Country: Canada
Year: 2009
Duration: 96'
PONTYPOOL
Grant Mazzy is a radio speaker. He is out of work onceagain and the only job he is offered is to conduct a morning program for the small radio station CLSY, which broadcasts from the basement of the church in the town of Pontypool in Ontario. What seems like yet another uneventful day soon transforms itself into a nightmare when the people of Pontypool seem to fall prey to a collective insanity caused by a mysterious virus.
“Our model for the movie was actually not only Tony Burgess’ book but this radio drama that was done in the Thirties called War of the Worlds by Orson Welles and Mercury Theater, about an ordinary broadcast that is then transformed into this kind of attack from the Martians and we used that model for our script and injected, instead of Martians, Tony’s notion of an infection that would sit in the language itself and how the language becomes the dangerous threat rather than Martians.”
Biography
film director
Bruce McDonald
Bruce McDonald (Kingston, Canada, 1959) graduated in film from Ryerson University. In 1985 he shot the 16mm feature film Knock! Knock!, which was presented at the 4th Festival Cinema Giovani in Torino. In 1989 he won the prize for best Canadian film at the Toronto Film Festival with the movie Roadkill, the first chapter of his trilogy dedicated to rock’n’roll, followed by Highway 61 (1991), which won Best Director at the Festival in San Sebastián, and the mockumentary Hard Core Logo (1997), Best Canadian Film at the Festival in Vancouver. He participated several times to the Torino Film Festival over the years, presenting movies like Pontypool (2009), This Movie Is Broken (2010), and The Husband (2013).
FILMOGRAFIA
Let Me See (cm, 1982), Knock! Knock! (coregia/codirector Daniel Brooks, 1985), Roadkill (1989), Highway 61 (1991), Dance Me Outside (1994), Hard Core Logo (1996), Elimination Dance (cm, 1997), Fort Goof (cm, 1999), The City (ep. Gorky Parkette; Just Like Honey, tv, 2000), Lex (ep. Garden; Tunnel, tv, 2000), Road Songs: A Portrait of Robbie Robertson (tv, doc., 2001), Picture Claire (Sola nella trappola, 2001), The Love Crimes of Gillian Guess (tv, 2004), The Dark Room (tv, 2007), The Tracey Fragments (2007), Pontypool (2008), This Movie Is Broken (2010), Trigger (2010), Hard Core Logo 2 (2010), The Husband (2013), Hellions (2015).
Cast
& Credits
regia/director
Bruce McDonald
soggetto, sceneggiatura/story,screenplay
dal romanzo/from the novel
Pontypool Changes Everything di/by Tony Burgess
fotografia/cinematography
Miroslaw Baszak
montaggio/film editing
Jeremiah L. Munce
scenografia/production design
Lea Carlson
costumi/costume design
Sarah Armstrong
musica/music
Claude Foisy
suono/sound
Steve Munro
interpreti e personaggi/cast and characters
Stephen McHattie (Grant Mazzy), Lisa Houle (Sydney Briar), Georgina Reilly (Laurel Ann), Hrant Alianak (il dottor/Dr Mendez), Rick Roberts (Ken Loney)
produttori/producers
Jeffrey Coghlan, Ambrose Roche
produzione/production
Ponty Up Pictures, Shadow Shows
vendita all’estero/world sales
Ponty Up Pictures
Bruce McDonald
soggetto, sceneggiatura/story,screenplay
dal romanzo/from the novel
Pontypool Changes Everything di/by Tony Burgess
fotografia/cinematography
Miroslaw Baszak
montaggio/film editing
Jeremiah L. Munce
scenografia/production design
Lea Carlson
costumi/costume design
Sarah Armstrong
musica/music
Claude Foisy
suono/sound
Steve Munro
interpreti e personaggi/cast and characters
Stephen McHattie (Grant Mazzy), Lisa Houle (Sydney Briar), Georgina Reilly (Laurel Ann), Hrant Alianak (il dottor/Dr Mendez), Rick Roberts (Ken Loney)
produttori/producers
Jeffrey Coghlan, Ambrose Roche
produzione/production
Ponty Up Pictures, Shadow Shows
vendita all’estero/world sales
Ponty Up Pictures
