A workshop with Toronto-based Canadian filmmaker and visual artist Randall Okita, and producers of his multi award-winning debut feature film, The Lockpicker.

$10 + taxes: Cineworks Members
$15 + taxes: Concessions and Community Partner Members*
$20 + taxes: General Admission

This workshop is designed to explore, discuss and raise questions about the role of art-making and storytelling in shaping and building community.

How do we engage our communities to find source material, build creative teams and audience networks? How can our stories affect our communities in intentional and unexpected ways?

For community builders, working artists, aspiring creators, filmmakers and fans, this workshop explores ideas through collaborative discussion, group investigation and case study.

Featured Guests: Writer/director Randall Okita will be accompanied by producers of The Lockpicker to discuss their unique and community-engaged approach to making a feature film in partnership with a high school.

The Lockpicker

In 2016, The Lockpicker received the Canadian Academy’s inaugural John Dunning Discovery Award and in 2015, Randall Okita was the recipient of the Toronto Film Critics Association’s Technicolor Clyde Gilmour Award with a cash prize of $50,000, which made the production of The Lockpicker possible.

Filmed in actual Toronto classrooms over the span of two school years with a cast of non-professional teenagers in key roles, this intimate coming-of-age drama follows high school student Hashi (Keigian Umi Tang) as he struggles to maintain a state of calm in the wake of the sudden suicide of his friend. When people close to him are victimized by violence, he is forced to choose between fighting back and becoming what he fears, or leaving behind everyone and everything he knows.

The Lockpicker will be screened at VIFF Vancity Theatre on Tuesday 17 July at 6.30pm, in partnership with Cineworks. Presented as part of the Vancity Impact Series, the film will be followed by a panel discussion, including Randall Okita and members of The Lockpicker production team in conversation with experts in the field of youth care and suicide prevention.

https://bit.ly/2tzFr2U


Randall Okita

Okita is an award-winning Canadian artist and filmmaker whose work employs sculpture, physically challenging performances and stunt-work, and rich cinematography. He is currently in production on The Book of Distance, an international, multi-generational room-scale virtual reality project with the National Film Board of Canada.

Okita’s list of celebrated film works include The Weatherman and the Shadowboxer, Portrait as a Random Act of Violence, Machine with Wishbone and No Contract. His films have been broadcast on television and screened internationally, and he has won awards from film festivals around the world, including the Toronto International Film Festival, Festival du Nouveau Cinema, L.A. Shorts Fest, and the Winnipeg International Film Festival.


Please note: access to membership discounts can be obtained with a Cineworks General Membership ($40 annually). Please call 604-685-3841 for details, or see http://cineworks.ca/connect#join

Accessibility: this venue is wheelchair accessible. All access to the facility is via the lane between Howe/Hornby and Davie/Helmcken. Cineworks' door is to the right at the back of the sheltered parking area at the Helmcken end. Please call 604-685-3841 should you have any questions or concerns.