by Ina Pira, Curator
In this week’s Staff Pick Premiere “We Forgot to Break Up”, filmmaker Chandler Levack explores the heartache of letting go of the past in order to find peace within. After a three-year hiatus from his indie rock band, Evan is now a proudly trans man. Suddenly reunited with his former bandmates, he finds that while some things have changed, the past is still painful to revisit.
Set in the moments before the band takes the stage, Levack skillfully captures the kinetic and fast-paced energy of a rock show with intimate scenes of raw dialogue and vulnerability. Grounding the film is newcomer Jesse Todd, whose deeply moving performance as Evan makes the undeniable case for the importance of seeing trans actors playing trans roles. As each band member enters the story, their complicated relationships come into focus with a familiar mix of heartache, acceptance, and resentment. The emotional reunion culminates in a beautiful musical performance that showcases Levack’s background in music journalism and music videos. As the band performs, Todd’s gripping performance delivers the film’s powerful and cathartic finale.
“We Forgot to Break Up” is Levack’s impressive debut short. After a successful festival run, including the Toronto Film Festival and SXSW, we’re excited to exclusively premiere the film on Vimeo.
To learn more about how it came together, we reached out to Levack and producer Nicole Hilliard-Ford. Below are excerpts from our conversation.
On the inspiration for the film:
Levack: “When Nicole first approached me with the exciting opportunity to adapt Kayt Burgess’ novel ‘Heidegger Stairwell’ into a short film, I was taken in by a love story that blended the backstage drama of a Fleetwood Mac memoir with a timely and important trans protagonist in Evan Strocker. It was a pleasure to work with newcomer Jesse Todd, who brought so much of themselves to the role of Evan and who truly embodies the spirit of this film. I was also honored to work with a cast of incredible Canadian performers, including Mark Rendall, Dov Tiefenbach, Grace Glowicki, Cara Gee, Sofia Banzhaf, and my co-writer Steven McCarthy. Using Kayt’s source material as our foundation, I hope that we found humor and honesty. In many ways, being in an indie rock band parallels the dynamics of being in a family.”
On telling a music-inspired story:
Levack: “Cinematographer Cabot McNenly worked harder and more passionately than anyone I know to help develop the candy-colored look of the film. Together, we took inspiration from classic rock documentaries such as ‘Don’t Look Back,’ as well as backstage dramas like ‘All About Eve.’ It was also an honor to shoot at the iconic Danforth Music Hall, the most gorgeous venue in Toronto, if not Canada. Production designer Elliot McCabe-Lokos, makeup artist Christina Spina, and costume designer Juliann Wilding all lent their incredible artistry to the film. Together, they fleshed out a highly specific world for our characters. It was also a pleasure to collaborate with Murray Lightburn, of the Montreal indie rock band The Dears. He wrote our title track, recorded and mixed it with our cast. He also came down to Toronto to teach our actors how to be rock stars.
As a former music critic-turned-music video director, who has long been obsessed with real life stories of rock stars (and whose favorite film of all-time is ‘Almost Famous’), it was a great honor to bring ‘We Forgot to Break Up’ to life with an incredible team of collaborators. Heartbreak is a universal experience, and so are the songs that help you survive it, so I hope audiences can relate to this film.”
On the challenges of making the film:
Hilliard-Ford: “Making anything independently comes with inherent resource challenges. Independent projects rely on the goodwill of the filmmakers who are there in the enormous spirit of collaboration. With this adaptation, we decided to pile on mentorship, production value, an original song, and adaptation from a novel.
More esoteric challenges we faced in making the film had to do with the fact that when we started the process, there were almost no trans-identified performers in trans roles on screen. Our goal was to cast a trans artist in the lead role of Evan Strocker. You could hear tumbleweeds as we proposed this at the beginning of our journey. This was the most important tenet for making the film for us as a production company and one we never lost sight of. Representation was at the forefront of the raison d’etre for making the film. We proceeded with our casting process to find our lead, and hired a script advisor who was trans-identified based out of Los Angeles.
By the time we had finished the film and were screening it at film festivals, conversations about authorship, access and inclusivity were being raised. Shows like ‘Pose’ came into being, shepherding writer voices and new show runner voices, which is an incredibly inspiring thing to witness.”
On what’s next:
Levack: “I’m currently in pre-production on my first feature film as a writer-director, ‘I Like Movies,’ which has received support from Telefilm’s Micro-budget Program and the Canada Council for the Arts. It is a coming of age dramatic comedy about a pretentious teenage cinephile named Lawrence. He gets a job at a big corporate video store in his final year of high school. The movie is kind of a love letter to my anxiety-ridden years as a teenage Blockbuster Video employee. It is set in the suburbs of Toronto in the year 2003. (The tone is somewhere between ‘Lady Bird,’ ‘Ghost World,’ and ‘Clerks.’) We’re hoping to gear up and shoot in spring of 2021, pandemic-permitting!”
Posted on June 10, 2020