more spiritual reality.

Swiergosz is an aspiring model and actor based in Toronto. He is about to sign with a major American agency out of California, but is currently freelancing in Ontario with many projects on the go.

Cesar Forero is the creative genius behind the movie. He says the idea is to take someone out of his comfortable, man-made world, with all its technical devices, and allow him to see the world as it really is, not as he thinks it is.

Forero’s visual artwork develops in the exploration and creation of multi-media pieces, exploring painting, sculpture, performance, and film. He has worked as an Instructor of architecture, design, and art in universities in Colombia, United States, and Canada. His artwork has been shown internationally in the Americas and Japan, and he has an active record of solo and group exhibitions in Canada. He has been the recipient of several national and international awards, including the Mississauga Established Visual Artist of the Year 2007.

Joining Murzin, Forero and Swiergosz on this project are Michelle Moylan, Jeff Tran and Bill Dowling.

Moylan is a performance artist and dancer currently living in Waterloo. She has a visual arts bachelor’s degree from the University of Waterloo and a master of landscape architecture from the University of Guelph. She has an active record of exhibitions in Canada performing and collaborating with Forero.

Tran is a two- and three-dimensional artist and filmmaker from Toronto. He holds a BFA from the University of Waterloo and is a graduate of Sheridan College's Computer Animation Program. He has received grants from the Toronto Arts Council and Canada Council for the Arts.

Dowling has been a part of Cesar's team for the past four years. Dowling's camerawork has been based at the CBC's Toronto Broadcasting Centre since 1997, but he has enjoyed much of Ontario's hospitality thanks to Forero's many performances outside the Toronto area.

"Kincardine has been my favourite location so far," says Dowling. "The scenery and the people here are just beautiful." 

Lisa Murzin (L), Corey Swiergosz and Cesar Forero rehearse a scene with the head pieces used in the movie



Lisa Murzin (R) fixes the costume for actor Cesar Forero, while Bill Dowling (L) and Jeff Tran wait to film the scene

Once the movie scenes have been filmed, the crew will turn to the studio to complete the animation portion, says Forero.

For that work, the group relies on Steve Whalley,  a Toronto-based artist who works primarily in sound and animation. He deals with issues of time, space and communication creating moments in an evolving state of flux.

Forero says the plan is to have the movie finished by the end of December and enter it into various international film festivals.

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Sunday, August 22, 2010