Press kit - You Are Here

TRACY WRIGHT
R.D. REID
ANAND RAJARAM
NADIA LITZ
in
YOU ARE HERE
a new feature-length motion picture
written & directed by Daniel Cockburn
produced by Daniel Bekerman and Daniel Cockburn
a zeroFunction / Scythia Films Production
“Inventive and multilayered, You Are Here is a
brilliantly organized first
feature full of philosophical
ideas and tremendous energy.”
– Atom Egoyan
You Are Here is the first feature film by internationally acclaimed Toronto-based video artist
Daniel Cockburn. Funny, disturbing, and thought-provoking, it pushes at the boundaries of
cinematic storytelling -- while creating a deep and strange emotional connection with its cast of
characters as they negotiate an absurd and cryptic world.
“F---ing brilliant! Surprising,
intriguing, and strangely
moving. Phenomenal!”
– John Greyson
You Are Here is a Borgesian fantasy composed of multiple worlds, circling and weaving around
each other in always-unexpected ways. At the centre of this narrative labyrinth is a reclusive woman
(Tracy Wright) who searches for meaning in the mysterious documents that keep appearing to her.
Her investigation begins when she finds a tape recording of a man giving a bizarre lecture: calming
and sinister at the same time, he instructs how to “get where you need to go”. Is this a random find, or
a message to her? Another strange document presents itself, and another… Swiftly her home becomes
an archive brimming with enigmatic texts, images and sounds. She forms deep connections with the
people contained in these documents -- the Lecturer, a Prisoner, an Inventor -- each of them, like her,
struggling with the unknowable laws of their own worlds. But the organized becomes the organizer
when her meticulous system turns on her; the archive is a trickster threatening to pull her mind apart. As realities collapse and intersect around her, she must make a final choice: is she a free agent, or
just a tool of the archive?
“A major discovery;
a very original and
accomplished feature.”
– Olivier Père
Artistic Director, Locarno
International Film Festival
Have you heard about the
dictionary for masochists?
It has all the words in it.
They’re just not in any
particular order.
INNOVATIVE IN FORM and unique in its content, YOU ARE HERE is an
intellectually adventurous movie that explores the nature of consciousness,
the relationship between technology and our sense of self, and what happens
to a mind when it spends too long inside an experiment of its own devising.
WHAT’S
IT
ALL
ABOUT?
“That’s the question, isn’t it?”, says first-time
feature director Daniel Cockburn, “and it’s a
big one. I’ve always liked watching movies that
feel too big to hold in your brain all at the same
time. It’s a thrilling experience – from 2001 to
Mulholland Dr. to I Heart Huckabee’s – because
for days after, you’re making connections between
all these things you’ve seen and heard. And
while many of the ideas keep getting clearer,
there’s always the feeling that the big picture is
dancing just out of reach. That experience is what
this movie’s about: all these people who are trying
to understand the world they’re in, and where they
fit into the big picture.”
Whether it’s an Archivist ( Tracy Wright ) who’s
dealing with the fact that her apartment has
turned into a living archive that doesn’t seem to
want her around any more, or an Experimenter
( Anand Rajaram ) who constructs a roomsized model of the human mind, or a man named
Alan ( Scott Anderson and too many other
actors to list here ) who realizes that he’s
a literal everyman, never inhabiting the same
body for more than five seconds at a time – these
characters are dealing with situations that most
of us (hopefully) will not recognize as anything
resembling our reality. “But it doesn’t matter
that no one in the audience has ever invented a
malevolent prosthetic eye, or spent eternity going
up a stairwell in search of a floating door…
that’s why science fiction and fantasy are such
successful genres. Not because rocket ships and
orcs are cool – though they are (and I’d really
like to make a movie about orcs on a rocket ship)
– but because they’re about real, recognizable,
human experiences. It’s not about the specific
situation, it’s about the human need -- Dave trying
to figure out what makes him different from HAL,
or my Archivist trying to figure out why she’s
receiving dispatches from a thousand different
universes. Everyone wakes up sometimes thinking
‘What the hell am I doing here?’, and I’d be a
fool if I thought I could answer that question. But
I think the movie articulates the question in an
entertaining, funny, creepy, moving way that
people can identify with.”
