Bridges Burning - an experiment in genre

In 2019, Michael and I were starting to feel pigeonholed by a certain kind of sincere, indie filmmaking, and we wanted to try something with genre. Something set in a world we weren’t part of. We loved crime thrillers like Fargo and The French Connection, and we wanted to try our hand at that type of film to see how it changed our process.

Did it work? Mostly. Let’s call it a good attempt. In our excitement to make a crime film, we packed in a bit too much plot and forgot a simple truth: great films are about character. Whether it’s a ten-minute short or a feature, the plot should reveal character, not hurl them through the story.

Even so, Kyla Ferrier and Geoffrey Simon-Brown delivered strong performances, and the film held together well enough to premiere at the 2020 Another Hole in the Head Festival in San Francisco. Then COVID hit, and the film quietly disappeared amid the chaos.

Returning to the hard drive it sat on five years later, we found a movie with a lot of compelling elements (the soundtrack by Sarah Houston and Young Neighbours among them), and decided to embrace our new mantra, “be brave, and put it out”. To our surprise, it’s found a lot of love on YouTube. Another reminder that timing is a thing, and there are more people out there interested in what you are doing than you realize.

by Eric Pauls

Trailers from Fargo and the French Connection for reference: