Past & Future Kings

A SHORT SYNOPSIS

A medieval warrior kills his King, who had become a tyrant and then has doubts about his

abilities to wear the crown. Forcing the King’s Mage to show him the course of his future reign, he discovers that one’s fate should not be known.

The New King (Jason Cavalier) confronts the Mage (Elias C. Varoutsos) forcing him to use his magic to let him see his future.

This awesome throwback to fantasy cinema is an amazing showcase of Montreal’s talent for

genre filmmaking. Directed by Raphaël Hébert, produced by Brent Radford and featuring an award-worthy performance by Jason Cavalier. Shot in various locations in and around Montreal. Past & Future Kings uses that city and its long

history to the utmost potential. Lavish snow covered exteriors to turn-of-the-century interiors help bring this epic time-traveling tale to life.

Raphaël Hébert and his Director of Photography Amélie Douville crafted a meticulous picture with precise filmmaking language to enhanced their spectacular locations, thus lifting Past & Future Kings’ simple premise to epic and spell-binding heights.

Past & Future Kings was shot in 14 days over a four month period with a cast of fifty local

actors and averaging a dozen crew members. Its production & post-production suffered from all the normal problems independent productions faces: harsh weather; fluctuating crew; last minute recasting; VFX delays due to scheduling and workflow hiccups that arise when you aim for Hollywood quality on a shoe-string budget.

"The director’s ambitions seem to outweigh his talent." - Quote from grant rejection letter. Past & Future Kings is ambitious in every way. Period set pieces; enormous costume needs; large

number of extras; action involving swords, guns and martial arts; many scenes involving on-set special effects and computer effects, all done by Self Financing, Blood, Sweat & Tears! (Actually, they were few tears on set as the production crew became a tight-knit warrior clan) From its initial conception through its production all the creators of Past & Future Kings heard

was: "Are you guys crazy?!! You’ll never be able to pull it off!!” Hearing such constant doubts in their abilities galvanized them into creating the following list of goals to silence the naysayers: Proving that this ambitious script could be shot into a believable epic. Proving that they could to it on the budget they had, by shooting smart. Proving that they could gather a insanely talented professional crew. Proving that it’s possible to mount a “Braveheart”-style battle that is bloody and real. Proving that it’s not impossible to find a Canadian actor with enough gravitas to carry an old-school sword & sandals story…Jason Cavalier we salute you!

Every film is like mounting a war campaign but for Past & Future Kings we went on a world

conquest!

RAPHAËL HÉBERT

Writer - Director - Producer

Raphaël Hébert began his filmmaking career as a movie-set brat. He embarked on a journey that would take him from set to set as a film technician in various departments, from Indie movies to big Hollywood epics, he learned the nuances of filmmaking from the Greats and the mistakes to avoid from the Not-so-Greats. During his childhood in the rural part of Montreal's South Shore, he had the classic beginning of many aspiring young filmmakers, he started making films with friends. This, combined with school and a general love of movies helped him find his calling as a writer-director. In his early days in the film industry, he decided to start his first big cinematic endeavor - to write, direct and produce a feature film called LIVED BACKWARDS. This self-finance project completed his education, where he learned everything they do not teach you in school, from institutional rejection to perseverance in the face of a five-year post-production process. But the greatest thing his first feature helped him find was his cinematic style and writing voice. And now with Past & Future Kings, he has directed an exciting homage to genre cinema. From

fantasy pictures to modern action movies, this epic bring them all together into a story that resonates with audiences, like at the 2017 Fantasia International Film Festival where it won the Audience Awards’ Gold Prize as Best Canadian/Quebec Short film. Raphaël Hébert lives in Montreal where he’s developing multiple projects with his talented partners in crime, from feature films to television series.

BRENT RADFORD Producer - 1st Assistant Director With 20 years of experience on film sets and in production, Brent has worked in almost all fields of film production; SFX, Gaffer, Grip and AD'ing. He has worked on every level of budgetary constraint yet he has never lost his love for movies, movie making or, most importantly, for storytelling.

