SASKATOON, August 5, 2014 – Factoria Films is pleased to announce that it has entered into a licensing agreement for Canadian distribution of its award winning feature film The Shape of Rex with Toronto distributor Films We Like.

Films We Like is a boutique distributor of documentary, independent and international films in Canada and has released over 260 films since it was founded in 2002 by award winning Canadian filmmaker and producer Ron Mann, renowned for his genre-bending approach to documentary cinema that explores art forms and contemporary popular culture with vision and verve.  Mann’s brand new documentary Altman, an in-depth look at the life and times of film director Robert Altman, has been selected for presentation in the Venice Classics section of the 71st Venice International Film Festival, which runs August 27 – September 7, 2014. Mann, along with Robert Altman’s widow, Kathryn Reed Altman, will be in Venice for the screening of the film. Mann also will be on the Venice Festival jury for Best Debut Film.

The Shape of Rex is Factoria’s first feature. In July the film screened at the Madrid International Film Festival where it was nominated in three categories: Best Feature, Best Actress (Vivien Endicott-Douglas) and Best Music. In May it earned multiple nominations in France at the St. Tropez International Film Festival, including ones for Best Film, Best Lead Actress (again for Endicott-Douglas), and Best New Directors for first-time co-directors Layne Coleman and Bill Hominuke, who also co-wrote and co-produced..

The Shape of Rex has screened at numerous festivals across North America, winning the Award of Excellence at the Canadian International Film Festival in Vancouver, and the Award of Merit at both the Indie Fest in La Jolla, California and the Route 66 Film Festival in Springfield, Ill. It also was nominated as Best Feature film at both the Kansas International Film Festival in Kansas City, Kansas, and the Green Bay International Film Festival in Wisconsin. Last fall it was in competition for the Discovery Award as Best First Narrative Feature at the Calgary International Film Festival.

With a narrative that toggles between the 1980s and the present day, the film is rooted in a reckless romance between 16-year-old Rose (Endicott-Douglas) and Rex (Brett Donahue), a hot-blooded older boy who has a summer job as a disc jockey. They meet again years later, both comfortably married with children. Rex (Ryan Hollyman) is now a lawyer, Rose (Monica Dottor) a stained glass artist. In the name of “unfinished business,” they cautiously embark on an affair that cannot possibly end well, one that never escapes the chilly shadow of a horrific secret that they share. As their respective spouses (Lorne Cardinal and Aviva Armour-Ostroff) confirm their suspicions—he with measured rage, she with withering contempt—two marriages are put to the ultimate test.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION: theshapeofrex.com 

Contact:

Bill Hominuke

Factoria Films

(306) 220-2998

email: factoriafilms@yahoo.ca

THE SHAPE OF REX NOMINATED IN FRANCE

SASKATOON, SK, March 25, 2014—Factoria Films’ first feature, The Shape of Rex, continues to receive European notice, this time earning multiple nominations at the St. Tropez International Film Festival. The nominations include Best Film, Best Lead Actress—for Vivien Endicott-Douglas—and Best New Directors for first-time co-directors Layne Coleman and William Hominuke, who also co-wrote and co-produced the project. The film also is in the running for the Jury Award at the festival, which takes place in Nice, France in May.

Last month The Shape of Rex was nominated in three categories at the Madrid International Film Festival. Over the past year it has played at numerous festivals across North America where it has received multiple nominations and earned two awards.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION: theshapeofrex.com 

Contact:

Factoria Films

(306) 220-2998

email: factoriafilms@yahoo.ca

SASKATOON INDIE FILM GETS THREE NOMINATIONS IN MADRID, SPAIN, INCLUDING BEST FEATURE FILM NOMINATION

SASKATOON, Feb. 26, 2014  --  The award winning Saskatoon feature film The Shape of Rex has been nominated as Best Feature Film at the 2014 Madrid International Film Festival in Madrid, Spain. The film also received two other nominations, one for Best Actress and one for its musical score.

Vivien Endicott-Douglas earned a nomination as Best Actress in a Feature Film for her performance as Rose, a sixteen-year-old girl with a troubled past growing up in Saskatoon in the 1980s. Endicott-Douglas is a Toronto based actress with an extensive background in film, television and stage. Last year she received a 2013 ACTRA Toronto nomination for the same performance.

