'Nirvanna' screening in Goderich thrills audiences
BY SHAWN LOUGHLIN
Last Thursday night, shrouded in darkness as the screen of Goderich’s Park Theatre continued to glow at the credits rolled for Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie, its creators revelled in hearty applause from the full house and answers questions from eager fans.
The movie - the creation of acclaimed writer and director Matt Johnson and fellow writer and star Jay McCarrol - came to Goderich for a special screening courtesy of Mark Hussey and Curt Lobb, its post-production supervisor and editor, respectively, who have been working with Johnson and Zapruder Films for years, editing their projects at the FauxPop Media headquarters in the former East Street Station.
After the crew dined at Peter and Sarah Gusso’s Part II Bistro, the seats quickly began filling elsewhere on The Square at The Park Theatre. By the time the film was ready to roll, it was single seats only with theatre staff helping latecomers to find any place they could park themselves for the movie.
The film drew big laughs and lengthy applause from those in attendance as they watched the winner of the Toronto International Film Festival’s Midnight Madness People’s Choice Award on the big screen. It follows fictionalized versions of Johnson and McCarrol as they try to make it big as Toronto-based musicians with a goal of playing a show at the city’s storied venue, The Rivoli.
What began as a web series and then as a television series for two seasons on Viceland is now a film that has impressed on the festival circuit, screening to adoring audiences in London, Toronto, Texas and beyond.
After the screening, Johnson, McCarrol, Lobb and Hussey made their way to the front of the screening room to much applause and then fielded questions from those in attendance with the help of someone from the theatre.
Johnson said it was amazing to see the local support for not just Lobb and Hussey but for the Zapruder Films projects. Lobb has been editing Johnson’s work since 2013’s The Dirties and is credited as helping to create the story of Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie as part of a relationship with that project that dates back to film school and the early days of the television series. The group’s relationship with Johnson has been fruitful and it continues to this day, with Lobb hard at work editing Johnson’s next film, Tony, based on the early life of famed chef and television personality Anthony Bourdain and starring Dominic Sessa, one of the stars of the Academy Award-nominated The Holdovers.
Johnson said that the local support can be felt whenever he comes to Goderich for periods of editing or screenings and that authenticity is something with which he’s fallen in love, even noting that he has plans for his wedding to held at the Benmiller Inn this fall.
There were questions about the time travel element of the film, which can always be tricky, as well as a legitimate inquiry as to how Johnson’s hat stayed on during several skydiving scenes that can only be described as movie magic at its finest.
Johnson also talked about the first iteration of the film, which took the characters across the United States, saying there’s a whole second movie that ended up on the cutting room floor. He credited Lobb and his fellow editor Robert Upchurch with being part of the story team, digging through old footage from the show and web series and hatching the framework for the time travel story, which is greatly indebted to the editing, so he initiated a big round of applause for Lobb and Hussey and their work on that aspect of the project.
He also addressed the funding for the project, which was largely accomplished through Canadian and provincial funding bodies and that, because they are able to work so cheaply, they were able to stretch the dollars for the whole second movie, which is what was screened for those in the audience that night.
The foursome also addressed the physical release of the film - a blu-ray and DVD is slated to be in stores in late May - that will include a new post-credits scene that adds further context to the movie. They also noted that later this year the web series and the show should be released in a physical format as well for the first time. Several fans voiced their hopes for a third season of the show, which, in other interviews, Johnson has expressed enthusiasm for and hope that there is a way to make it happen.