Nirvanna the Band the Present the Film

Matt Johnson is the focus wherever he goes. He’s particularly in style in his hometown of Toronto, the place his advocacy for younger Canadian filmmakers and heat, self-referential humor have made him one of many metropolis’s most favored sons. Mayor Olivia Chow was in attendance when Johnson and his co-star/co-writer Jay McCarrol introduced their movie Nirvanna the Band the Present the Film again to Toronto for a TIFF Midnight Insanity screening that Jonson calls “one of many foundational moments of my grownup life.” 

After years of attending the pageant, he “wished so badly to share that very same sort of pleasure with a gaggle of individuals in Toronto,” the end result of a journey that started with Johnson’s DIY debut characteristic The Dirties (2013), by the Sundance premiere of his second characteristic Operation Avalanche (2016), and into the business and significant success of his third characteristic, BlackBerry (2023).

The plain line of questioning when watching Nirvanna the Band the Present the Film—Johnson’s fourth characteristic—is questioning how the hell they pulled this factor off. The movie relies on Johnson and McCarrol’s present on the now-defunct Viceland community, itself an enlargement of their unique internet sequence; in each model of Nirvanna, Matt and Jay play exaggerated variations of themselves, overgrown adolescents whose lives revolve round a sequence of outrageous, but naive—and sometimes very harmful—gambits designed to get their band a present at hallowed Toronto rock membership The Rivoli. 

“I can perceive how individuals may say, ‘It is a scathing critique of media obsession,’” Johnson says of his Nirvanna alter ego. “What they don’t perceive is that I like these characters. I agree with them.” He concedes that Matt’s worldview is “psychotic, and I imply that medically,” however argues that “everyone might use somewhat bit extra of that. I believe it will give all of us the sort of confidence that we have to do nice issues.”

Nirvanna the Band the Present the Film is constructed round a pair of outrageous stunts, each of them involving the CN Tower, a 1,815-foot landmark that dominates the Toronto skyline. Though he’s loosened up somewhat for the reason that movie’s premiere at SXSW, Johnson continues to be tight-lipped about these sequences—partially as a result of they had been filmed with out permits. Nevertheless it’s apparent watching the scenes, sleight-of-hand film magic apart, no less than a few of what we’re seeing is actual. 

“The important thing factor while you’re making motion pictures within the impartial system is that it is advisable to be doing one thing that they couldn’t do in Hollywood,” says Johnson. “If a Hollywood film had been to do [these sequences], they’d rebuild the CN Tower, they’d do it with [professional] actors. It will be a $5 million stunt.” He provides that Nirvanna the Band the Present the Film value round $2 million whole in US {dollars}, a lot of which went to sustaining a small crew of between 4 and eight individuals through the movie’s 200-plus day shoot. 

This prolonged manufacturing interval allowed for Johnson and McCarrol to play, filming verité and hidden-camera footage round Toronto. Johnson describes the vibe among the many core crew as “countless summer time camp,” and says their nimbleness and dedication was key to capturing one of many movie’s most unbelievable pictures: An actual piece of nightly information footage of Johnson and McCarrol operating away from Drake’s mansion after an actual taking pictures in Could 2024. 

These occasions are recontextualized within the film, in fact, however “the thought of getting a name on a Saturday and listening to, ‘Hey, someone simply bought shot outdoors Drake’s mansion…I do know it’s the weekend, however do you guys all wish to drive up there?’,” as Johnson places it, is the sort of down-for-anything angle that made the movie doable. “When you will have a really small group, you possibly can shoot quite a bit, particularly since everyone’s so invested,” he provides. 

And it’s not simply the stunts which can be dangerous. Nirvanna the Band the Present the Film is filled with sufficient copyrighted materials and actual model references—Again to the Future and Orbitz soda each play necessary roles within the plot—to provide a clearance supervisor a panic assault. Johnson stands by this reference-based ingredient of his comedy, saying, “you’d be a idiot to disclaim what made you. The individuals who stroll round and act like the tv reveals that they watched rising up weren’t basically informing their character, they’re leaving a lot on the desk.”

Bigger meta components inform Johnson’s fashion as effectively: He typically casts Canadian filmmaker pals like Ben Petrie (The Heirloom, Honey Bunch) and Ethan Eng (Remedy Canine) in his movies, partially as a approach to recreate the power of his DIY early work: “After I was placing collectively the solid for BlackBerry, I used to be telling my story of being an impartial filmmaker and making motion pictures with a gaggle of pals,” Johnson says. “In some methods, the theme of my life is that friendship, ambition, and work are all the time going to collide not directly.” 

This manifests quite actually in Nirvanna the Band the Present the Film, through which Johnson and McCarrol work together with their youthful selves as a part of the movie’s time-travel plot. This impact was achieved by intelligent compositing and the diligent work of editors Curt Lobb and Robert Upchurch, who reviewed a whole bunch of hours of footage left over from Nirvanna’s unique web-series run. “That was whole belief,” Johnson says of his editors. “They’ve watched all my uncooked footage. They’re the 2 individuals on the earth who actually do know the way silly I’m.”

Audacity has labored in Johnson’s favor earlier than: In 2016, his Zapruder Movies introduced a contest through which the corporate would give away its annual funding from Telefilm Canada—round $12,000—to a first-time feminine screenwriter. (The winner of that preliminary contest? Chandler Levack, who would go on to direct I Like Motion pictures and the upcoming Mile Finish Kicks.) The stunt bought a whole lot of press, and finally led to a sequence of conferences between Johnson and Telefilm that established the Expertise to Watch program for rising Canadian filmmakers. 

“Mainly each single voice that’s come out of English Canadian cinema within the final decade has all been from that program,” Johnson says of Expertise to Watch, which offers assist for first-time characteristic filmmakers whose whole budgets vary between $150,000 and $500,000 CAD, spreading funds out amongst a bigger group of smaller-budgeted tasks quite than concentrating it in a handful of multimillion-dollar movies. “That is realizing full effectively that a lot of these motion pictures is not going to work,” Johnson provides. “However we are going to discover the following massive voice in Canadian cinema by taking these loopy dangers on so many individuals.”

Since then, BlackBerry broke data on the Canadian Display Awards, and Johnson has been tapped to direct the upcoming Anthony Bourdain biopic Tony for A24. That mission is budgeted at round $15 million, however Johnson quotes BlackBerry producer Niv Fichman: “it doesn’t matter what the funds is, you’re all the time having the identical fights,” he says. “The funds of Nirvanna the Band, to me, was the identical because the funds for BlackBerry, which was the identical because the funds for Tony, as a result of the size of the manufacturing all the time grew to match the funds.”

Filmed between these two tasks, Nirvanna calls again to Johnson’s anarchic early work, a movie made for a comparatively small sum of money by a small, devoted group of pals with minimal supervision from the powers that be. It offers straight with themes of growing older and (im)maturity, with some surprisingly clever observations about how friendships evolve all through totally different phases of life.

“What’s actually taking place is that I’m falling an increasing number of below the spell of this course of, and changing into snug with it affecting me,” Johnson says. “The older I get, the extra I notice that—and that is what Nirvanna the Band is about—not reaching that objective, and being at peace with not reaching it in a Sisyphean means, is the deep lesson of life. You’ll by no means be what you wish to be, as a result of by the point you get there, your objectives could have moved,” he says. “So long as you possibly can cease specializing in the trophy on the finish, then you definitely could be comfortable now.” 

He is aware of that he’s been fortunate, however “What’s that quote? ‘The tougher I follow, the luckier I’m.’”