Word: egoyan
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...Egoyan released his first feature film, Next of Kin, which received funding from both the Canada Council and the Ontario Arts Council. The complex story deals with a disillusioned young man who, while undergoing video therapy with his parents, sees a tape of an Armenian family wracked with guilt over giving up their son to a foster home years ago. The protagonist, Peter, craves a new role in life, so he presents himself to the family as their long-lost son, an act that leads to dark visions concerning cultural displacement and the line between role-playing and reality...
...Egoyan followed Next of Kin with the disturbing Family Viewing, a 1987 film about the psychological struggle between Stan, a video equipment salesman, and his son, Van. Stan has driven both Van's mother and grandmother out of the house, and now he is symbolically eradicating their memory by taping over home videos-a practice that Van is painfully opposed...
...Family Viewing, which ultimately deals with Van's oedipal conflict with his father, helped make Egoyan a known commodity in the film world. This visibility was increased through a highly publicized incident at the Montreal Film Festival, in which veteran director Wim Wenders handed first prize to Egoyan after winning for Wings of Desire...
...films, I still love Family Viewing the most," Egoyan says, which might surprise those familiar with his recent work. "It was an incredibly personal expression on my part and I'm still very proud that I was able to execute it so early in my career. I think it has a genuinely heroic character with a rich reward to gain, I just love the humor and I think the format is particularly interesting." Egoyan notes that he's looking forward to the screening of Family Viewing at the Film Archive, because it will be a 35mm print being shown...
...Film Archive will also be screening five of Egoyan's short films-Howard in Particular, Peep Show, Open House, En Passant, and A Portrait of Arshile-on Saturday night. Although these films were basically released "off the radar" as Egoyan puts it, they are still important works to him on a personal level. "I've always been interesting in the way thinking has become a kind of ritual and how we do many things without being consciously aware of it. I think there's certainly a facet of absurdity in human nature and I wanted to explore its impact...