Sergio Navarretta is looking to the past to offer audiences a little hope for the future.
The Simcoe County-based director's new film "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, ndear Sault Ste Marie, it follows a group of ex-hippies that reunite after 50 years of being apart and realize they've inherited property they once shared communally.
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.
He says working with film offered a different pace than the fast-cutting style often associated with today's short-form digital content.
“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."
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The 29th edition of the Barrie Film Festival will feature showings at the south-end Galaxy Cinemas from Saturday to October 25.