A fan of Cockburn’s previous work, Producer
Dan Bekerman knew that the filmmaker could
make the leap into longer format, balancing
experiments in style and form with a humanity
that delivers an emotional reaction. “There’s a
scene with the Experimenter where you realize
he’s totally burned his brain out,” says Bekerman,
“and his performance is hilarious and disturbing
at the same time – and the cinema fills with very
uncomfortable laughter. And when the Archivist
finally makes a human connection with her new
co-worker Marcie ( Nadia Litz ), you can feel
the audience’s deep attention – they realize that,
after having gone on this 80-minute journey,
they’re seriously invested in these characters
and stories, and something as simple as a bad
joke in a shared taxi feels like an enormous
emotional gesture.”
WHO
IS
IT
ABOUT?
An obsessive, hermetic Archivist (Tracy Wright
– Me and You and Everyone We Know,
Monkey Warfare ) roams the city collecting
strange documents – films, videotapes, audio
recordings. But her Archive has taken over her
living space, there are indications that it’s begun
to think on its own, and worst of all, it doesn’t
seem to want her around any more.
An office of Tracking Operatives keeps tabs
on the whereabouts of Field Agents roaming the
city… but one day a monkey wrench gets thrown
into their archaic operation, and they experience
a collective system crash.
Alan (Scott Anderson) is a simple man with a
simple life… or, more accurately, lives. Over the
course of a day in his life, he realizes that he’s
actually many people, a whole city contained in
one person, never inhabiting the same body for
more than a few seconds. He views this (as you
well might were you in his numerous shoes) as
something of a problem.
A Lecturer (R.D. Reid – A History of
Violence, Capote) tries to spread enlightenment
through a series of lectures and instructional
videos, but his methods backfire when he meets
a trio of kids who blind him with his own science.
An Experimenter (Anand Rajaram)
constructs a room-sized working model of the
human mind. But he spends longer inside than
he should, and the room proves smarter than he.
An Inventor (Peter Solala) creates a prosthetic
eye which grants sight to the blind. But he is less
benevolent than he seems – and when he enacts
his secret plan, “Do You See What I See?” takes
on apocalyptic new meaning.
For the first half hour, it’s not even clear who the
protagonist is. Instead of plunking the audience
down with a an obvious main character from
frame one, You Are Here puts viewers in a state
of disorientation, taking them from one story to
another… and gradually, one character bubbles
to the surface, and the audience realizes that
they’ve become deeply invested in this person’s
tale. Comments Cockburn, “You might think
that making a movie with no main character
in its first half hour goes against all the rules of
screenwriting – and it’s rare, but it has been
done. People often forget that Marge Gundersson
doesn’t appear in Fargo until the 40-minute mark.
But this is a little different; we’re presenting you
with all these worlds, and then you slowly realize
that one of them has become the emotional proxy
for the audience. So you can understand if I don’t
really want to say who it is.”
(It’s the Archivist.)
SO
WHERE
DOES
IT
TAKE
PLACE?
UM,
LET’S
TRY
“WHY”?
This movie takes place in a city. Or maybe more
than one city. What’s clear is that there are streets
and intersections and rooms and hallways and
doors. There’s also a group of operatives in an
office whose job it is to track the whereabouts of
various field agents; they’re obviously up to some
kind of covert operation and it’s obviously very
important. Sorry we can’t be clearer than that.
In fact, it’s unclear for quite some time as to
whether these stories all take place in different
cities, or whether it’s a single shared metropolis…
but by the end of the movie that question will
be answered.
Oh, that one’s easy.
OKAY…
HOW
ABOUT
WHEN?
That’s tricky too. The world of You Are Here
takes place in a sort of 1970s timewarp. The
telephones are large, and VHS is still going
strong. Vinyl collectors would feel very much at
home in this world. Strangely, there’s one guy
with a laptop, but he doesn’t fit in, and in fact
he’s kind of evil.
