Justin Kueber always wanted a Herzog boot, and now he has two, but they aren't for his feet. They've stepped onto his new awards shelf.
The FAVA prizes for screenwriting and directing were very well earned, and, according to him, completely out of the blue. He didn’t even know he was nominated when he showed up at the Rundle Park gala in Edmonton May 29 that was set up like a drive-in movie theatre for appropriate physical distancing purposes.
“I wasn't expecting anything … set up for disappointment right from the beginning. And then they said my name and I was like, ‘Oh, my God.’ Total shock … totally, totally shocked. Surprised. I had to take a few minutes to process it because I've never won anything before,” said the 30-year-old St. Albert native.
His Outstanding Screenwriting Award was for the dark sci-fi Smile: It’s Only the End of the World, while the prize for Outstanding Short Narrative Film was for Black and Blue, an 18-minute short film about a Black granddaughter’s visit with her blind Caucasian grandfather in the nursing home. The visit is initially rough, but any filmmaker worth his salt will tell you difficult characters make for great characters arcs, and often beautiful storylines.
The film took several years from idea to paper to final cut, mostly in the casting of then-seven-year-old Blake Terry as Katie, the child who wins over the grumpy heart of Grandpa Miles, played by veteran actor Paul Boultbee. The role of Katie needed a special talent and Kueber the auteur was satisfied to wait until his search came up for just the right new talent.
The director of photography on the film was long-time Kueber collaborator Sam Reid – both work under the Guerrilla Motion Pictures' banner for the company they created out of Reid’s basement in his parents’ home.
The film's story riffs on some deeply personal issues layered with some heavier and larger social issues. There’s also some great tunes to dance to.
“The basis of it was a couple of people in my life were dealing with Alzheimer's dementia. I wanted to incorporate that and I also wanted to incorporate uplifting jazz and have a nice storyline between a grandpa reconnecting with a granddaughter who sees him as being different. I wanted to explore disabilities; I wanted to explore racism in the 1960s. I also wrote it right after I graduated from university, and one of the biggest things I took was U.S. history, especially in the 1960s, so I really wanted to tie in those race relations to some degree,” said Kueber, adding that the movie Whiplash also played an influence.
Black and Blue made the rounds and touched many hearts at 20 festivals including the Edmonton International Film Festival over a two-year span. His EIFF moment was a dream come true, he said.
