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Filmmaker Christopher White finished his first movie with support from the NWT Arts Council and Western Arctic Moving Pictures (WAMP). - Daron Letts/NNSL photo

Life imitates art

Daron Letts
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Aug 05/05) - With a tight budget, and three years of effort, director Christopher White completed his first film.

Pilot: The Original Episodes of the Teenage Wasteland debuts at the Top Knight at 6:30 p.m. Saturday.

White first conceived the film as an arty character drama, but it developed into a satire, influenced by the humour of the Trailer Park Boys, Monty Python and the Family Guy.

"Looking back, it was ambitious," he said. "But we had a blast."

The film is an episodic mockumentary that explores the final work of fictional filmmaker Eugeen Platters as he descends into madness and mediocrity.

Platters' film, which appears as a film within White's film, follows three university students sharing a summer in Yellowknife. They fritter away their time between semesters selling pornography from a government office and organizing a Straight Pride parade.

He wrote and filmed the parade scenes a year before city councillor Alan Woytuik's proposal for a "Heterosexual Pride Day" was rejected earlier this summer.

"We wanted to poke fun at the idea of really insecure men trying to make themselves look masculine," said White. "We wanted to show how preposterous that is."

The government office scene is a biting comment on government efficiency.

"The students trash the place and at the end of the day nobody notices, including the deputy minister," he said.

The actors include Ben Nind and Erica Tesar.

Chris Foreman of the Yellowknife Actor's Studio assisted with costumes.

White funded the film with grants from the NWT Arts Council and Western Arctic Moving Pictures (WAMP).

He plans to show the film on the festival circuit and develop the characters for a TV pilot.