A trio of Vancouver filmmakers are taking their documentary about one of the city's most intriguing characters on the road next month, after being selected for the prestigious South By Southwest Film showcase.
The Sandwich Nazi tells the story of Salam Kahil, owner of La Charcuterie Deli in the Port Kells neigbourhood of Surrey, and will get its world premiere at the legendary music and arts festival in Austin, Texas.
"We're excited, for sure," says director Lewis Bennett. "[SXSW] is a great showcase for independent films… I think it will be a good fit."
Bennett's documentary focuses on Kahil, who has become somewhat of a local celebrity for serving up infamously large sandwiches with a generous side of crude humour and verbal abuse. When he's not swearing at his customers or publicly exposing himself, Kahil can be found in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, where, once a month, he packs up more than 500 bagged lunches to distribute to the homeless and downtrodden residents there.
The documentary started out as one of a series of short films Bennett made in 2012 about local quirky personalities.
"The first time I went into the deli, he immediately started giving me shit," says Bennett. "He asked if I was an undercover cop, do I like guys, and he started telling me about his penis. I couldn't believe the stuff that was coming out of his mouth, especially in front of these little Scandinavian ladies."
But as Bennett got to know Kahil, he soon discovered there was more to his story than big sandwiches and a dirty mouth.
After leaving his native Lebanon in the late '70s, Kahil lived in Saudi Arabia, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Spain, and Cypress, before arriving in Canada in 1985. In addition to being an amateur painter, art collector, nude organist, and a mechanical engineer, Kahil is frank about his past as a male prostitute, and as a victim of repeated physical and sexual abuse in his youth in Lebanon.
"At first I was drawn in by the comedy, but there's layers upon layers to his story," says Bennett. "And the more we looked into his life, we realized that most everything he said was true, in one way or another."
Bennett, along with producers Calum MacLeod and Benjamin Taft, have been working feverishly to finish the film, which just finished shooting just a few months ago, in time for the festival.
"We all work full-time, so there's no weekends and evenings for anyone right now," says Bennett. "We're all super exhausted, but it will be worth it months from now."
The film was totally independently made, and other than $10,000 raised through a crowdsourcing campaign, was financed by the filmmakers themselves.
Bennett says he hopes to take the documentary to other independent film festivals, and hopefully land a distribution deal in the future.
"We're going to bring Sal down with us to Austin," says Bennett. "He says he's going to buy cowboy boots and a cowboy hat. I suspect he'll be the centre of attention."
• For more info on the The Sandwich Nazi, visit TheSandwichNazi.com