Growing up in Southern Ontario’s theater community he dabbled in theater acting and directing before finally following his passion into film and television by studying at Concordia University in Film Production. While studying, he began working professionally for Andrea Kenyon Casting and Cineffects Productions in Montreal looking for the practical experience he felt film school was not giving him. From those early student days Brent has continued to foster his practical knowledge by working as a technician in the Canadian film industry. He has often returned to the theatre world to produce and direct passion projects of his own creation while making independent movies and shorts with friends and associates. CHESSGAME, the last Short Film Brent directed, was accepted at 5 festivals across North America and has garnered a following on Youtube. The experience pushed him to take a more serious look at his Directing and Producing career and focus on his own projects. With several feature films and TV shows under development - Acheron Rising, a web series project he has been shepherding into production, is a return to his roots in Sci-fi and action thrillers. Brent studied Film Production and Studies at Concordia University after graduating from Loyalist College in Ontario with a diploma in Television Broadcasting and Journalism. With the Festival run of Past & Future Kings, Brent is looking to meet like-minded producers and

production companies so he can pool resources and share ideas and knowledge.

AMÉLIE DOUVILLE – Cinematographer - Associate Producer

Amélie has been working in the entertainment industry since 1997 as a gaffer, key grip, camera operator and a cinematographer on both film stock and digital. Her experience also extends to world touring (Asia, Europe, United States, South and Central America) and as a technical director in theater, where she first started. These opportunities have given her an excellent human resource skills in very diverse cultural contexts, made her acquire great artistic sensibility and creativity.

That extensive exposure contributed to her developing an outstanding sense of leadership, knowledge, expertise and understanding of the business. A working artist who continues to learn and perfect her craft by studying and keeping up with all the new technologies and different techniques in our quickly moving industry. She very much cherishes her work and loves working

in a collaboration with directors and crew.

GUNNAR HANSEN VFX Supervisor - Associate Producer

Gunnar Hansen the Visual Effects Supervisor from Montreal, as he likes to be referred to rather than "Gunnar Hansen the Horror film acting legend who played Leatherface" which he often gets confused for. Like most of the experienced VFX artists and technicians Gunnar began in the grind house environment of the 80's and 90's music video world. He honed his craft and knowledge by working at ground breaking companies in Montreal before making the career up step to large Hollywood Features. Gunnar's work can be seen on such films as "James Bond's Quantum of Solace", "Vin Diesel's Riddick" "The Grey" and Marvel's "Captain America - Winter Soldier".

PATRICK KERTON – Stunt Coordinator

Born in Kingston, Jamaica, and immigrated to Canada in December 1966, Pat grew up playing all kinds of sports. He finally got interested in stunts after watching Hooper as a teenager. He immediately began looking for a way into the stunt field and began working professionally before he finished High School. He has never stopped working and has over 200 film credits as a performer, stunt coordinator and actor.

JASON CAVALIER

Lead Actor

A talent performer who has flourished behind the camera as well as in front Jason Cavalier began his career, after a 4-year stint at Concordia University where he studied Drama & film production, immediately upon graduating when he starred as "Mickey" in the Canadian Soap opera TIME OF YOUR LIFE. Cavalier started his feature film acting career landing roles in such films as the David Hewlett horror sequel "Scanners II: the New Order" (1991), "Flight From Justice" (1993) with Bruce Boxleitner and the Gary Busey action flick "Warriors" (1994). He also appeared in the action film "Silent Hunter" (1995) with Miles O'Keefe, the Peter Weller action movie "Screamers" (1996) and the Jean-Claude van Damme action picture "The Quest" (1996). In the early 2000s, Cavalier devoted his time to various credits, such as "Battlefield Earth" (2000), "The Art of War" with Wesley Snipes (2000) and "Heist" (2001) starring Gene Hackman. He also worked on "Rollerball" with Chris Klein (2002). Cavalier had a number of different projects under his belt in the early 2000s, including "I'm Not There" (2007) starring Christian Bale, "Death Race" (2008) and "Punisher: War Zone" (2008). His credits also expanded to the Brendan Fraser and Jet Li smash hit "The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor" (2008) and "Outlander" (2009) starring Jim Caviezel. Most recently, Cavalier acted in "Stonewall" (2015) with Jeremy Irvine.

