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Vancouver girl, 10, at the heart of Gilliam's strange new tale, Tideland
TORONTO (CP) - Jodelle Ferland is a 10-year-old from Vancouver who likes listening to Avril Lavigne and watching the Simpsons. This weekend, however, she is at the Toronto International Film Festival promoting a film filled with dead bodies, decapitated dolls and drug addicts.
"(It was) great," a giggling Ferland says of her experience starring in Terry Gilliam's Tideland, which had its world premiere this weekend at the city's yearly cinema bash.
Shot in Saskatchewan's Qu'Appelle Valley last year, the movie co-stars Jeff Bridges and Jennifer Tilly as the heroin-addled parents of Ferland's character, Jeliza Rose.
As with many of Gilliam's films, Tideland is not for the faint of heart, filled with disturbing images, grotesque characters and stomach-turning plot twists. The British director himself has described the project as "Alice in Wonderland meets Psycho."
At the heart of it all is Ferland. As Jeliza Rose, she is eerily composed as she helps her junkie parents shoot up each day. Ultimately, she is forced to go it alone - with the help of a expansive and fantastical imagination.
But the actress, who started performing when she was two, seems oblivious when asked about the adult nature of the role.
"I got it," she says, when asked about Gilliam's far-out vision. Co-star Brendan Fletcher, who plays a mentally damaged man who befriends Jeliza Rose, has high praise for his young co-star, calling Ferland "technically brilliant."
"She's definitely projecting something that's way beyond her years," said the 23-year-old actor, who also hails from Vancouver.
"I don't know where the experience comes from, but somehow you just kind of trust it, I didn't really draw much attention to it. It kind of tripped me out a little bit when I'd look at her eyes and see someone much older."
Fletcher has equally kind words for Gilliam, whose films include this summer's The Brothers Grimm as well as Twelve Monkeys, Brazil, Monty Python's Life of Brian and The Fisher King (also starring Bridges).
"Working with him is every bit as good as people say," says Fletcher. "His movies are strikingly original and very interesting. . . . It's a chance to be kind of on the edge of what people's expectations are and really pushing the envelope."
Ferland, for her part, says the British director is "funny" and "nice."
For the youngster, Toronto's festival is a bizarre place. Her mother firmly tells her she won't be attending any of the late-night parties the event is known for. Ferland's only wish is that she might run into a favourite actor who starred in another Gilliam film: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
"Johnny Depp," she says with yet another giggle when asked which movie star she'd most like to meet.
Tideland is set to open in the spring.
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