For the love of movies

Tandem talks to three talented Italian-Canadians

As audiences, film critics and paparazzi all gear up for the 31st edition of the annual Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), industry insiders all already buzzing over the recently announced lineup of new movies and the movie stars that usually follow right behind.
There will plenty of Italian content to take in, including the world premiere of Primo Levi's Journey. A non-fictional road movie, director Davide Ferrario follows the life of a Holocaust survivor, retracing his footsteps from Auschwitz to Toronto.
Tandem will be running an upcoming feature on the film festival and it's Italian connections in the weeks to come, but this week decided against following the Hollywood hype and instead focused on three young, talented Italian-Canadians still waiting for the their time to shine in the spotlight.
All three have spent many years carving out a name out for themselves in the highly competitive entertainment industry, and acknowledged that moving stateside may one day become an inevitability given the often sad-state of Canadian film and television production.
While fans gawk, gaze and drool over Hollywood A-listers like Brad Pitt, the same excitement for the many talented Canadians working on smaller projects, never seems to translate at the box office.
The names below may not yet be familiar to anyone outside their immediate family, but with a little luck and plenty of hard work, they may one day get their chance to headline Toronto's film festival.


Chad Donella
The Actor

Ask actor Chad Donella what he likes about living in Los Angeles after moving there from Toronto eight years ago, and you get a long pause that seems like an eternity on the other end of the line. Besides being incredibly close to the beach, Donella is almost as close to all the major movie studios, and for that reason alone he decided to pack-up his bags and battle the notorious smog and sprawl of southern California.
"I have many friends and family back in T.O., so yeah I miss it a lot. I try to get back as much as possible but it's not as often as I'd like," says the 28-year-old actor originally from Stouffville, Ontario. After graduating from the York Arts drama program and appearing on some of Toronto's finest stages, including 'Wild Abandon' at the Tarragon Theatre and 'The Juliet Chronicles' at the Factory Theatre, Donella allowed himself to be wooed by Hollywood (being half-American made getting a green carder much easier) but disagrees that there aren't enough acting jobs in Hollywood North.
"You have to make your own work in Canada. There's a larger quantity of projects being made down here (in L.A.), but there's a flip side and that's there's so many more actors down here as well."
His great-grandfather George emigrated to the U.S. so long ago, Donella isn't sure what region in Italy his ancestors hailed from, although he does fondly recall the home cooked meals his nonna from Brooklyn used to bring over for the holidays.
His latest work is Hate Crime, which made it's debut earlier this month in Toronto. He initially auditioned for the lead role, before being cast instead for the supporting role of Chad Boyd - the son of a fundamentalist baptist preacher who gets wrapped up in a murder investigation. Since his parents are Tibetan Buddhists, and he describes his own faith as "undecided at the moment," getting into the mindset of fundamentalist really meant stretching his acting abilities.
"Its nice to be part of something you believe in and play a character that is struggling with a moral conflict," said Donella, whose interest in acting began at the age of 10. While on holiday in Florida he was asked to participate in a student film that ended up in a NYC film festival.
"I find people fascinating and acting is an exploration into psychology - you get to delve into someone else's life. Storytelling is about community and as human beings we have a long lineage of storytelling. Several hundred people sitting in a cinema and sharing the experience of film can be a powerful experience." Donella is currently on his way to Dallas for his next project. Past box office credits include Final Destination and the romantic comedy 100 Women. He recognizes that there's a trade-off between working for independent films where actors are given artistic freedom to improvise and movie studio big-budget projects where meeting deadlines sometimes trumpets all other concerns. "Sometimes (in bigger projects) it seems as if you're just paid to show up and say a few words," says Donella. "But in the end it truly depends on who you're working with. If you can surround yourself with talented people you're bound to make a good film."