You Are Here may defy attempts to locate it in a
specific time or place, but it’s very much about the
world we live in today.
We live in a world that has become very, very
good at mapping itself. Google Earth makes
global surveillance accessible; entire libraries
are stored and catalogued on microchips; search
engines compile the world’s knowledge into a
siftable net. But how much does all this modeling
and archiving really allow us to understand our
place in the world? When will we become lost
in the models we’ve made?
“You Are Here is totally about our current
technological and social moment – and how
it feels, living here and now,” says Cockburn.
“Each of its stories is about people caught in a
system that’s been fed so much self-knowledge
that it seems to have a mind of its own. And
being part of a system that can think on its own –
that doesn’t need you any more -- this is something
that everybody can relate to, whether or not they
spend a lot of their spare time thinking about it
(as I obviously do).”
The characters in You Are Here don’t use
computers; it’s like they’re all part of one big
computer. “Each person is like a microchip in
the Great Logic Board, and that’s a frustrating
scary feeling because you never know what the
big machine is thinking,” says Cockburn. I could
have set the movie in present-day, or even a scifi future, with GPS and artificial intelligence and
humanoid robots, and that would have expressed
these ideas, but I think it’s way more interesting to
get at these ideas sideways, through an analog
world that can embody these thoughts and
feelings in a physical and nostalgic way.”
But even all these theoretical musings have an
emotional underpinning. When Cockburn first
met with Tracy Wright to discuss the Archivist’s
character, they talked not about social theory
and artificial intelligence but about emotional
breakdowns. “I told her that I’d gone through a
long, long period of my life where I was really
mentally unwell – technically speaking, I was
living with a paranoid delusion,” he says. “I
genuinely thought that everything in the world was
fake, and everything I read and saw and heard
was a message to me. And I’ve made it through
that period, but the fear and the loneliness – and
even the strange humour – of that situation have
stuck with me. And that experience is what the
Archivist goes through, and Tracy’s understanding
of that emotional state is at the core of the
character.” You Are Here may not be a tale
of mental illness – though that is potentially the
subject of some water-cooler debate – but it delves
into the fears and uncertainties and small joys
that lie not just at the heart of paranoia, but at the
heart of us all.
WHERE
DID
THIS
COME
FROM?
Daniel Cockburn has been making short films
and videos since 1999, earning accolades
from critics and fellow filmmakers alike. His
work has shown at film festivals and video-art
venues internationally, and recently he toured
a retrospective program to Seoul, Rotterdam,
Berlin, and Toronto – but his numerous filmfestival screening experiences provided the seed
of inspiration for what was to become his first
feature.
“Showing a 10-minute movie at a festival
alongside a dozen other shorts can be a great
experience,” he says, “and the best festival
programmers find a way to program the shorts like
a really excellent mix-tape, so one leads into the
next, and all these wildly different movies end up
in a sort of conversation with each other. When
it really works, it’s like you’re watching one big
movie composed of a lot of different parts, and it
kind of blows your mind. So I thought, well, why
couldn’t I make a whole series of shorts that are
meant to be shown together, and combine in the
audience’s head to form an uber-movie? Sort of
like a concept album, or a short story collection,
or the Constructicons.”
In 2006, he received a prestigious Chalmers Arts
Fellowship to write the script for this project, that
would become You Are Here. “As I wrote the
script, I discovered that all these separate stories
wanted to get in touch with each other, to combine
into one whole. And I spent months sorting
through possible points of connection, working
this like a big jigsaw puzzle, and it was one of the
most intense and rewarding experiences I’ve ever
had. In a way I’m hoping to give the audience a
really condensed version of that experience.”
…the schools of cartography sketched a map of the empire
which was the size of the empire and coincided at every
point with it…
in the western deserts there remain piecemeal ruins of
the map, inhabited by animals and beggars.
– Borges, Extraordinary Tales
The first feature by internationally successful video artist Daniel
Cockburn, You Are Here is a new kind of cinematic storytelling,
a fractured mirror reflecting this fragmented, interconnected world
we call the 21st Century.
