California dreaming

Canadian director Katrin Bowen explores a struggling actress’s despair in Amazon Falls

Katrin Bowen remembers the morning of February 4, 2003 perfectly, though she says she wishes she could forget it. It was on that morning that she heard a television news report about legendary music producer and songwriter Phil Spector having shot and killed a waitress in his California mansion.

But when she heard the name of the victim, Lana Clarkson, she was floored. In the 80s, Bowen, then a wide-eyed 20-something who’d been brought up Mennonite in Alberta, had headed to California in pursuit of the elusive acting dream. There, she waited tables when she wasn’t acting in cheeseball Z-movies like Fortress of America, made by sleaze merchants Troma Studios. But while dodging the advances of older men at the bar and hustling to audition for more roles, Bowen said there was one thing she could always rely on: “Lana always looked out for the younger women, myself included.”

When Bowen learned of Clarkson’s fate more than 15 years later, she was heartbroken: “When I heard the news, I thought, ‘There but for the grace of God go I.’ I mean, that could have hap­pened to anyone. If I’d been better at B-movies, I’d probably still be in that scene myself.”

The Vancouver-based Bowen decided that the stories of struggling actresses in L.A.—in particular, one actress who is facing down the harsh realities that come with a 40th birthday—would be fodder for a winning film. Amazon Falls explores the life of Jana (April Telek), a good-hearted woman who is frantically searching for a film role.

We see her descend into the hellish reality of the business, as she goes from audition to audition, degraded by producers who neglect to tell her about the nudity requirements until the final moments of their meetings. She keeps thinking she has landed a role, only to learn that the producers have handed the part over to a (much) younger actress instead. To make ends meet, Jana works as a hostess in a dive bar where men often expect “extra services” from the ladies who are serving them.

Though the isn’t-the-underside-of-Hollywood-hell? premise is well-worn, Amazon Falls is brought to life by a fine cast. “I felt extremely lucky to gather this group of people for the cast,” Bowen says. “One weak link would have ruined everything. If you don’t believe all of it, it just won’t work.” The film is buoyed by the central performance of Telek, a former Miss Canada (1994), who knows a thing or two about showbiz.

“Early on, April showed me that much of her hair was actually wigs and extensions. She told me she’d be willing to take them off for a breakdown scene if I wanted her to. She was always very committed to the role, and the extremes that came with it.”

Making her first feature on a shoestring, and getting it into the Toronto International Film Festival last September, Bowen has been elated at the responses to Amazon Falls. “Making a feature film is not an impossible fantasy. It can be done—it’s within reach. That was the best part about the learning curve for me…I needed to know I’d actually enjoy it—and I did.” ■

AMAZON FALLS OPENS THIS FRIDAY, JULY 1

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