Saskatoon musician, composer, arranger and producer Ross Nykiforuk also received a Madrid nomination for Best Music in a Feature Film. Nykiforuk wrote and produced the original score for The Shape of Rex, which he recorded at Glennross Studios in Saskatoon.

The film previously has won the Award of Excellence from the Canadian International Film Festival in Vancouver, and the Award of Merit from both the Indie Fest in La Jolla, California, and the Route 66 Film Festival in Springfield, Ill. It also was nominated as Best Feature film at both the Kansas International Film Festival in Kansas City, Kansas, and the Green Bay International Film Festival in Wisconsin. Last fall it was in competition for the Discovery Award as Best First Narrative Feature at the Calgary International Film Festival.

With a narrative that toggles between the 1980s and the present day, the film is rooted in a reckless romance between 16-year-old Rose (Endicott-Douglas) and Rex (Brett Donahue), a hot-blooded older boy who has a summer job as a disc jockey. They meet again years later, both comfortably married with children. Older Rex (Ryan Hollyman) is now a lawyer, older Rose (Monica Dottor) a stained glass artist. In the name of “unfinished business,” they cautiously embark on an affair that cannot possibly end well, one that never escapes the chilly shadow of a horrific secret that they share. As their respective spouses (Lorne Cardinal and Aviva Armour-Ostroff) confirm their suspicions—he with measured rage, she with withering contempt—two marriages are put to the ultimate test.

The Shape of Rex was shot in the summer and fall of 2011 in and around Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Post-production was completed in the fall of 2012. The film was co-written/directed/produced by Layne Coleman and William Hominuke and marks their film directing debut. Born in North Battleford, Coleman is a well-known Saskatoon actor and theatre director, and formerly the Artistic Director of Saskatoon’s 25th Street Theatre. Subsequently he served for ten years as the Artistic Director at Theatre Passe Muraille in Toronto. Coleman and Hominuke, a Saskatoon resident and former Saskatoon lawyer, previously wrote two stage plays together: Queen’s Cowboy, and Conversations With Girls In Private Rooms, both produced by 25th Street Theatre. They founded Factoria Films in 2010. 

"Exactly how you proceed to judge these cheating hearts as you watch this solid screen drama will tell you something about yourself. See it. If you’re allergic to Canadian cinema, get over yourself…fine performances…moral ambiguity abounds. Watch especially for standout performances from Endicott-Douglas as young Rose and from Aviva Armour-Ostroff as Rex’s wife." 

         -- Mario Trono, CBC News

“A Canadian film that deserves to be seen...a picture with a vivid sense of place...an evocative lyricism that feels definitive and personal. And its drama is propelled by some incandescent acting—in particular a breathtaking performance by young Vivien Endicott-Douglas, who was nominated for an ACTRA award...a big-boned drama...see the movie.

  -- Canadian film critic Brian D. Johnson’s MacLean’s blog 

“The Shape of Rex takes a fresh and unflinching but ultimately tender look at love and marriage in our age of social networking.  As such, it asks important questions about loyalty, forgiveness, truth-telling and self-preservation.   Some marvelously seductive performances—especially Brett Donahue as young Rex—lift the film far above others of its kind.” 

-- Barbara Gowdy, Man Booker nominee for "The Romantic," three-time nominee for the Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction, and nominee for both The Giller Prize and the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize.

“The Shape of Rex is a charming, bittersweet film about the long arm of youthful love reaching into the future, nuanced, thoughtful, and clear-eyed in its examination of the delights and dangers of nostalgia colliding with reality.”

  -- Guy Vanderhaeghe, winner of two Governor General’s Literary Awards for Fiction ("Man Descending" and "The Englishman’s Boy"), the United Kingdom’s Faber Prize, the Writers’ Trust of Canada Timothy Findley Award, Canadian Bookseller’s Libris Award for Fiction Book of the Year; nominee for the Giller Prize and the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award.

 “When has Saskatchewan been so sexy? Maybe never and maybe always. The Shape of Rex is a passionate tribute to the western landscape as well as a story of love, sex and betrayal. The love story between Rose and Rex is one of the most beautiful ever filmed. Watching these young people swoop around on bicycles, hold hands, cover each other with clay and finally comfort each other, is an exalted experience for the audience. It takes you along, emotionally and narratively with a fabulous ease. The Shape of Rex is shocking in the way all good stories are shocking--it offers redemption without sucking up. We care about these characters.  With a nod to French New Wave, Coleman and Hominuke have created an utterly modern film that is humorous, conflicted and profoundly sexual.  An awesome debut.”

