by SARAH ROWLAND

“I find Canada sexy.” That’s no typo. Director Clément Virgo truly believes there’s something undeniably sensual about a nation where hockey pools, Timbits and the ever-erotic woolly tuque rule. Not only that, he claims he’s not alone: “You’d be surprised, there’s a few of us out there.” But he does, however, admit that his vamped-up view of the Great White North is rarely reflected in CanCon movies.

“I’ve seen a lot of sex in Canadian films, but it’s always a little weird, twisted and kind of strange,” says the Toronto filmmaker. “I think that we’re into sex, but I’m not sure that we’re interested in being sex-positive and being erotic. So I wanted to explore a different side of Canadian cinema.”

He did so with Lie With Me, a sexually explicit love story about a beautiful club kid named Leila (Lauren Lee Smith). The poor thing knows how to fuck to get what she wants but doesn’t know how to love. That is until she meets co-dependant stallion David (Eric Balfour). Together these love-struck nymphs must overcome their intimacy issues, but not before they screw their way across T-dot.

“I wanted to how how Toronto—and I’m sure it’s the same in Montreal—is such a vibrant and sexy city in the summertime,” says Virgo. “So I wanted a lot of young people, bodies, flesh, sunshine and energy.”

Despite some extraneous voice-overs, Virgo does a pretty hot job of recreating the passion of young, urban romance. Those of you who haven’t felt it move or tingle (depending on your anatomy) in a while will be pleasantly surprised. Conversely, those who like their onscreen softcore served up through a gynecologist lens need not apply.

“I wanted to try to capture what it’s like to spend a Sunday afternoon in bed with your lover from a female point of view,” says Virgo. “I know it’s a cliché, but I think men are primarily visual. It’s enough for a man to look at a dancing half-naked body in strip clubs. So I didn’t just want to be a voyeur—I wanted to go beyond that and get to a more emotional place.”

Which is one of the reasons he cast Balfour in the lead.

“Most of the people that came in to audition just focused on the nudity,” recalls Virgo. “But he talked more about the psychological aspects of the character, 21st-century dating and the relationships between men and women.”

As for the role of Leila, Smith—whom Virgo knew from when he directed her in a few episodes of The L Word—sent him a rather convincing tape of herself to seal the deal. With casting out of the way, the biggest challenge for Virgo was staying true to the script—which was adapted from a novel written by his live-in love Tamara Berger.

“I didn’t know if I could pull it off,” he says about Berger’s Playgirl approach to titillation. “So I had a lot of doubt throughout the whole process. But as an artist, I just knew I had to go to that place that scares me.”

Virgo and Smith will present Lie With Me At Ex-Centris Monday, Oct. 17, 3:40 p.m.

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