Jairus Khan is a DJ, electronic musician, promoter, and recovering goth. Releasing electronic music as Ad·ver·sary and as part of the duo Antigen Shift, his work has been written about in media as diverse as Shameless Magazine, Coilhouse, and Oxford University Press’s Critical History of Industrial Music.
He co-founded Ottawa’s ‘Dark Carnival’ arts and music festival, which combined live music with interactive artistic performances, including metal sculpting, fire breathing, robotics, and other experimental arts.
In recent years he has moved to Toronto, where he lives with three formerly-feral cats in search of Adventure.
Beatriz Yuste is an actor and writer living happily in Toronto. She speaks English, French and Spanish. Her family is from Madrid. She likes fried clams, funny-smart people and Bigfoot. She used to be a tour guide in Peru, hiking the Inca Trail 25 times. She starred in Anita Doron’s feature “Mystico Fantastico”, which was shot on the Beach of the Dead in Mexico, and premiered at Cinequest to rave reviews. She has worked with many award- winning directors, including John Madden, Richard Donner and Bruce MacDonald.
She has written six short films and directed one. Currently, Beatriz is writing her first feature script Milk of Human Kindness.
There have been a number of films over the years that have dealt with the doppelganger theme, that is, the possibility that there is someone out there who looks exactly like you do. It is the principle behind THE PRINCE AND THE PAUPER and Denis Villeneuve’s recent ENEMY, for example. But in this ingenious new comedy from first time director Katherine Schlemmer, we find our mild-mannered IT specialist confronting what can only be called a double doppelganger situation.
At first, officials come to his door looking for a man with the same unusual name. What are the odds with a name like Naardlinger? It turns out his namesake has gone missing, so our hero goes looking for him in the Toronto ravines. Instead, his quest turns up the missing man’s identical twin brother. Meanwhile Carl’s wife Pam is unnerved when she wishes the neighbour dead, and that is exactly what happens.
What is going on? Can there be some higher power that is pulling on strings to spite the Naardlingers? Originality and laughs at every step, DEATH (AND LIFE) is the calling card of a fresh new female directorial voice.
The Film Corner with Greg Klymkiw (full review link)
Wednesday, 30 November 2016
THE DEATH (AND LIFE) OF CARL NAARDLINGER by Katherine Schlemmer
(excerpt)
Katherine Schlemmer’s sprightly directorial debut yields a queerly delightful comedy of coincidence which leads its characters and the audience on an odyssey into the very heart of what it means to be human in a seemingly apportioned world that, below its surface, roils with crises of identity. Much of the film is delivered by its superb cast in perfect deadpan, so much so, that at one point, when the film explodes into a volcano of mad, manic overlapping dialogue, the effect is as jolting as it is hilarious.
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