Filmapalooza

>> Pure Chaos festival wings it with film, art, music and fashion

by MATTHEW HAYS

Philippe Bourque sounds a bit frantic. This weekend, he'll launch Pure Chaos, his multimedia event which is primarily a film festival, but which also features visual arts, dance and DJs from around the world. It's an ambitious feat, to launch (yet) another film-related event in a city famous for having too many of them.

"This won't be your average arts event," says Bourque, 26, and though he doesn't seem to realize he's on extremely well-trodden territory, it's hard not to be won over by his sheer enthusiasm.

Bourque has big plans for his Reel Film Festival, an event he says he wants to make an annual dedication to "young, new, innovative and international film." This weekend's event is a testing of the waters, he explains, a multimedia party at which films will be screening, non-stop, but with no schedule for attendees to go by. Instead, after buying their tickets, revellers will enter the Just for Laughs museum to find sculpture and paintings as well as films unreeling, while DJs will be spinning in adjacent party rooms.

Home on the range

What Bourque has done is to collect a very broad range of movies, everything from older fare to a myriad of short local films, including a taut little suspense short by local filmmaker Patrick Moss, Eye to Eye. Bourque is excited about the full spectrum of artists he's assembled at Pure Chaos. New York filmmaker Howie Stratland's short Low Flame will screen, as well as Iranian Shoresh Kalantari's Oscar-nominated The Meaning of Night, Vancouverite Kevin Speckmaier's Middlemen, Concordia Film graduate Kareh Nabatian's poignant, award-winning Malek's Poster and the censored Lebanese film Mr. President. If none of those names grab you, this one should: Bourque managed to convince experimental filmmaking demigod Stan Brakhage to have his North American premiere of his latest, The Jesus Trilogy, at Pure Chaos. If the lack of schedule sounds a bit off-putting, Bourque feels people will enjoy the aura of the event, which, as he points out, is aptly titled Pure Chaos. What may seem odd and unstructured at first glance, he insists, will soon seem fun and spontaneous. (Still, regardless of what he says, some cinema purists will undoubtedly be put off by a carnival-like atmosphere which takes away from the actual movies screening, the same people who argue the arcade-driven contemporary multiplex takes away from the films themselves.) And if the films aren't grabbing your interest, you can always wander through the museum, where distractions will include a DKNY fashion show and 17 new paintings by Swiss artist Urs Kamm.

Chilean inspiration

Bourque says the inspiration for this everything-but-the-kitchen-sink fusion approach came from Chile. "In that country, small towns celebrate art and culture by having the artists bring everything out at a certain time during the year. All of the people from the town then join them in a celebration of the work. I'd like to see the same thing happen here."

Bourque sees his event as a local version of the Chilean party. "We've got 100 artists here from Montreal and Tokyo, Paris and New York," he says. "They will be here to interact with the audience. It's an amazing way for people to showcase their work."

Bourque describes himself as an entrepreneur and film enthusiast, who studied film at Ryerson Polytechnic and then returned to Montreal, hell bent on shaking things up with a new event. Though he's certainly got energy, it must be pointed out that many in Montreal will groan at the concept of yet another film festival, in what feels like an already oversaturated fest landscape. "Yes, I know there are a lot of festivals," he counters. "But I really do want to make this one entirely different, something people haven't seen before.

"Mark my words," he says, perhaps a bit naïvely. "This is going to prove an amazing festival."