Humane to screen as part of the Calgary Underground Film Festival

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When Caitlin Cronenberg began developing her debut feature film, Humane, with screenwriter and producer Michael Sparaga, she had a specific goal in mind: Make it darker.

Given her last name, it’s tempting to assume this is an impulse inherited from her father, David, the iconic Canadian director who is a master of dark sci-fi, dark satire and the originator of the decidedly dark “body horror” subgenre. But Caitlin Cronenberg, as it turns out, is not really a fan of the horror genre.

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Her favourite films, or the ones she watches the most, are comedies.

“I enjoy watching those movies that give you those moments of reprieve,” she says, in an interview with Postmedia.

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Her vision for Humane had nothing to do with having it fit some preconceived Cronenberg vibe and everything to do with finding the right tone for the darkly comic film, which offers a nail-biting plot that mixes satire, family drama and splashes of horror against a semi-dystopian backdrop.

“I felt that the concept would lend itself to a much darker film than the script originally felt,” says Cronenberg, who will join Sparaga in Calgary on April 19 for a screening of Humane as part of the Calgary Underground Film Festival. “(Sparaga) was really open to that so we worked together to give it a darkness, to get it to a place where it felt a bit more like a thriller alongside the satirical and funny moments.”

Humane is still funny, but it’s also serious in its presentation of the paranoia and resentment that overtakes a well-to-do family one evening when extraordinary circumstances set off a firestorm of violence. The action takes place nine months after a vaguely defined ecological collapse that requires all countries to take extreme measures to reduce the Earth’s population. Since each country has a quota to fill, the government opens a voluntary euthanasia program. Charles York, played by Peter Gallagher, is a wealthy and recently retired newsman who summons his children home to announce that he has decided to “enlist” in the program to help out humanity. As his grown children absorb the news, the family gets a visit from Bob (Enrico Colantoni), a deceptively cheerful government contractor tasked with carrying out the government’s euthanasia on the spot. Charles’ plan does not go as planned and, thanks to some sinister manipulations by Bob, the four siblings soon find themselves at each other’s throats … literally. 

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Much of the humour comes from the cast, which is filled with actors known for their comedic chops. Sparaga wrote the role of Bob with Colantoni in mind, a versatile Canadian actor known for playing the kind-hearted private-eye father, Keith, on TV’s Veronica Mars, playboy photographer Elliott DuMauro on the sitcom Just Shoot Me! and guileless alien leader Mathesar in the sci-fi comedy Galaxy Quest.

Jay Baruchel, known for his comic roles in Knocked Up, Tropic Thunder, Goon and This Is the End, plays eldest sibling Jarod, who has become a government apologist and makes frequent appearances on the news. Emily Hampshire, who played Stevie Budd in the sitcom Schitt’s Creek, plays Rachel, a seemingly cold, corporate type who seethes with anger and resentment. Alanna Bale plays the youngest daughter Ashley, a struggling actress, while Sebastian Chacon plays Noah, an adopted son who is both a former addict and piano prodigy. The York siblings do not get along at the best of times and all are going through some form of strife in their personal lives while dealing with a global catastrophe.

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“People have said ‘What is this film? Is it a horror movie ..?’” says Cronenberg. “It isn’t any one thing. It’s a genre line-crossing film. There’s the family drama, there’s a bit of a thriller, there’s horror elements, it’s funny, it’s satirical. I like that about it, too. It combines all the things that I like.”

While it may seem that part of the premise – at least the global catastrophe part – was inspired by the real-life COVID crisis in 2020, Cronenberg says Sparaga wrote the first draft of the script before the pandemic. It’s not hard to detect some elements – how a massive and publicly shared world crisis impacts intimate and family relationships, for instance – in the final film but Cronenberg says she wasn’t interested in revisiting the pandemic.

“We lived through it, we shot through it,” she says. “I don’t feel the need to live through it again.”

Cronenberg is no stranger to movie and television production. She was often on her father’s sets growing up but has also become an acclaimed stills photographer who has worked on numerous TV and movie productions. She has earned a reputation as a top celebrity portraitist with work in The New York Times, Variety, The Washington Post and Esquire.

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She has directed several music videos and co-directed the 2018 short film The Endings and the surreal, minute-long short film/art project The Death of David Cronenberg, which her father wrote and co-directed. She was thinking about delving into the world of feature films when Sparaga, a longtime friend, e-mailed her the first draft of Humane with the subject line “Have you ever thought of directing?”

Caitlin is now the second second-generation Cronenberg to make feature films following brother Brandon, who has directed sci-fi horror movies such as 2012’s Antiviral, 2020’s Possessor and 2023’s Infinity Pool. Not surprisingly, his work tends to draw comparisons to his father’s. Their mother Carolyn, who died in 2017, was a film editor, director and cinematographer.

David Cronenberg has explored many genres over the decades, including gangster movies (The History of Violence, Eastern Promises), historical drama (A Dangerous Method), psychological thrillers (Spider, Dead Ringers) and satire (Maps to the Stars). But he is arguably still best known for his work in the horror genre and a pioneer of body horror, including early cult-favourite gross-outs such as Shivers and Rabid, and genre classics such as 1986’s The Fly. The Cronenberg name certainly comes with some hefty baggage.

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“I think the only daunting part is that people will have expectations of the kinds of projects that I’m going to take on and what my style will be based on their style,” Cailin says about comparisons to her father and brother. “I’ve been a photographer for 20 years and I feel my style is very different than other members of my family and that’s what makes it fun for all of us because we get to experience different things and approach things in different ways. So I do think that there will be certain people who have an expectation of what my first film should be like and they may be disappointed when it’s not as gory or not as scientific and not as much body horror and that kind of thing. I never intended to set out to be what my father is. I think he would never expect that, nor should anybody really expect that.”

Humane will screen as part of the Calgary Underground Film Festival on April 19 at the Globe Cinema at 9:30 p.m. Caitlin Cronenberg and Michael Sparaga will be in attendance. Human opens in theatres on April 26. 

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