Fortescue Release Day

 I was trying to think of why I like Fortescue so much: it’s the story of two young women in Ontario cottage country trying to get a play off the ground, when one of their boyfriend’s show up and shake things up. That’s just the plot, which should be enticing enough, because it’s really well done. But there’s more to it than that.

For anyone who has been following the films of Rebeccah Love there’s such an intense satisfaction of finally seeing her first feature-length film after almost a decade of shorts. 

I think it was Brecht that spoke of the fragment, the self-contained miniature, different then say a draft or unsatisfactory short. Love’s work is full of these fragments, small artworks in themselves that shine much brighter than their size.

I think Fortescue is best described as a kaleidoscope: a small optical device that when you turn you see all of these beautiful shifting colours and shapes. It’s almost like a diamond: shiny and reflective, but there’s also something about it that’s imperfect, almost as if this diamond was cracked, not idealistic. Fortescue takes on such dark energy, trouble, and conflict.

Even in this remote Haliburton setting, in the middle of summer, with all of these beautiful people, the violence of the world still has a way to infiltrate it.

There’s this dichotomy of such beautiful images and such pain that makes Love work so raw, meaningful, and vital.

And it’s on full display here as equally it was on everything done prior.

There are hundreds of thousands of films out there, but there’s only one Rebeccah Love feature, Fortescue. And that’s why we need to love it.

I’ll be moderating the q&a with Love and her actors tonight after the 6:30PM screening at the Carlton.

Fortescue at the Carlton (July 24-25-26)

 I’m happy to announce that I’ll me moderating a panel discussion with Rebeccah Love and part of the cast of Fortescue at its Thursday, July 24^th screening at its Carlton Cinema screening (6:30PM). 

After its premiere at the Forest City Film Festival in the Fall and then a tour of Canada before finally having its Toronto premiere in June at Future of Film, these three screenings are a perfect opportunity for local audiences to come check out the film.

It’s a perfect summer film: Set in Haliburton, two best-friends, Lea (Kelsey Falconer) and Gabby (Chelsea Preston), one an actress and the other a playwright, idle in the sun, hang out by the water, meet neighbours and friends, rehearse, and one of their boyfriends, Kevin (Tyson Coady), even drops by.

Under the omnipresent heat, tensions of a crowded cottage, and stress over whether her new play will be a success things start to go awry for the three, and Lea’s past mental health problems slowly resurface.

By one of my favourite Canadian directors, it’s so great to finally discover her first feature-length film in her own city. I can’t recommend Fortescue enough!

Best Canadian Cinema (Rebeccah Love)

As a Canadian cinephile, I think, the three greatest directors that best showcase the originality and novelty of Canadian cinema are Jean-Marc Vallée, Matt Johnson and Rebeccah Love.

Perhaps, they are not necessarily all internationally well-known, and in particular, Rebeccah Love, for now, perhaps a more confidential filmmaker, but after her debut feature film Fortescue had its world premiere at the London Film Festival in 2024, the film is now travelling across Canada, at first going to the West Coast and then going to the East, before it finally plays in Toronto in the spring.

I’ve only written two film reviews in 2024: one for Nicole Dorsey’s Balestra and the other one for Love’s Fortescue.

But inspired by our Canadian hockey team win against the United States this week, and in face of a certain rise of intolerance towards our country, I’m feeling a bit more patriotic than usual and I just wanted to reiterate that the one filmmaker who is doing the most to honour this country cinematographically is Rebeccah Love and in particular, if you can, see her first feature film Fortescue.

It is a must-watch film and the responses that it has been getting so far are incredible.

Fortescue

One of the biggest cinephile pleasures of living in Toronto these past ten years was to follow the oeuvre of local filmmaker Rebeccah Love. From Drawing Duncan Palmer (2016) all of the way through Acres (2017), A Woman’s Block (2018), Ripe (2019), Parlour Palm (2020), Eve Parade (2022) and now Fortescue (2024), Love is proving to not only be one of the most interesting Toronto filmmakers but the most interesting one, I think. 

Sometimes described as the Emily Dickinson of Rosedale, Love’s work, which has resisted institutionalization, seems to be at the margins of the city’s film scene’s preoccupation as it deals with the intimate and the autobiographical, the intersection of art practices and mental illness. 

All the while never staid or didactic, Love’s work, which seems instinctual through her work with actors and sensuous when it comes to cinematography, benefits from cultural influences that extend far beyond cinema, whether it is literature, painting and theatre. 

(Love’s great blog Toronto Arts Report shows that she’s adept in following these developments too). 

