TORONTO – As the COVID-19 pandemic upended every day life a number of years in the past, R.T. Thorne discovered himself going through “existential fears.”
With the meals provide chain disrupted and folks stockpiling rest room paper, the Calgary-born director began questioning whether or not the world he knew was ever as steady because it appeared.
“If a sickness that we can’t even control knocks us off our rocker like that, are we really that safe? Are we really that firm in what we know?” Thorne remembers questioning.
“So it started to make me think, ‘Can I provide for my kids if everything were to shut down? Can I grow food? Do I know how to do that? Can I protect them?”
Thorne says these uncertainties had been key inspirations for his debut film “40 Acres,” which premiered on the Toronto International Film Festival this week.
The post-apocalyptic thriller centres on Hailey Freeman, an ex-military matriarch performed by Danielle Deadwyler who leads her household in a future ravaged by famine. Faced with the specter of a ruthless band of cannibals intent on overtaking their farm, she clashes along with her son Emanuel, performed by Toronto’s Kataem O’Connor, on the easiest way to outlive a crumbling world.
“At its heart, it’s a mother and son story,” says Thorne, who minimize his enamel directing music movies for artists together with Sean Paul and Keshia Chanté earlier than creating 2020 sci-fi collection “Utopia Falls” and helming 2022 interval drama “The Porter,” each of which aired on CBC.
“It’s a thriller that’s about two different ideologies of how to move forward in a family.”
While Hailey believes her household’s security is dependent upon full isolation, Emanuel craves connection, desperate to discover the world outdoors their farm after encountering a younger girl from a close-by homestead, performed by Toronto-born Milcania Diaz-Rojas.
Thorne and co-writer Glenn Taylor weave the dystopian survival story along with a metaphor for the complicated historical past of land possession in North America. Hailey is a descendant of a Black household of farmers who settled in Canada after the American Civil War, whereas her accomplice, Michael Greyeyes’ Galen, is Indigenous.
“I wanted to make a story about a family I’ve never seen on screen before. It’s a blended Black and Indigenous family,” says Thorne.
“I think there are so many stories in Canada that can be told.”
Thorne says “40 Acres” attracts on a number of present political and financial challenges, from racial inequality to meals insecurity to Indigenous land rights.
“We’ve been in this space for almost a decade where socially there have been a lot of things that have been happening in the world that are causing a lot of people worry,” he says.
“Hopefully (we can) put these ideas out there and let people contemplate it, but take them for a little ride as well.”
Thorne says his film has been eight years within the making and premiering it at TIFF has been a “dream come true.”
“I’ve been coming to this festival for over 20 years as a film lover, just seeing amazing films that just rocked my world,” he says.
“I’m honoured to be able to come here and have my debut film at the festival that I love.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first printed Sept. 8, 2024.
