Today – Wednesday, July 26 – is Funeral Day in Vancouver.
The feature film – which follows hypochondriac Los Angelian Scott as he endeavours to bring meaning to his life on the day of his best friend’s funeral – has its Vancouver premiere tonight at VIFF’s Vancity Theatre.
Funeral Day is the brainchild of UBC alumnus Jon Weinberg (who stars and directs) and Vancouver-based screenwriter Kris Elgstrand, the latter of whom won accolades on the festival circuit for his quirky 2014 musical dramedy Songs She Wrote About People She Knows.
Elgstrand drew inspiration for Funeral Day from his own anxieties around death and aging. “When somebody dies, and whenever I get that kind of news, I guess I have a very selfish response: It always makes me incredibly anxious, and I think, ‘Oh, my god, what if I die tomorrow, have I done what I wanted to do?’” says Elgstrand in a recent phone interview.
In Funeral Day, Weinberg’s character discovers what he believes to be a tumour in one of his testicles on the very morning he is expected to attend his friend’s funeral. Says Elgstrand: “The older we get, the more funerals you’re obligated to attend, and I thought, ‘What if somebody declined to go to one of these funerals and was getting some grief?’”
Here’s how VIFF’s Vancity Theatre’s web site describes Funeral Day: “Scott’s best friend is dead. But he’s not going to the funeral. A congenital neurotic, he knows he can’t handle it - and in any case he thinks he may be terminal himself. So instead he’s going to live this day as an affirmation of life and the capacity for change and self-improvement. He’s going to seize the day even if it kills him.”
The events of Funeral Day unfold in real time. “I started in theatre, and what I was always drawn to in theatre is really the unfolding of real time, and watching condensed interactions,” says Elgstrand, who met Weinberg in the Vancouver theatre scene in the early 2000s. “It ups the conflict and the pressure on the characters.”
In the case of Funeral Day’s real-time pacing, there’s also the comedic offshoot that “you can’t substantially change your life in the course of one day, so there’s acknowledgment of that futility,” says Elgstrand.
Funeral Day – which is currently journeying through the North American festival circuit and netted a Best Director Award for Weinberg at the Austin Revolution Film Festival – also stars Tyler Labine (Tucker and Dale vs. Evil), Suzy Nakamura (Dr. Ken), Jed Rees, Tygh Runyan, Dominic Rains (2016 winner of Tribeca Film Festival’s Best Actor Award for The Fixer), Kristin Carey, Rahnuma Panthaky, Sarah Adina, Jeremy Radin, Ron Butler, and Matt Kohler.
Tonight’s Vancity Theatre screening will be followed by a Q & A featuring Jon Weinberg and Kris Elgstrand. Tickets and screening information at https://viff.org/Online/default.asp?BOparam::WScontent::loadArticle::permalink=fc9367-funeral-day.