Vivieno Caldinelli
The Writer and Director

In a perfect world, Vivieno Caldinelli would not only be playing in the NFL, he'd be making cinematic films about his athletic prowess afterwards. While such a fantasy is as likely as Kevin Federline winning a Grammy award next year, the young Italian-Canadian filmmaker did achieve the next best thing: his latest project, If I See Randy Again Do You Want Me to Hit Him With the Axe? was chosen to premiere at this year's Toronto International Film Festival.
"I've come to terms with the fact that I'm not going to be playing for the 49ers," joked Caldinelli over the phone from his home in Toronto. "I've had pretty good luck with the festival circuit, I've definitely been pretty fortunate... From jury to jury, you never know what they may be looking for from year to year. You can't take (rejection) personal, there's a lot of competition out there." Recognition from the festival circuit is nothing new for Caldinelli, whose 2002 comedy The Soup or the Window, about a young Italian leaving home to find true love in Canada, premiered at the Los Angeles International Film Festival. It's not the first time he's used his own background while writing a character's archetype; his first film project while a student at Niagra College was about a supermarket rivalry between an Italian and Portuguese shopkeepers settled through a game of dodgeball.
"I certainly don't go out looking for Italian characters, but (my background) definitely probably comes out through my sense of humour."
He fondly recalls going to the cinema every Saturday with his father, Vitorio, and sneaking around afterwards for a free encore presentation.
"A lot of the times I'm sure my father, whose English wasn't the best, probably didn't understand what the film was about," remembers Caldinelli, whose family clan is from a small village about an hour's north of Milan. It's been almost 15 years since the 31-year-old last revisited his roots and Caldinelli says he's itching to return to Italy. Born and raised in Cambridge, Ont. Caldinelli moved to Toronto recently and enjoyed celebrating the Azzurri win in Germany with so many other Italian-Canadians. The celebration on St. Clair helped inspired him to start writing a new script about two Italian-Canadian brothers, one of whom gambles away their life savings on the Azzurri during the 1998 World Cup. Asked to choose between writing and directing, managing to do both for If I See Randy Again Do You Want Me To Hit Him With the Axe?, Caldinelli takes a long pause to think.
"I'm just not as quick and efficient as many other writers, so if I had to make a choice it'd be directing, but that'd be a tough choice." A Mel Brooks super-fan whose influences range far and wide, from Federico Fellini to Stanley Kubrick, Caldinelli is preparing for life in the spotlight once the curtain goes up on TIFF this year and is open to the possibility, like many, of relocating to the U.S. "I'd go down there if the right opportunity presented itself but Toronto will always be my home."


Sandra Paolucci
The Producer

The glamour and glitz of a film festival - from walking the red carpet to sipping champagne with the rich and famous - may just be around the corner for film producer Sandra Paolucci, but at this year's TIFF, if she wants to catch a flick she'll have to buy a ticket just like everyone else.
"It was disappointing but at the same time it was an honour just to be shortlisted," said Paolucci, sounding like a future Oscar winner. Her latest project, Rock Garden: A Love Story didn't make the final cut for this year's short film category but the 26-year-old can rest assured knowing audiences will eventually get the chance to catch her film on TV when it airs on CBC and Bravo early next year.
The backstory to producing a love story begins several years ago in Ottawa when Paolucci met Gloria Kim, while both were working as interns in the nations capital.
"We decided we'd be a good match to do something together - whether it was to make a film, a doc, anything," says the Ryerson graduate. After Kim wrote the script for Rock Garden: A Love Story, Paolucci found herself so engrossed in the story she missed her subway stop on the way home from work. "The minute I got out of the station I called her right away and said 'We've got to make this film!'" However producing an independent film, even a short one without dialogue, presented more obstacles than the pair had first anticipated. From shuffling around in knee-high snow in the middle of winter, searching for the perfect farmer's field to juggling the demands of working with an almost non-existent budget, forced Paolucci to wear many hats as a producer. Just finding the money for the most basic of necessities proved to be another challenge for her to overcome.
"They gave us a quote and I said 'Hey we're indy, we can't even afford to pay our crew' let alone pay for port-a-potties," laughs Paolucci. Although filmed primarily in Cambridge, Ontario, many of the interior shots will be familiar to students of York University. Currently working for Global TV, Paolucci stresses the importance of finding a strong mentor to learn from. She recently wrapped up filming on Rice Kings a documentary film still in production and remains optimistic that 'Rock Garden: A Love Story' will make the grade for other prestigious film festivals, such as those in Sundance, Berlin and Venice. Currently on holidays in Italy, visiting relative in the Abruzzo region, Paolucci says she has no plans on moving south to Hollywood but like almost everyone in the industry, she must keep herself open to the possibility of following the work where ever it leads her. "In the future young Canadian filmmakers may be in a position to make the big feature films, so I think it's a good idea we continue to nurture the young talent in Canada."

Publication Date: 2006-08-27
Story Location: http://www.tandemnews.com/viewstory.php?storyid=6558