Toronto director Donald Shebib talks ‘Nightalk,’ a film a decade in the making

TORONTO — On a sunny, dreamily warm September afternoon, Donald Shebib is lounging on a placid, backyard deck at a colleague’s West Toronto home. The filmmaker, often considered as one of the more vital voices in Canadian cinema, is uneasy about his upcoming feature, “Nightalk,” premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival.

“It’s a film written by two 80-year-old guys that’s about female sexuality,” says Shebib. “And that’s going to get me in trouble right off the bat, right?” 

By his own admission, Shebib is at an age when the statement is more of an acceptance than a genuine question. He doesn’t care what you think of him, as long as it doesn’t get in the way of what drives him.

“I really don’t care about legacy. I’m just story-driven and it’s all about conflict,” says Shebib. “I have no time for films and projects without conflict because that’s what it’s all about. It’s what we’re constantly struggling with in our lives” 

On Friday, Shebib will see “Nightalk” debut at this year’s TIFF — his first feature film in a decade — written alongside Claude Harz, whom he’s worked with for 50 years. “He writes fabulous women and always has,” says Shebib. “I’ve relied on him a lot.” 

The erotic thriller tells the tale of Brenda Roberto, a detective played by Ashley Bryant, who becomes involved with Tom, played by Al Mukadam, through a phone-sex app called Nightalk. He later becomes the primary suspect in a murder case but also a man who connotes the arousal and attention of Brenda. 

“It’s a tricky film because I’m making a film about sex,” adds Shebib. “To me, it’s not a cop story even if it starts out as one. It’s about a woman finding herself.” 

Shebib says the idea came from a conversation he overheard in Edmonton. 

“I’m listening to this exchange between two women that was so banal and silly, but it was real,” says Shebib as he recalls an attempt at seduction from one woman to the other. “I thought it was such dumb dialogue, but people say dumb things and it’s what made it feel so interesting.”

From that point forward, it took the famed director 15 years to turn an aging script into a greenlit relationship drama through the financial assistance of his executive producer son, Noah James Shebib, better known as the record producer, 40.

Due to the challenges of film funding in Canada, Shebib is used to producing films on shoestring budgets. In the 1970s, he sold his beloved black and white Morgan sports car to fund “Goin’ Down the Road,” what many consider to be an icon of Canadian cinema.

“In terms of the people who run the industry, there’s a lot of big-game producers who will still never give me the time of day,” says Shebib. “We lack faith in our artists here, so they either go to the states or stay here.” 

In the case of “Goin’ Down the Road,” he chose to stay, which became the launching pad to his current renown: a film about a group of poor, naive, uneducated young men from rural Nova Scotia who head to Toronto in the hopes of a better life. To this day, it’s a time capsule of a certain era that feels unmistakably Canadian in both look and feel. 

“People thought I was some kind of avant-garde rebel filmmaker when I made that movie because some of it was improvised,” says Shebib. 

“I’m just an old-fashioned Hollywood filmmaker. In that sense, I don’t see many modern films because I think Hollywood’s forgotten how to make Hollywood films.” 

He believes that storytelling isn’t as much of a prerequisite for a sellable film as it used to be. However, he acknowledges he may not be in the best position to judge, because this assumption of his means he doesn’t go to the movies as much.

“Nightalk,” he says, is another extension of his desire to explore the intersections between conflict and human behaviour. It’s something he’s previously done in the 1973 crime classic “Between Friends” and his 1969 short TV documentary, “Good Times, Bad Times” that centres on Canadian First World War veterans. 

However, the current gender and sex dynamics at play make it a slippery slope of optics, given the project is two men looking to showcase their understanding of women as a whole.

But what he is now, more than ever, is a man who values his art over the surrounding noise. He has a far greater understanding of what drives him as an artist that takes precedence over the potential risks.

He understands his work; the projects that won’t necessarily get him paid or earn him additional fame, but keep his love of film creation saved. 

“I have five or six tremendous scripts that I’ll never get to make or live long enough to make them but I can’t complain when I’ve been able to make a living doing this.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sep 13, 2022.

Noel Ransome, The Canadian Press