Julia Kwan at the Vancouver International Film Festival

Kathy Chan

She was the winner of the Most Popular Canadian Film at the 2005 Vancouver International Film Festival, the Winner in Best Direction, Best Screenwriting, Best Production Design, Best Sound Design, Best Editing at the 2006 Leo Awards, and the first Canadian winner of the coveted Special Jury Prize for World Cinema at Sundance 2006. These are only a slice of credentials loaded on local Vancouver filmmaker Julia Kwan’s curriculum vitae thus far.  Not bad for a first time feature writer and director.  And even though her feature, Eve and the Fire Horse, did debut two years ago at the Vancouver International Film Festival, Julia is still receiving endless requests from festivals around the world for the movie to be screened. 

Eve is an imaginative story about a young girl growing up in a dual religion household in 1970’s Vancouver.  With themes of religion, superstition, life and death all through the eyes of a nine year old girl, this film should not slip under anyone’s radar.  The heavy topics represented in the story actually manifest itself into a darling of a film. 

It’s been roughly a year and a half since the official Eve and the Fire Horse’s Canadian theatrical release, and Julia Kwan is back at the Vancouver International Film Festival.  This time around, instead of a feature, Julia is happily promoting her short, Smile.  

Smile is a 17 minute short based on a family’s experience at taking their portrait with their free Sears coupon.  I managed to sneak in some time in between Julia’s eventful festival hopping schedule to speak to her about all the successes she has acquired from Eve and the Fire Horse in the past few whirlwind years.

GLOSS:  First of all, a huge congratulations on the overall success and acclaim about Eve and the Fire Horse!  How do you feel about all the attention?
Julia:  It is immensely gratifying for sure because this project was such a labour of love and it was such a personal story.  Everyone that came onboard for this story believed in the story and to have a labour of love achieve so much success, and for this to be my first feature project.  This was such an intimate story and it really resonated with a lot of people who really connected with the material.  When people see themselves in film, on a very humanistic level, it really is wonderful.

GLOSS:  How has your career and life changed because of the success of this movie?
Julia:  You work in a vacuum.  A week before the world premiere in Toronto, my director of photography and lead actress got together to do the commentary for the DVD and we had no idea at all!  We just had this wide eyed enthusiasm about it, but, had we did it now, we would know all the questions from what people want to ask us.  It completely took us by surprise!  It was such a personal story and I didn’t know if anyone would relate to it.  But it’s been overwhelming, the responses.

GLOSS:  What was the most surprising feedback, or common responses from the public?
Julia:  The most common was that they brought in their own personal history so they really related to the story in terms of their own background growing up.  Whether it was in a dual religious household…the experiences were all very similar.  An Italian woman came up to me and said “that’s my life!”  It made me really think about how connected we are, the same emotions.

GLOSS:  Can you tell us about how you first screened the movie?  How did you take it through the festival circuit?
Julia:  We world premiered it at TIFF and that was very exciting because a few weeks prior to that we had screened it to a programmer for Sundance at Telefilms.  Someone had told Geoffrey Gilmore (longtime director of the Sundance Film Festival) about our film and he came to the screening, which was so exciting!  We were all on pins and needles and shortly afterwards he told us we were in.  Not only was it a prestigious opportunity to show the film at TIFF but Sundance!  We did the entire Canadian film festival circuit and that was wonderful because it was a bit of a bonding experience with the other first time filmmakers.  A few days later at Sundance, Roger Ebert saw the film at the press screening and he wrote this wonderful review about it.  It just happened that that year our film was the only Canadian feature so Telefilms put a lot of time and energy into us.  We came with jackets, buttons, and hats!  There was a group of people who were involved with the film with us, and we were on this plane to Salt Lake City and I was on the front of the entertainment section of the Globe and Mail and we were causing such a raucous that the flight attendant needed to go over the P.A to tell us to tone it down.  It was so exciting, and there was buzz for the film.  And to our surprise we won the Special Jury Prize and it was the first Canadian feature that won.  It was very gratifying.  For the past year and a half I have been traveling the film. 

GLOSS:  This time around at the VIFF, you’re showing a short titled Smile. 
Julia:  it’s a bit of a companion piece for Eve, and it was actually supposed to be my ‘calling card’ film.  I hope people don’t think I’m obsessed with little girls.  The girls are a bit older, the lead girl is 12 now.  The girls in the short are 12 and 16.  It is about a family in the 1980s getting ready to take a family portrait using their free Sears coupon.  It’s a bit of a bittersweet stroll down memory lane.  It’s about family dynamics.

GLOSS:  How is it different showing a short versus feature at a festival?
Julia:  A lot less promo involved!  You can actually go out and watch films!  I’m a bit of a film buff so I actually like to watch a bunch of movies!

GLOSS:  What is the most challenging part about being a writer?
Julia:  It is a discipline.  When you’re writing as to another job, you’re extracting something very deep and personal.  The entire process encompasses and permeates your life.  It’s incubating and I think not writing is just as important as writing.  When it all came together I wrote my draft (For Eve and the Fire Horse) in 3 days.  Every person is different but I find that I really have to live with it and have a pretty long incubation period with my stories.  It took a very long time to write the entire film.  But it was going in between shorts and other projects.

GLOSS:  What was the most valuable learning experience that you’ll take from making Eve and the Fire Horse?
Julia:  I think… you’re constantly learning.  When Akira Kurosawa was given his lifetime achievement award, he was quoted as saying, “thank you, this is very encouraging and I’m still learning.”  So with every project you really take and learn new things with you.  With Eve, it was really learning how to articulate.  How to articulate to children, and to articulate the creative vision across to the rest of the crew.  I learned a lot.

GLOSS:  What advice do you have for aspiring filmmakers?
Julia:  Find a project that you’re passionate about.  And be stubborn, like a fire horse and tenacious...just work at it.  A lot of it is luck, but talent, of course, plays into it.  Have the fire in your belly to do it and don’t be discouraged.

Check out the official website for Eve and the Fire Horse at http://www.eveandthefirehorse.com/ or head over to your local video store for the DVD and catch in on the buzz!