I forget what philosopher it was that brought up the distinction between the fragment and the draft or sketch, but Love’s work leans more towards the fragment. In a body of work up to now filled with six official short-films and a feature-length film, and many other more confidential films, along with more confessional writing and unrealized screenplays, photography and illustration, there is almost the quality of a sparkling jewel to everything that Love does. As if these fragments were shards of a diamond broken off a greater one – rough and brilliant –, all of the while containing a sense of wholeness and poetry that stands alone in their more modest smaller form. 

(Notably in opposition to a lot of more “finished” work in the local film scene that feel more incomplete and unsubstantial which, for whatever reason, still gets so many acolytes).

 On Thursday, October 24^th Fortescue finally had its world premiere at the Forest City Film Festival in London, Ontario. It’s to the great honour of this festival that they rightly saw in Fortescue the merits that it holds and programmed it so well – I’ve never been to a nicer red carpet or reception for a film – and also a shame to all other national film festivals for not doing the same.

There was also something of the experience of travelling to London – almost two hours from Hamilton on a FlixBus and across a beautiful autumnal countryside – and of being in this beautiful smaller city in southwestern Ontario that contributed to appreciating Fortescue.

Love’s work always had its own temporality to it, especially in contrast to other Toronto filmmakers (that tend to emphasize the ambition of male protagonists and the business of the downtown core), as it retreats northwards and out-of-town, emphasizing experiences of stillness and contemplation, anxiety and depression.

Fortescue is set in the Haliburton cottage country and by Lake Fortescue (where it gets its name, and also from an old English idiom “Fort-Escu” meaning strong shield).

Fortescue begins with two women in their twenties, Lea (Kelsey Falconer) and Gabby (Chelsea Preston), enjoying each other and nature in this idyllic setting. One’s a playwright and the other one her friend and actress. They’re smiling, enjoying each other’s company, wearing bright clothes, happy.

And then Lea’s boyfriend and actor Kevin (Tyson Coady) arrives, though seemingly nice, a certain brashness emerges, which disrupts the harmonious relationship at the heart of this house. 

A sexual tension arises, conversations start to be more confrontational (discussing privilege and past traumas), Lea starts to experience episodes of psychosis, and another visiting friend Noah (Nickolas Franco) noticing this then decides to leave. The’re all getting ready for Lea’s upcoming production of Rapunzel (that stars Gabby and Kevin), which they’ll put on for their modest community in Haliburton, that includes Ms. Banks (Jacqueline Greer Graham) from the Stratford Theatre Festival that the’re trying to impress.

There’s something about Fortescue that seems new, especially in Love’s cinema, and it’s captivating to see Love bring her themes and craft from her shorts to a full-length feature.

There’s a naturalness and troubling quality to Kelsey Falconer’s performance of a young women experiencing a mental health crisis, which is either on par or equally as interesting as Sarah Swire did in Love’s earlier shorts (and same thing for Kelsey Falconer in her representation of it).

The drama and naturalistic style, sophisticated dialogue and inner anguish of Fortescue made me think of Noah Baumbach’s films (The Squid and the Whale, Margot at the Wedding) or even, and maybe closer to us, Erik Anderson’s My Thesis Film (2018).

Two new qualities in Love’s work that I noticed was its emphasis on women sexuality and putting the perspective of the director in the film watching their own play (anxiously as it couldn’t be rehearsed).

Perhaps one of the most meaningful reflections that I had about Fortescue is that it brought to mind a quote from one of Ezra Pound’s Cantos (LXXXI), “What thou lovest well remains, the rest is dross. What thou lov’st well shall not be reft from thee. What thou lov’st well is thy true heritage.”

Fortescue is bookended by female sorority. Lea’s mental health crisis seems almost instigated by Kevin’s arrival. The utopia that exists between Lea and Gabby is interrupted with his arrival and a positive experience of mental health can only recommence once he departs.

Aside from a critique of a toxic masculinity (which I think is more nuanced and thought-provoking then it is clear-cut, and encourages engagement and conversation), what I took from Kevin and his presence is that he incarnates an external social pressure in artistic production.

Per Ezra Pound, “What thou lovest well remains, the rest is dross.” 

What Lea lovest the most, well, is her friendship with Gabby, it’s where we see her the happiest, the rest is dross, Kevin.

For Love, who values and is outspoken for the need of safe spaces on productions and a healthy work environment, what is the most important are the working conditions on her productions, the friends and people there, and the relationship she has with all of these people (that extend beyond the production schedule). Per Pound, “What thou lov’st well is thy true heritage.”

(When I asked Love about making Fortescue she said it was one of the best experience of her life).

And Kevin, these external pressures, it’s a healthy attitude to reject them and not to be determined by this external validation. It only brings stress and anxiety.

Life is confusing and Love is able to shed light onto darkness when it is especially hard therefore even more necessary.

We owe it to Love to express this so beautifully.