Canadian indie rockers Broken Social Scene recently released their first album in five years, Forgiveness Rock Record. And while you’ll be able to check them out on an upcoming extensive tour schedule, you can also check out some of their concert experience in a less conventional way in the upcoming film,”This Movie Is Broken.”
Directed by Bruce McDonald (“Hard Core Logo”), Canada’s hardest working indie-filmmaker, the picture is a sort of docu-drama compiling actual crowd-sourced audience-shot concert footage of the band with a fictional narrative — written by well-known Canuck scribe/filmmaker Don McKellar — revolving around two lovers (played by little known young actors Greg Calderone and Georgina Reilly from McDonald’s last picture, the aural-zombie movie, “Pontypool”) trying to make their way into a Broken Social Scene concert.
We praised the unique film in our SXSW review, calling it “marvelously chaotic” and featuring a love story that moves “from conventional to unconventional at unexpected moments.” Here’s your first look at the poster to the right, several photos from the film, and the studio-supplied synopsis:
Unbelievable! Bruno (Greg Calderone) wakes up in bed next to Caroline (Georgina Reilly), his long time crush. But tomorrow she’s off for school in France, and maybe she only granted this miracle as a parting gift for her long time friend. So tonight — tonight is Bruno’s last chance. And tonight, as it happens, Broken Social Scene, her favourite band, is throwing a big outdoor bash. Maybe if Bruno, with the help of his best pal Blake (Kerr Hewitt), can score tickets and give Caroline a night to remember, he can keep this miracle alive.
Now if that doesn’t sound like a date movie tailor-made for an indie crowd, then I don’t know what does. No word on when the film will be released in any form in America, but “This Movie Is Broken” will see a Canadian release on June 25th.
Incidentally, the uber-prolific McDonald is already three/four films beyond this one. The inexhaustible filmmaker has finished his, “My Dinner With Andre”-esque story of two estranged female friends who reconnect after years of resentment called “Trigger;” he’s completed principal photography on a New Orleans-set prison documentary called “Music From The Big House;” he’s completed principal photography on his sequel to “Hard Core Logo;” he’s about to shoot a B-movie women’s prison martial arts project titled “Lucky Ho” this summer; and… if that’s not enough, he’s contemplating more projects including a sequel to “Pontypool,” and a Chet Baker-esque jazz film that he hopes will star Stephen McHattie, the aforementioned star of the zombie picture he hopes to sequelize. The filmmaker is pretty much excused if he decides to take the next year off, but while he’s gunning in the fast lane, we hope he continues on his march.
Meanwhile, check out the trailer for “This Movie Is Broken” below and the film’s website for some stills which you can also see here.