Sergio Navarretta is looking to the past to offer audiences a little hope for the future.
The Simcoe County-based filmmaker's new picture "What We Have Left" will be screened on the opening night of the Barrie Film Festival on Saturday, and he's hoping its message of hope and shared humanity resonates with audiences today.
Shot in Searchmont, the film follows a group of former hippies who reunite after 50 years apart and discover they've inherited property they once shared communally. The story explores friendship, grief and loss.
Navarretta says the project is very personal, acting as an homage to his parents and pays tribute to the generation that came of age during the counterculture movement.
"We're living in a time where people need hope," he told Barrie360. "That era represented the counterculture questioning authority, questioning the so-called rules, but it was also a renaissance for artists."
Navarretta says he hopes the film will encourage audiences to look beyond political and religious differences and focus on what they have in common.
“When you strip away the left wing, right wing, religious, non-religious ... at the core of it all is sheer humanity,” he said.
Listen below to our interview with Sergio Navarretta
The film's tribute to the counterculture era also extends to how it was made. Navarretta embraced an analogue approach, using vintage lenses and some eight-millimetre film while including lots of vinyl in the scenes to give the movie a feel rooted in the past.
The director says while the different shooting techiques add a classic look and feel to the movie, working with film offered a different pace than the fast-cutting style often associated with today's more common editing processes.
“We really let the film breathe,” he said.
"The delayed gratification of working with film was amazing because you shoot it, you don't know what you have in the can, and then several days later you get it... In this age of AI and everybody freaking out (about it), I think there's a resurgence of going back to the classics."
"What We Have Left" also serves as a reminder that bringing a creative vision to life takes time. The screenplay, written by Alessandra Piccione and Frank Canino was conceived 20 years ago, and Navarretta says the experience reinforced the importance of patience and persistence.
“It's really a test in patience and tenacity, and to keep going,” he said. "If I made it 10 years ago, I wasn't the same person. I didn't care about the same things."
Navarretta says now was the right time because he thinks theatre-goers will have a better appreciation for the story and content now than they might've when the script originated.
It stars an experienced Canadian cast including Barbara Williams in the leading role, as well as Tommie-Amber Pirie, Peter MacNeill, and R.H. Thompson.
"She is very nuanced," Navarretta said about Williams. "She lived that through that era, and I think at heart, she still is a hippie and still very much lives those values. But also, she plays music and writes original music and plays guitar and sings, So I really leaned into that... she starts noodling with a guitar, and I'm like, 'let's shoot that,' and use it authentically without editing and so you have some of those raw performances that are featured in the film as well."
The world premiere of the movie was in September at Cinéfest Sudbury, where some audience members of varying ages left in laughter or in tears, according to the director.
Navarretta says returning to the Barrie Film Festival is particularly meaningful, having previously served on its juries. He praised the event for bringing people together around cinema and providing a platform for emerging filmmakers.
"When you hang out with up and coming artists, it's really exciting because they start to think innovatively about how to accomplish shots and how to tell stories," he explained. "It juices me up creatively."
The 29th edition of the Barrie Film Festival will feature showings at Galaxy Cinemas from Saturday to October 25. Following the 7 p.m. showing of "What We Have Left," Navarretta will hold a Q&A session.