ABOUT
THE
PRODUCTION
Though Cockburn has made over 20 short films
and videos which have played to international
acclaim, You Are Here marks a number of firsts
for him: not only his first feature, it’s his first time
working with actors and a full production crew.
“I had eked out this realm of video production
where I was not only virtually the only crew
member, but also the sole performer,” he says.
“So the prospect of stepping into this zone where
I’d have to communicate my ideas to scores of
people every day was daunting, to say the least
– especially considering that the project was
somewhat ambitious.”
“Somewhat ambitious” is an understatement.
While filmmakers like Robert Rodriguez advocate
the work-with-what-you-have school of indie
filmmaking, the You Are Here script is virtually
a case study of “how not to write a low-budget
feature script”: multiple locations, a large cast
(the character of Alan alone is played by 30
different actors), and intensive demands on all
aspects of the production, from cinematography
to production design to script supervising.
Even the simple act of script breakdown was
complicated by the fact that the movie doesn’t
follow normal rules of storytelling or reality. With
multiple actors playing one character, different
locations that might actually be the same place,
and pivotal scenes repeating with different
outcomes, determining the chronology of the
movie’s events is less like plotting a timeline
and more like solving a Rubik’s Cube.
Even the question “what format was it shot on?”
is followed first by a long intake of breath, and
then a laundry list from top-of-the-line to obsolete:
35mm, 16mm, RED Camera, HD, miniDV, super
8, and BetaMax(!). “For a movie that shows
so many different worlds, we wanted to give it
as many different looks and styles as possible,”
says Director of Photography Cabot McNenly.
“We have scenes that look like low-fi industrial
video circa 1970, and other scenes with crazy
angles and impossible upside-down camera
movements. It was all about pushing what we had
to work with as far as we could, to get something
unique that was a good fit for each individual
scene.”
“As soon as I read the script I knew that this would
be a huge challenge, and I knew it was one
that I really wanted to take on,” says Production
Designer Nazgol Goshtasbpour. An office
set in an indeterminate time and place; a living
archive; a room/prison that learns how to think
– “Daniel and I talked a lot about when the
movie is supposed to take place; but the point
wasn’t to actually figure out when, the point was
to figure out what cues and clues we wanted to
drop.” Details like the size of mobile phones,
fonts used on office paperwork, and the shapes of
microphones – all play into the feeling of a world
out of time and space.
Ultimately, it’s about the people in this world, and
You Are Here has a solid cast of Canadian
performers to bring these people to life. The core
of the movie is Tracy Wright’s subtle, humorous,
and moving portrayal of The Archivist.
“I think Tracy’s performance sums up everything I
was hoping this movie could do,” says Cockburn.
“On the first day, we had her reciting all of these
cryptic, cerebral monologues I’d written for
her – the kind of thing that I typically have done
myself in my video art. And she’s going on,
talking about her filing methods, how she keeps
finding all these documents from other worlds,
and she doesn’t know why. Pretty dry stuff, you’d
think… and then all of a sudden her voice starts
to crack. And there’s a tear rolling down her
cheek. Nobody on set expected that to happen,
least of all me. It even took Tracy by surprise.
But there she is, trying to deal with this world she
doesn’t understand, and she’s crying, and we all
understand why. It made perfect sense.”
I’m gonna get a map of the
world And put it on my wall
And put pins in it, on all the
places I visit.
But first I’m gonna have to
visit the top two corners,
so the map doesn’t fall
down.
– Mitch Hedberg
After navigating a universe of mindbending ideas, YOU ARE HERE finds its
way back to earth and connects us emotionally to the characters, and
their own universal, humorous, and tragic attempts to connect to
another human being.
ABOUT
DANIEL
COCKBURN
(Writer/Director)
Daniel Cockburn’s diverse catalogue of short
films and videos have been screened at over 80
festivals and galleries worldwide. He is a subject
of Mike Hoolboom’s recent book “Practical
Dreamers: Conversations With Movie Artists”
(Coach House Books 2008), a recipient of the
K.M. Hunter Artists Award for Film & Video,
and a 2009 guest of the prestigious DAAD Berliner
Künstlerprogramm filmmaker residency.
