County Adaptation Film Festival

Film festival has a stellar second year

Building upon the success of last year’s inaugural County Adaptation Film Festival (CAFF), this year’s event at the Regent Theatre drew large audiences on each of the three days. CAFF was spearheaded by then festival artistic director Alexandra Seay as a unique type of film festival to stand out in a field of heavyweights such as the Toronto International Film Festival and the Kingston Film Festival. Regent Theatre executive director John Galway has retained the formula of showcasing films that have been adapted from the page or stage, as well as bringing in the directors and writers to take part in moderated discussion panels, shedding light on the machinery behind the productions.

The festival opened on Friday with The Life of Chuck, a movie adapted from a novella by Stephen King, and which was the TIFF People’s Choice Award winner in 2024. A conversation with novelist, screenwriter and playwright Emma Donoghue opened the day on Saturday. Ms. Donoghue discussed adapting her own novel for the screen, and the challenges of adapting a work of fiction written by someone else. The second movie of the festival was Bonjour Tristesse, adapted from the novel of the same name by Françoise Sagan. This is the second adaptation of that novel, with the first being Otto Preminger’s 1958 classic.

The Saturday evening film was Away from Her, Sarah Polley’s 2006 directorial debut adapted from Alice Munro’s short story The Bear Came Over the Mountain. The film was nominated for two Oscars and won seven Genie Awards. It was an almost full house for the movie, and afterwards Ms. Polley appeared via Zoom to speak with author Zoe Whittall and to answer questions from the audience. Ms. Whittall’s asked Ms. Polley when it was that she first read the short story. Ms. Polley said she first read the story at age 24 when she was on an airplane reading The New Yorker where the story was printed. She knew right away that she wanted to make a movie based on the story. Although it was an unusual subject matter for a young person to consider, Ms. Polley at the time already had some experience with nursing homes and the care for people with dementia, as her grandmother was suffering from dementia.

Looking back now, Ms. Polley said her perspective had changed within a decade as she had first-hand experience as a primary caregiver when her father was diagnosed with dementia. “There’s a certain innocence in the movie that wouldn’t be there if I made it now, both in terms of the view on marriage and also in terms of reading the short story. When I read it now, there’s something flinty and a bit ruthless about it. I think I let some of that in, but I really wanted to kind of smooth it out by the end. I think it would be more jagged if I made it now. But I’m not sure if it would have made it better to have known more or be wiser. In some ways, it was a good thing to be young and a bit naïve,” she said. The lead role of Fiona in the film was played by Julie Christie, who at first turned down the opportunity, but changed her mind after Ms. Polley’s second choice also declined the role. “I think she felt sorry for me. She’s a huge supporter of younger artists and I think she wanted to help me make my first film, and I think it was a real act of generosity,” she said. Looking back, Ms. Polley said she really didn’t have confidence in herself as a director. “I kept wondering if people knew how little I knew,” she said. Since then she has directed or produced a number of movies and television series, and in 2022 she won an Academy Award for her adaptation of Miriam Toews’sWomen Talking.

The festival continued on Sunday with The Zodiac Killer Project, a quirky film about adapting a book that you don’t have the rights to. The matinee movie was Paying For It, adapted from the graphic novel of the same name by Chester Brown. The book was adapted by writers Sook-Yin Lee and Joanne Sarazen, and directed by Ms. Lee. The festival concluded with Steal Away, directed by Clement Virgo and adapted from the non-fiction book Steal Away Home by Karolyn Smardz Frost. Screenwriter Tamara Faith Berger and producer Damon D’Oliveria joined director Clement Virgo in a discussion panel at the end of the movie.