SYNOPSISAustin must extricate his father’s body from an abandoned factory following a

copper theft gone wrong.

DIRECTOR’S STATEMENTThis short film, like much of my work, explores a simple, contained human drama — an intimate investigation about ordinary people pushed into an extraordinary circumstance. Both narratively and visually I seek to juxtapose the mundane with the sublime. In this case, a routine outing in a drab suburban processing plant transforms into an epic, lyrical ordeal framed within a sweepingly theatrical industrial space.

I conceived of Father almost five years ago, and the project has benefitted immensely from these intervening years of conceptual refinement. Whereas my initial instinct was to create a fiction film about copper thieving — with a cer-tain socio-political angle regarding the very real and dehumanizing implications of the collapse of the North Amer-ican industrial sector — the piece became one that was far more focused, far more lyrical, and far more personal. In a sense, a personal parable for my relationship with my own father, as played out in this fictive context. While remaining very human and tangible, I feel the short has also grown into a larger meditation on the father/son mythic archetype.

I have felt emboldened to craft a strong visual language for this short. I feel the film’s collision of the minutia of ev-eryday life with moments of transcendence and lyricism — urgent and disorienting close-ups juxtaposed with paint-erly wides — is the closest I’ve come to articulating my personal style as a filmmaker. I feel Father is also the perfect merger of my personal sense of form and content — a happy marriage of my visual style and narrative sensibilities.

DIRECTOR’S BIOGRAPHYJordan Tannahill is a filmmaker and theatre director based

in Toronto. Jordan was the 2014 recipient of the Toronto Arts Foundation’s Emerging Artist Award and the 2011 recipient of

the Inside Out Film Festival’s Emerging Canadian Artist Award. His short films Swim (2011) and Mother (2012) have screened

in major festivals including Vancouver Intl. Film Festival, the Montreal World Film Festival, and the Uppsala Intl. Short Film

Festival (where Tannahill was shortlisted for the Spirit of Ingmar Bergman Award in 2012).

Jordan’s video work has screened in galleries and festivals including the Art

Gallery of Ontario, Pleasure Dome, and the Images Festival. In 2012 Jordan

co-founded Videofag, a storefront cine-ma and new media gallery in Kensing-

ton Market with his partner William Ellis. Jordan’s multimedia performances have been presented in major theatres includ-ing the National Arts Centre of Canada, the Harbourfront Centre’s World Stage, Canadian Stage, and at The Kitchen in

New York City.

writer/director / JORDAN TANNAHILLproducer / SAM LEBEL-WONG

production manager/assistant director / ALEX COLESproduction coordinator / BEN RAYNERscript supervisor / JENNA MACMILLAN

director of photography / SAM LEBEL-WONG1st assistant camera / DANIEL CARUSO

2nd assistant camera / JON ALTAMIRANOdata management / SAM THOMSON

gaffer / MATT RICHARDSON / ARNOLD CAYLAKYANbest boy electric / JAMES BARNETT

key grip / STEVEN BARTELLObest boy grip / JOHN PERRIN

production designer / MIRANDA MORRISset dressers / GIAN DURAN / CALEB WHITE

costume designer / MARY ELYN KEENANkey hair/make-up / RO FORD

location sound / RANDY RESHspecial effects / BRENDAN KRICK

craft service / KATELIN WALTON / ASHLIE REDDENproduction assistant / KEVIN EVANS

editors / JORDAN TANNAHILL / SAM LEBEL-WONGsound designer / KYLE THOMAStitle design / MICHAEL DICARLO

castLEO PADY MACEACHERN

BRENDAN WYATT

technical9:30 MIN / COLOUR / 2.39:1 / STEREO / CANADA / 2014

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