“Daniel Cockburn plays at the intersection of avantgarde and narrative cinema. Bringing together
innovative storytelling strategies with structuralist
experimentation, he breaks open day-to-day reality
to reveal the strange codes beneath. Self-reflexive
to the point of neurosis, Cockburn is fascinated with
how moving images can illuminate the structures and
rhythms of our lives; he is forever looking for hidden
meaning in randomness and patterns in chaos.
Cameron Bailey, Co-Director of the Toronto
International Film Festival, called him “Toronto’s
best new video artist… shockingly inspired”;
legendary experimental filmmaker Mike Hoolboom
said “He has a rare literary talent… a philosophical project leavened with humour”; and critic
Wendy Banks compared his short videos to the
mind-altering stories of Philip K. Dick.
His films and videos are propositions for alternate
dimensions: What if time ran backwards? What if
everything in the world doubled in size overnight?
What if banal thoughts recurred to us at quantifiable
intervals? Cockburn playfully puts language under
the microscope: not only the many spoken and written
words that wind their way through his work but the
vocabulary of cinema itself.” –Jon Davies
In 2009, Pleasure Dome and the Canada Council
for the Arts presented a solo exhibition of Cockburn’s
work entitled You Are in a Maze of Twisty Little
Passages, All Different. The show was accompanied
by the publication of a book of five essays about
Cockburn’s work, written by other notable artists
including Mike Hoolboom, Sheila Heti, and
Don McKellar. Daniel Cockburn’s video work is
distributed by Vtape – www.vtape.org.
You Are Here is his first feature. He is currently
at work on two new screenplays, and just recently
received a major grant from the Canada Council
for the Arts to make a feature-length video artwork.
He is also in development on an experimental
docu-fiction about film criticism. Critics and filmmakers
interested in participating are encouraged to email
criticalmass.movie@gmail.com.
For information on his work and writings, visit
www.zeroFunction.com.
ABOUT
DANIEL
BEKERMAN
(Producer)
ABOUT
TRACY
WRIGHT
Daniel has several projects in post-production and
development through his company Scythia Films.
Tracy Wright is a face many recognize, though
they may not immediately recall her name.
Brother Frank, a feature currently in the
final stages of post, is a naturalistic drama
about a monk being forced out of his
order. Projects in development include: The
Berliner Complex, a psychological thriller; The
House of Wittgenstein, an international coproduction based on the book by Alexander
Waugh; Mathilde, based on the French
play by Veronique Olmi; and the youthdriven documentary project An Inconvenient
Youth, with Oscar winner Louis Psihoyos attached
as mentor director. He has also produced seven
short films, including Nadia Litz’s How To Rid
Your Lover of a Negative Emotion Caused by You! with the Canadian Film Centre.
One of Canada’s most accomplished actors from
theatre, film and television, Tracy declined the
spotlight in favour of immersing herself profoundly
into complex character roles. She was a
founding member of the renowned Toronto-based
experimental theatre group the Augusta Co. with
Don McKellar and Daniel Brooks, with whom
she co-created six groundbreaking productions,
including Indulgence and 86: An Autopsy. Most
recently she appeared to great acclaim in the Da
Da Kamera production A Beautiful View, which
also toured in Canada and the U.S. Tracy’s film
credits include Bruce McDonald’s Highway 61,
Patricia Rozema’s When Night is Falling, Atom
Egoyan’s Sarabande, Jeremy Podeswa’s The
Five Senses, Bruce McCulloch’s Dog Park and
Superstar, Don McKellar’s Childstar and Last
Night, and the extremely successful indie-release
of 2005, Me and You and Everyone We Know
by Miranda July. Television appearances include
Twitch City, Dice, The Kids in the Hall, and It’s
Me Gerald.
