Saskatchewan Arts Board

The feature film I Heart Regina received strong critical reaction and warm responses from festival audiences when it debuted at the 34th annual Montreal World Film Festival. The movie was produced with the help of funding from the Saskatchewan Arts Board.

The film combines the work of 14 Regina based directors and more than 200 crewmembers and performers.The Montreal Gazette review gave the film four stars out of five and said, “Its general air of humour and selfdeprecation masks the fact these 13 linked shorts tell us more about the capital city of Saskatchewan and its
inhabitants than any of us outsiders might have known. Sweet, wry, rocking, sorrowful and of a surprisingly uniform standard of DIY excellence, the collection covers the town Mick Jagger said rhymes with fun. Similar themed odes to Paris, New York and Tokyo can't touch it.”

The Gazetteʼs film critic John Griffin followed up with a story on the film after interviewing I Heart Regina filmmakers Jason Nielsen, Vanda Schmockel, Brian Stockton, Mark Wihak and actor Carle Steel. Griffin writes, “I Heart Regina is a remarkably coherent portrait of the men and women who inhabit this city, and whose
quirky individual characters contribute to its collective character.”

The Gazetteʼs culture critic Pat Donnelly was similarly enthusiastic about the film. Donnelly writes, “Its 13 brief slices of life in the Canadian city noted for being as cold as it is flat, have an authentic, improvised feel, with a hearty dose of Western irony. (There's more to Saskatchewan humour than Corner Gas and Little Mosque on the Prairie). The variety in tone, genre and narrative style in I Heart Regina, is impressive. Yet there's a cohesive factor at play that goes beyond shared locale. If it finds an opportunity for export, this modest flick could click with small-city audiences around the world. Especially Australia, I'm thinking.”

The film screened three times at the Montreal World Film Festival and received strong responses from audiences.The World Film Festival moderator who introduced the film said that more people stayed after the screenings for the Question and Answer session with the I Heart Regina filmmakers than any other film he moderated during the festival. One audience member began a Q & A by declaring, “I heart, I Heart Regina.” Next up for the film are screenings at the Regina Public Library Film Theatre, October 21 – 24, 2010, with more Saskatchewan screenings later in the fall.

For more information, visit the website www.iheartreginamovie.com or the Facebook group, I Heart Regina (the movie).

Above: A still from the movie I Heart Regina.