About
As a successful cartoonist, painter and animation producer I'm best known for my fun/kinky, sweet/creepy characters and environments, and an absurdist/dream-like approach to narrative. My 2016 Norwegian Film Institute-produced short film, "The Absence of Eddy Table" won several international awards, and around that same time, I served as the Executive Producer on two major studio television series based on my creations.
But one of my long time ambitions has always been to bring all the knowhow I've accumulated in those other fields and apply it to live action filmmaking.
I will take the luscious, bad-ass, bursting-at-the-seams, confident type of woman that I've obsessed over in all the media I'm best known for and bring her into the realm of cinema- while giddily making the most of the new tools of motion and sound on my creative palette. Think: the jiggling, overflowing, body positive exploits of a manic, sensual, effervescent crazy lady, immersed in a throbbing, dissonant audio soundscape. ...David Lynch and Russ Meyer thrust into a mud wrestling ring?
As an adolescent, I was deeply influenced by the great David Cronenberg (I was even honoured to be able to hire, and direct him as voice talent on an episode of my tv show PIG GOAT BANANA CRICKET). Where the films of Cronenberg inspired the term "body horror" back in the 80s, my fascination with the female form is a manic, celebratory one. "body monomania"? "body delirium"?
In Squash I'll be expressing/expelling/celebrating a number of visual and character concepts that have been festering in my id over the past many years. I'll be exploring the exploits of one self-assured, confident character who's crazy about her own body, all her bulges and crevices, teeth and gums. She can get so worked up that her enthusiasm initiates a wildly vibrating bosom and muffin top. I'll explore the visual and narrative potential of flesh stretched and pressed, exhibiting its elasticity and beautiful cellulite. Slippery dental contraptions, a vintage vibrating exercise machine, custom-engineered nipple prosthetics that mimic the grossly exaggerated anatomy of the figures in my oil paintings, vintage automobiles, a body-outrageous crazy lady- what more could you ask for?
Come along for the ride and be one of the first to get behind this virgin Film Director Persona of auteur, Dave Cooper!
• Dave Cooper, Writer/Director/Executive Producer
Dave Cooper has been swirling through a creative whirlwind over the past several years, serving many personal projects at once. Currently he's working on his largest solo gallery show to date, for Paris in 2020. He's just finished his largest ever commission, a 13' wide oil painting tribute to Bosch's The Garden of Earthly Delights- for the renowned Madrid museum, Coleccion Solo. In the fall of 2019 "Pillowy, the Art of Dave Cooper", a 400-pg retrospective will be released from France's Cernunnos Publishing. But always there are more projects on the to-do list to be tackled. Film has always taken a back seat- until now. Dave's first live-action short film goes into production in the fall of 2019. It's the first in a series of film projects that will incrementally grow in length and scope. Ultimately Dave will write and direct a feature film based on a graphic novel that he's writing now.
• Cassia Scully, Actress
Cassia Scully is an Ottawa-based actress, model, and burlesque dancer. You can see her perform every month at the historic Mayfair Theatre as part of Canada's #1 Rocky Horror Picture Show Shadow Cast, The Absent Friends - which she has been a part of for seven years. Cassia has been scintillating various bar patrons with burlesque for the past three years. She is also an International Development student, film buff, tattoo enthusiast, foodie, traveler, and music lover.
• Horseman, Pass By, Music
Horseman, Pass By is a Havelock/Ottawa-based duo of Bennett Bedoukian (Drums and Electronics) and Mark Molnar (Cello and Electronics). Their material is comprised of improvisation, white noise transmissions across rural easement posts, and heavily choreographed rhythm and melody, combining the drone rattles of an old diesel engine with the frenzied calls of masses of mating passerines. The music is at times startling and ecstatic on the two and four, while unflinchingly scraping around the crevices of the bottomlands in an attempt to lay low in the age of irony. They released their debut album - ALL CURSES ARE MIRRORS - in 2019.
• Sarah Fodey, Producer
An accomplished Producer, Writer, and Director, Sarah Fodey’s twenty-two-year career in motion storytelling has spanned feature films, scripted series, factual entertainment, and documentary production. Sarah has created content for networks including CBC, Global, APTN, Comedy, Bravo!, TVO, Unis, and TFO. In 2018, Sarah wrote and directed the feature-length documentary The Fruit Machine, which chronicles the survivors of Canada's public service homosexual purge uniting to seek justice. Fruit Machine was nominated Best Documentary by the Canadian Screen Awards.
• Patrick Kaplin, Director of Photography
Patrick Kaplin is a freelance cinematographer residing in Thailand and Canada. His work has been screened at the Montreal World, Vancouver International, Karlovy Vary, Raindance and Toronto International film festivals as well as major networks such as CBC, PBS, APTN and Canal D.
Patrick’s most recent project, Skindigenous, is an international documentary series focusing on the preservation and revival of indigenous tattoo practices from various cultures around the world. His work on the series garnered him a Canadian Screen Award nomination for Cinematography.
Risks and challenges
The risks and challenges I foresee are few. I've assembled an amazing, passionate team. My rewards are all realistic, and i'm excited to deliver them. Once the film is complete we will be entering it into a number of festivals. The reception it gets I can only guess- that's probably the biggest unknown quantity. I know that this will be the first of many projects, each of which will be more remarkable than the last.
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