In December of 2009, Wright was diagnosed
with pancreatic cancer, to which she succumbed
on June 24th, 2010, a mere six months later
- profound loss for her family, friends, and a
worldwide community of fans who held great
respect for the actress’s unflinching vulnerability,
intelligence, and talent. Before she passed away
she made one more film, with director Bruce
McDonald – Trigger – written by friend Daniel
MacIvor, and co-starring Molly Parker and her
husband Don McKellar. Her performances in
You Are Here, Trigger, and the many films she
made before she became ill, including definitive
performances in Miranda July’s Me and You and
Everyone We Know and Reg Harkema’s Monkey
Warfare, are her legacy.
Tracy Wright 1959-2010.
THE
CAST
The ArchivistTracy Wright
The Lecturer
R.D. Reid
The ExperimenterAnand Rajaram
The Assistant Nadia Capone
Voice of the PhilosopherHardee Lineham
The Trackers
VernaShannon Beckner
HalRichard Clarkin
Sharon
Jenni Burke
BobRobert Kennedy
The Field Agents
MarcieNadia Litz
EdgarAlec Stockwell
Narrating AlanScott Anderson
Alan in the stairwellEmily Davidson-Niedoba
The Children
Shae Norris
Rosie Elia
Isaac Durnford
The InventorPeter Solala
Child’s VoiceLondon Angelis
Red Eye Vox Pops
Linlyn Lue
Vasanth Saranga
Stephen R. Hart
THE
FILMMAKERS
Written and Directed byDaniel Cockburn
Produced by Daniel Bekerman
Daniel Cockburn
Executive Producers Matthew Stone, Brenda Goldstein
Director of PhotographyCabot McNenly
Production DesignerNazgol Goshtasbpour
EditorDuff Smith
Supervising Sound Editor Fred Brennan ComposerRick Hyslop
Line ProducerHeather K. Dahlstrom
Costume DesignerOlivia Sementsova
Casting Millie Tom
Art DirectorStephanie Chris
Set DecoratorSophia Chirovsky
Set DresserAlexander Narizini
First Assistant Art DirectorAndrew Redekop
”Chinese Room” Book TextAmos Latteier
GraphicsNazgol Goshtasbpour
Art Department P.A.Stephanie Wyman
First Assistant DirectorPatrick Hagarty
Second Assistant DirectorsPenny Charter
Christen Reynolds
Third Assistant DirectorBrandon Balon
Assistant Directors
Jeff Muhsoldt
Patrick Murphy
Key Hair Stylist / Makeup Artist Lauren Fisher
Assistant Hair & Make-upVivian Orgill
Trina Brink
Assistant Costume DesignerLina Li
Wardrobe AssistantsAmy Poon
Julianna Clarke
Lead Sound MixerMatthew Harrold
Sound Editors
James Bastable
Gabe Knox
MusiciansAndrew Downing
Bob Stevenson
Rick Hyslop
Music Mastering
Jeff Elliot
Visual EffectsRobert James Spurway
Production CoordinatorAaron Horton
Assistant Production Coordinator Farrah Yip
Production AssistantMichael Pivar
Sound RecordistRebecca Conrad
Additional CastingCrystal Kramer
Editor of Inventor Segment Daniel Cockburn
Stunt Coordinator Darren Marsman
Associate Producer
Hans Jain
Script supervisorTiffany Wong
Production AccountingMelanie Smith
GafferNathan Taylor
Key GripWilkin Chau
GripSamuel Rudykoff
Grip/Electric SwingIgor Alves
1st assistant cameraMike Dawson
1st assistant cameraCylvan Desrouleaux
1st assistant cameraMichael Bailey
2nd assistant cameraMichael Reid
Camera traineeMyles Borins
Still photographerHeather K. Dahlstrom
ProjectionistAntonella Bonfanti
Actra StewardRichard Todd
Transportation coordinatorKen Stanbury
Story editorDemetre Eliopoulos
Craft & cateringHeidi Eisenhauer & Jules Pereiracatering
CateringLes Louises
Additional archival material
Jonathon Hunter
Daniel Cockburn
Cabot McNenly
Duff Smith
Simon Willms
John Price
Brenda Goldstein
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POSTER: LISA KISS DESIGN, TORONTO