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In short, BC's kids are alright
From Cameron Bright (X-Men: the Last Stand) to Brett Kelly (Bad Santa), B.C. has a knack for turning out preternaturally wise kid actors.
The festival showcases a couple of those kids in short films -- Swimming Lessons, starring Jodelle Ferland and The Saddest Boy in the World, starring Benjamin B. Smith.
Both shorts have a comically gloomy take on life, with Ferland as a kid who looks on the local swimming pool with wordless trepidation, and Smith as a misfit who can't even get a break when the ice-cream truck comes down the street.
Both Swimming Lessons director Ellen Raine-Scott and Saddest Boy's Jamie Travis say they were amazed by their young actors.
"[Ferland] actually kind of depresses me -- I feel like an underachiever by comparison," says Raine-Scott of her 12-year-old collaborator.
Raine-Scott, who works in advertising, has two shorts and a documentary to her credit. Ferland, who's being home-schooled, has a double-digit resume capped with lead roles in this year's Silent Hill and Tideland. She's currently filming the thriller Case 39 with Renee Zellweger.
"I was looking for a little kid who could carry a lot of screen time and there's not a lot of dialogue," says Raine-Scott. "I needed someone who could tell a story with her body language and facial expression."
Raine-Scott sent her script to Ferland's agent. "I was talking to her people for a while."
When Ferland got busy last year, Raine-Scott waited for her until year's end. The resulting film is a droll delight.
Ferland talks while on a break from the Zellweger movie, which wraps in mid-November. "I play an abused child and Renee is a social worker who saves me -- and then weird things start happening."
Weird happens a lot in Ferland's movies. In Tideland, she's the orphaned child of drug addicts, pretending that her parents are still alive. In Silent Hill, she's a ghostly kid. "I had the creepy makeup, a bunch of veins and stringy hair."
But ask her for the secret of being serious onscreen and she laughs. "Nope. I don't know. I just do."
Travis, the 27-year-old writer and director of The Saddest Boy in the World, says these serious kids might just be a product of serious people making indie films in Vancouver.
"A lot of films that come out of Vancouver are gloomy and off the beaten track," says Travis. "Young filmmakers often shoot childhood as a subject. It makes sense that all these kids would be gloomy."
His movie about a boy who wants to hang himself on his birthday is funnier than you'd think, like a child's morbid suburban dream.
He found young actor Smith, now 11, two years ago.
"[Working with] Ben's not like working with other kids because he's so smart. It's like talking to an adult," Travis says. "You just know he's listening and absorbing. I wouldn't say the experience was even like working with a kid."
Smith's resume goes back five years and includes a co-starring role opposite Tom Green and Brooke Shields in last year's Bob the Butler. Travis says he's finished working with kids for the moment. He's working on a feature script.
"I'm switching gears now. I'm trying to do a darkly comedic suspense thriller, with no children."
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