Main Attraction (short; Mario DeGiglio-Bellemare, 2011)
I finally go the chance to see my friend (and teacher) Mario’s latest short, which played the Image+Nation LGBT film festival tonight as part of a (sadly) mostly terrible Québec queer short film program called Queerment Québec, after playing MUFF (Montreal Underground Film Festival) in May of this year. The longest of the bunch (clocking around 30 minutes) and the best one by miles, Main Attraction perpetuates Mario’s fascination with silent horror (working primarily on 8mm and 16mm, as part of the Volatile Works collective) and features, notably the talents of Rue Morgue and Dread Central scribe “Evil Andy” Mauro on special effects duty - with local cartoonist Rick Trembles as SFX assistant. Eerie, beautiful and chilling, imagine Guy Maddin making a cross-gender Grand Guignol film denouncing gentrification and you get a sense of what this is about. Filled with visual homages to classic works such as Psycho’s eye through the wall, yet having a chilling and politically-charged tone very much of its own, Main Attraction was everything I expected from one of the smartest minds I know, whose genre teachings and insight never ceases to amaze me. To learn more about the man, I recommend this in-depth interview!
Mario’s work has played the Fantasia Film Festival in the past (Uncanny in 2006, Zombie Business in 2007) and a little bird tells me this one might be likely to find its way there next summer! Not to be missed!