Since his early acting days Jason has also shot his own productions, often in collaboration with Brent Radford, and he’s also worked behind the camera as a Fight choreographer, Stunt Co-ordinator and 2nd unit director. Jason enjoys working with new directors and energetic crew members in whichever capacity that allows him a creative outlet, be it as actor, stunts or 2nd Unit director.

ELIAS C. VAROUTSOS – Supporting Actor

Elias comes from a unique background in athletics, psychology and film. He obtained his Bachelor’s degree in Psychology, with a minor in Theatre, on an athletic scholarship at the University of Pittsburgh. Elias helped run The Gemini Theatre, a children’s theatre in Pittsburgh. At the same time he consulted with THATS WITCH STAND for the healing arts theatre - a cutting edge project experimenting with the importance of set, setting and healing . Besides aiding in running these projects he was also active in the local theatre scene where he played a variety of roles including Darry in The Outsiders, Jim McLeod in The Detective, and Father Peters in the world Premier of Candledancing, to name of few. Elias has worked both in front of and behind the camera. His first feature documentary film, CLAY VS. CLAY, aired on CBC Quebec and Documentary Channel in 2016.

ANDY QUESNEL

Supporting Actor From a young age, graced with a combination of athletics and elegance. A natural born performer as well as a professional ice skater, touring notably for “Disney's on Ice’’s Toy Story production. She found her way in the industry as a stunt double for American and Canadian productions. Soon after, she began acting in various television and film productions. She also regularly appears in various television and live talk shows involving fashion, dance and artistic media in her home town of Montreal.

With her extensive physical background, Andy enjoys action and physically challenging roles.

RANDOM QUESTIONS WITH RANDOM ANSWERS HOW OLD ARE YOU GUYS? Old enough to know we shouldn't spend our money personally financing action movies…but fuck it! Nobody else in Canada seems to be doing it!

HOW MANY FILMS HAVE YOU WORKED ON? Collectively we have worked on well over 500 different productions over the years, from Independent films to Hollywood Blockbusters. It’s this experience that we brought to our own productions, helping us streamline the shooting schedule, number of crew, and shoot only what’s needed for the scene and not over-cover to calm editorial fears.

HOW DID YOU ALL MEET? You know what they say about Vegas… DO YOU HAVE ANOTHER PROJECT IN MIND? Brent -Yes. We each have feature film scripts that are ready to go and television projects we want to make but the first one that locks financing is our next endeavor. Raphaël -We have several science-fiction and thriller concepts we would love to tackle next.

HY DIDN'T YOU GET CANADIAN OR QUEBEC FUNDING TO MAKE THIS PROJECT? Raphaël -We submitted to some funding networks but they were less than enthusiastic. We were anxious to make a Genre project with a clear aim to entertain but we got the feeling they weren’t in the entertainment business. So we made it on our own. Jason -We could have gotten funding? Brent -Now look what you’ve done! IF YOU RECEIVED 2 MILLION TO MAKE ANOTHER PROJECT, HOW WOULD YOU PROCEED? Raphaël -We'd make the most kick-ass Canadian action film anyone has ever seen. Jason -Hopefully I’d get paid on that one! Brent -I think it would be cool, we did a 30 minute film with 10 action sequences for under 100 grand, imagine what we could do with 2 million dollars!

WHY HAVEN’T ANY OF YOU MOVED TO LOS ANGELES TO PUSH YOUR MATERIAL THERE? Raphaël -I wanted first to have something to show, to build a resume before making that type of a leap, also I realized the potential here. With the easier access to the new technologies, we can make amazing films anywhere. We just don’t seem to have the breaks here to capitalize on these homegrown projects. Jason -I’m American. Actually, I’m dual citizenship, so I can work anywhere. I might have a SAG Card hidden somewhere. Brent -I did. I lived there for 6 months and it wasn’t the right timing for me, I didn’t have the experience I needed then, like Raph, I just want to make great films here but it seems like someone thinks Canada can only be a service provider or we don’t have original content that isn’t for mass consumption just for niche audiences. I mean Cronenberg, Cameron and Villeneuve all started in Canada so we have the talent.