You find the real heart and soul of the Toronto film festival in the shadow of the parade of stars, away from the red carpet, far from the madding crowds.
Renuka Jeyapalan perfectly represents that alternative universe. She is a 28-year-old, Toronto-born, Canadian Film Centre-trained writer-director who made her filmfest debut with Big Girl, a 14-minute short in Short Cuts Canada.
"It's my first big film and we got into the festival and it's amazing," Jeyapalan tells the Sun. "It's a huge honour. This was my coming out party, my debut at the film festival."
Big Girl, beautifully acted by beguiling child actress Samantha Weinstein and charming leading man Kris Holden-Ried with Patricia Fagan in support, is the story of a girl who literally tests her mom's new boyfriend.
The story is set against the edgy music of Leslie Feist, the Canadian musician who offered her songs for free. Jeyapalan used the music to counterbalance the emotions in the story. The overall effect is impressive and the film has dazzled audiences and captivated programmers from other festivals.
"I don't think I'll know until after the film festival what the point of it all is," Jeyapalan says, "but I know it's just good to have exposure, to be seen. So you want to make use of that success, make use of that exposure, as a launching pad for your next project, for my feature film plans."
Jeyapalan is exactly the kind of fresh new voice that Canadian cinema needs, says Holden-Ried. She is young, talented, a woman of colour, highly intelligent and easy to work with because she collaborates with her actors, he says in admiration. Like Weinstein, he also worked for free.
"The experience I get working in short films is why I'm in this industry. Short films are one of the last places in our industry where it's really about the collaboration and where the creative process is really allowed to flourish. When you're working on commercial projects, especially American television, you're not involved in any decision-making. You're just 'a meat puppet' -- which a lot of actors will take offence to, but I think they all know what I mean. The work that happens in short films is, to me, what it is all about."
Weinstein echoes Holden-Ried's take on Jeyapalan. "It was really great to work with Renuka because she was really easy to work with. There was so much co-operation between us and we really communicated."
Jeyapalan graduated from the University of Toronto in biochemistry. "I was going to be a doctor," she says. "My parents, my family, wanted me to be a doctor. But I always wanted to make movies. It was a dream job. I didn't know anyone in the business at all. I Just knew I had to do it."
Despite the disapproval of her family, she worked in the medical field after graduation but went to Ryerson for tech training, making a series of short films that served as her apprenticeship for the Film Centre.
Jeyapalan says, "Going to the Film Centre completely changed my life on every level. I found my voice as a filmmaker there. I'm still shocked that they let me in, I really am. It's a great place.
"But I can't do anything else. I don't want to. I'm totally myself when I'm directing and you shouldn't want to be anyone else but yourself."