  -- Playwright and actress Linda Griffiths ("Maggie & Pierre," "The Age of Arousal," "Jessica," "The Darling Family"), twice nominated for the Governor General’s Award for Drama, winner of five Dora Awards, two Chalmers Awards, and a Gemini. 

“Based on an intelligent, sensitive, carefully-nuanced script, The Shape of Rex offers a beautifully realized picture of people carrying the baggage of a traumatic past.  Haunted by memories of an intense, unresolved youthful relationship twenty years into the past, Rose and Rex seem unable to prevent that past from destroying their present lives. Strong acting, particularly in the youthful scenes, shrewd directing, and skillful editing, give the film an almost painful authenticity.”

  -- Robert Calder, winner of the Governor General’s Literary Award for Non-Fiction ("Willie: The Life of W. Somerset Maugham"), internationally-published author and Professor Emeritus of English (University of Saskatchewan).

“I was working out of town and missed the opening with all the excitement surrounding the presentation of The Shape of Rex at the lovely Royal Theatre in Toronto. I felt badly about not being there to share in the celebration of talent and really good work on display because producing a film of such quality and so distinctively our own is still too rare an achievement. As a result, I watched this terrifically accomplished piece of filmmaking alone, and I leave it for others to talk about the thrilling depth of emotions created by the actors and the excellent camera work, not to overlook the compellingly distinctive style of the production. And being alone, what did I see that might be overshadowed by the thrill of an opening night?  Let me tell you.

I saw a film that was an unabashed love poem to the landscape of Saskatoon. I was seduced by its greenery and mesmerized by all too brief flirtations with the Saskatchewan River. Long before the climactic scene of a strangely sensual re-baptism for the young lovers in its waters, I knew that nature was leading the story. The rich vegetation had been reminding us that the time for young (or indeed any kind of) love is as brief as a prairie summer. There is an urgency in the beauty of all the foliage that seems to conspire with the urgency of the passions of the characters. You want both of them to last, but like some sort of Greek tragedy of the seasons, you know that it will end too quickly.  Still there is the thrill of enjoying the vigour of the passing scene, the hopes, the exhilarations. And maybe in all this we find just a little bit of wisdom.  

 In some of my favourite Canadian films, the landscape is so alive, you want to live there. This is true of Don Shebib's Toronto in Goin’ Down the Road and in Gordon Pinsent's Newfoundland in The Rowdyman.  Because of The Shape of Rex, I now want to move to Saskatoon.

  -- Paul Thompson, former longtime Artistic Director and co-Founder of Toronto's Theatre Passe Muraille, former Director General of The National Theatre School of Canada, producer of more than 200 original theatre productions, creator of a form of collective theatre that has brought to life more than 30 new Canadian plays; award winning writer and artist, Officer of the Order of Canada.

SASKATOON FILM “THE SHAPE OF REX’” EARNS  TORONTO ACTRA NOMINATION FOR LEAD ACTRESS 

SASKATOON, Jan. 14, 2013 – Saskatoon film production company Factoria Films is delighted to announce that Vivien Endicott-Douglas, a lead actress in Factoria’s first feature film, The Shape of Rex, has been nominated for the ACTRA Toronto 2013 award for Outstanding Female Performance. Endicott-Douglas earned the nomination for her performance as Rose, a sixteen-year-old girl with a troubled past growing up in Saskatoon in the 1980s. She is one of five nominees selected for the award by a jury of performing peers in Toronto. ACTRA Toronto represents over 15,000 of Canada’s 22,000 performers. 

Endicott-Douglas has been a professional actress since childhood. Her film and TV credits include Murdoch Mysteries, Rookie Blue, How Eunice Got Her Baby, The Line, Anne of Green Gables: A New Beginning, An Old Fashioned Thanksgiving, Finn on the Fly, and Shoebox Zoo. Her recent theatre credits include Ajax por nobody, Forests, A Boy Called Newfoundland, and Hush. She is in her fourth year at the University of Toronto studying Social Equity, and Film and Drama Theory. 

