Dreams are becoming reality for a pair of Oak Bay filmmakers – no magic elixir required.
When Deanna Milligan and Ramsey Fendall arrived at the Fantasia Film Festival in 2021 they hoped to find $1.5 million to turn their short film Lucid into a proper feature. Despite their efforts, they did not find the money. But, they left with something priceless – gumption.
"We had a couple of folks tell us, 'You could be in the film festival circuit for a while looking for financing.' And their advice was, 'If you can do it, just go home and make it'," said Milligan. So they did.
Milligan and Fendall returned to their Oak Bay home, which doubled as their studio. They kept costumes in the basement, edited in the attic, and used their carport as a set.
The pair met working on a different short film, and eventually founded Sub-Lunar Films. Now they're set to return to Fantasia, once again as co-directors of Lucid, now a feature film.
Fantasia is hosted in Montreal and has become known as one of the premier genre film festivals in North America, if not the world.
"Fantasia is sort of at the top of the pile," said Fendall, who further explained that genre films were having a moment of mainstream appeal like never before. (see The Substance, best picture nominee at last year's Academy Awards).
"It feels like, right now, Fantasia has reached peak hotness. So for us, this couldn't be more exciting."
Fendall was inspired to pursue genre filmmaking in part by his grandfather Jeffree Aikin Cunningham, a biologist and namesake of UVic's Cunningham building.
"In the basement, he had his weird biology stuff and I was very little, but I remember going down there and he had stuff in formaldehyde and insects on little pins and you could see scary things," said Fendall, who explained his grandfather had a separate interest in photography. He inspired Fendall's interest in cameras, film and creepy crawlies.
Lucid brings all that together. It follows Mia Sunshine Jones, an art student and punk in the '90s, who must pass her self-portrait project or be kicked out of school. Desperate to pass her class, but also to break free of her terrible creative block, she takes a lucid dreaming elixir to spark her creativity and becomes trapped in a surreal dreamscape. Here she's forced to battle dark monsters from her subconscious, including a fried chicken monster.
It's a film that captures some of the directors' own experiences, sans the fried chicken monster
"It's kind of meta, really, it's something that we're still really challenged by," said Milligan, who says if you can just get yourself past that block, the results can be beautiful.
"In Mia's case, she's taking a magical elixir, and I wish that it was that simple. But you can find your own way to get up and over it, just for a minute."
But creative struggles aren't the only ones that the filmmakers faced while making Lucid.
With a limited budget, they had to be scrappy, enlisting the help of friends and local artists, which included Tears for Fears drummer James Wollam and Canadian drag icon Vivian Vanderpuss, who designed the hair monster.
"Victoria is notoriously supportive of artists within the community. This maybe could only happen here."
There were more logistical challenges as well, like when a resident logged a complaint against the apartment set in their carport, assuming it to be an illegal suite.
"It's an art project," Milligan tried to explain.
"They thought we were running an Airbnb," said Fendall.
The experience of making the film with a low budget and in the Victoria community helped them.
"The best thing that happened is the friction of that, because it did make us be more creative than we would have been if we went ahead and got money that we wanted," said Milligan.
When the pair arrive in Montreal ahead of their world premiere next week, they'll have a goal – to find a distributor. But they're really just excited to connect with fans.
"That's where our audience is, and this is the best way for us to find the people that we're speaking to and actually play with them and engage with them," said Milligan.
"We know that this film is in that demographic of 18 to 30 female identifying. We know that's where our core place is, and when we meet those people, it's so exciting, because they say, 'This movie is for me'," said Fendall.
It's clear this is just the beginning for Milligan, Fendall and Lucid as things are heating up. Variety shared their trailer, and RogerEbert.com highlighted the film in their 10 most anticipated of the festival. They've also caught the attention of global pop star, film buff and fan of all things alternative Charli XCX, who added the film to her own Letterboxd watch list – a co-sign the directors were particularly excited about.
With a community behind them and headlines made, there is nothing left to do but share the film, which will premiere July 21 in Montreal, and hopefully in Victoria soon.
