Winnipegger Adam Smoluk’s second feature FOODLAND opens tomorrow at Winnipeg Cinematheque. The film, written and directed by Smoluk and produced by Juliette Hagopian, takes place in South Winnipeg and was produced through the National Screen Institute’s Features First program. The film’s setting, its characters and its themes all reflect the influence of a life spent mostly in Winnipeg.
According to Smoluk, while the plot of FOODLAND could be set elsewhere, Winnipeg is an integral part of the film. “I think it is uniquely Winnipeg,” he said. “I guess the plot points could probably be centred other places, but the locale is uniquely Winnipeg.” Smoluk also spoke of Winnipeg’s centrality to the film: “If you look at a film like Chinatown,” he said, “you could probably take that setting and put it in New York, but it would probably be a different film then. So I think, to be the film it is, it kind of needed to take place in Winnipeg.”
FOODLAND stars James Clayton as Trevor Wolnik, a young employee of Winnipeg grocery store FOODLAND who needs money to return to university. After walking into his manager’s office to discover him entertaining a mysterious woman, Trevor is entangled in a net of intrigue and incompetence, which takes him all over our fair city, from the Royal York apartments to the Pembina Inn. Along the way, he encounters a cast of characters that make Winnipeg seem like a city of lovable eccentrics: characters like Glen Munn, the alcoholic, bumbling private detective on his first-ever case and Lucy Eklund, a film noir femme fatale, complete with Cruella DeVil furs and cigarette-holder. The Manitoban spoke to writer-director Smoluk over soft drinks at a Pembina Highway Salisbury House.
The idea of setting a film in the Winnipeg grocery store occurred to Smoluk long before he ever pitched it. “I always like to have something that I’m familiar with as part of the story,” he said, “and I knew that there was this grocery store [FOODLAND] — I remember seeing it as a kid, and it has a very cinematic look, the way it’s lit. It has these big floodlights in front of it. I always thought that it would be very interesting to have a movie taking place there.” When he decided to apply for the National Screen Institute’s Features First program, he put his old idea into motion and began to write FOODLAND. The location even informed his choice of genre. “I just thought [FOODLAND] would be the perfect location for a caper type of comedy.”
Smoluk set off along the road to a film career in high school, where he specialized in theatre, though his stronger interest was in film. “In high school,” he said, “there weren’t really film programs, so really if you had an interest in film, you would go into theatre.” After high school, he spent time with various acting coaches in Vancouver. Soon after, he was accepted into an exchange program at the British American Drama Academy, the other alumni of which include actors Paul Giamatti, Orlando Bloom, Paul Rudd and David Schwimmer. One of Smoluk’s classmates, Jamie Moss, co-wrote the upcoming X-Men: First Class, scheduled to be released this year.
Smoluk said his background in theatre has helped him as a filmmaker. “The advantage with theatre as opposed to film is that playwrights are so careful with tailoring their words. I guess with film they think partly from a visual standpoint, and I think naturally I’m a more visual thinker to start with.”
While FOODLAND falls neatly into the genre of caper-comedy, Smoluk hopes to work in a variety of genres, citing filmmakers such as Stanley Kubrick as genre-hopping inspirations, and at 31, Smoluk has plenty of time for all genres.
FOODLAND plays at Cinematheque from Jan. 5-13.