The Shape of Rex was shot in the summer and fall of 2011 in and around Saskatoon. Post-production was completed in September of 2012. The film was co-written, co-directed and co-produced over a four year span by Layne Coleman and William Hominuke. Born in North Battleford, Coleman is a well-known Saskatoon actor and former Artistic Director of Saskatoon’s 25th Street Theatre. Subsequently he served for ten years as the Artistic Director at Theatre Passe Muraille in Toronto. Coleman and Hominuke, a Saskatoon resident and former Saskatoon lawyer, previously wrote two stage plays together: Queen’s Cowboy, and Conversations With Girls In Private Rooms, both produced by 25th  Street Theatre in the 1980s. In its review of the Toronto production of Queen’s Cowboy, the Toronto Sun hailed it as “one of the best plays of the past ten years.”  Hominuke and Coleman founded Factoria Films in 2010. 

Robert Calder, Professor Emeritus of English (University of Saskatchewan), internationally-published author, and winner of the Canadian Governor-General’s Literary Award for Non-Fiction said of the film, “Based on an intelligent, sensitive, carefully-nuanced script, The Shape of Rex offers a beautifully realized picture of people carrying the baggage of a traumatic past.  Haunted by memories of an intense, unresolved youthful relationship twenty years into the past, Rose and Rex seem unable to prevent that past from destroying their present lives. Strong acting, particularly in the youthful scenes, shrewd directing, and skillful editing, give the film an almost painful authenticity.” 

Author Barbara Gowdy, Man Booker nominee for The Romantic, three-time nominee for the Governor-General’s Literary Award for Fiction, and nominee for both The Giller Prize and the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize, also had praise for the movie:  “The Shape of Rex takes a fresh and unflinching but ultimately tender look at love and marriage in our age of social networking.  As such, it asks important questions about loyalty, forgiveness, truth-telling and self-preservation.  Some marvelously seductive performances—especially Brett Donahue as young Rex—lift the film far above others of its kind.”

With finely calibrated performances from an ensemble cast that includes Lorne Cardinal (Corner Gas), and the utilization of different colourization and camera styles in the alternating stories and time periods, The Shape of Rex reveals both its young lovers and their mature selves decimated by a notion of romance that Canadian society promotes yet castigates. By the movie's intense conclusion the souls of the lovers both young and old are stained by actions and consequences their consciences might scarcely be able to bear.

The Shape of Rex is an official Narrative Feature Film Selection at the 2013 Fargo Film Festival in March. Distribution is pending. 

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION: theshapeofrex.com

• Contact:
• Bill Hominuke
• Factoria Films
• (306) 220-2998
• email: factoriafilms@yahoo.ca

The Shape of Rex begins with Rose, a married woman in her late thirties, visiting her old, married boyfriend Rex for the first time in over twenty years to tell him, finally, that he is the father of her daughter. Written, directed, and produced by Layne Coleman and William Hominuke, the film follows the events that are triggered by that visit, coupled with a parallel recounting of their coming-of-age love story in the 1980s. But the plot also is as much about Rex’s desires to live by the dictates of his heart as it is about the fate of everyman who dares to pursue his untameable passions in a world that chastises non-conformity. 

Rex and Rose (Ryan Hollyman and Monica Dotter, who also happen to be a married couple in real life) are married to others, but their marriages are rocked when they fall into an illicit affair based upon the long-suppressed and unresolved issues of their youthful romance. In a parallel story set in the mid 1980s, young Rex and Rose (Vivien Endicott-Douglas and Brett Donahue) are teenage lovers who bare their souls in a confessional ritual just before being irreparably torn apart by a raging father (J.D. Nicholsen).

What mature Rex’s wife (Aviva Armour-Ostroff) understands that Rex does not is that while he appears to have found incredible sex in mid-life, though not with her, his love for Rose may be delusional. And though Rose may be repressed by her gender and background she still has a legitimate need to reveal herself to Rex again. But to run off and leave behind her loving husband (Lorne Cardinal) may be more of a sacrifice than she is willing to make. What Rose and Rex both fail to consider sufficiently is whether or not an email ever can remain completely private.

This is a story about the nature of love, about people who love each other in ways that cannot be reciprocated. The issue throughout is whether or not Rex and Rose ought to try to complete the arc of their teenage love, one that under other circumstances might have lasted forever.