Possible Worlds- The Canadian Film Festival starts in Sydney on the 2nd August, for what will be its 5th year. Showcasing the diverse and exciting cinema of Canada the festival includes, features, shorts, documentaries and animations. Possible Worlds is the brainchild of Sydney based not-for-profit film festival organisation, The Festivalists, who also put on the Young at Heart and Access All Areas film festivals. On the 5th anniversary of the formation of The Festivalists (15th July) I caught up with one of its founders and its Artistic Director, Mathieu ‘Matt’ Ravier to discuss his passion for films, Canada cinema and Sydney’s Canadian Film Festival- Possible Worlds.Matt’s interest in films was sparked at a young age, partially because of his limited access to them. His childhood bedtime meant that he only ever got to watch the first 20 minutes of films on television growing up- “this thing of having a curfew when I was younger and watching the first part of hundreds of films, really created this appetite because it felt like this forbidden thing that children didn’t have access to. You watch enough first half of movies- you just want to find out what happens to at least half of those”.
As a teenager Matt’s favourite pastime was going to the cinema, but it was a chance encounter with actor Harvey Keital, who was in Sydney promoting The Piano, that steered Matt towards a career in the industry. “Talking to Harvey Keital about his involvement with Tarantino, who was completely unknown at that time, producing Reservoir Dogs and acting in the film and just listening to him speak with such enthusiasm and passion… I think it was probably that day that I decided this is what I wanted to do- anyway possible, work in film. I had no idea back then what I wanted to do exactly within the film industry, but that was a key moment for sure.”
After school Matt returned to his native France to start a Business degree- “Both my parents are sort of lefty, ex-hippies and it was to get back at them. It was a rebellious move to go- look I’m going to become this really successful, really rich business man. Of course as soon as I started business school I realised I didn’t particularly enjoy it. But I did learn quite a lot of things that have been useful throughout the following years.” It was a last minute choice to study in Toronto that gave Matt his first exposure to the inner works of a film festival and Canadian Cinema- “I was really lucky to be able to do an MBA in Toronto, they have this amazing program there which is an MBA with a specialisation in Arts Admin. All your lecturers are Arts professionals and you get to learn a whole lot about how to run an Arts Organisation. As part of that I did an internship at the Toronto Gay and Lesbian film festival [Inside Out].” It was his experiences at Inside Out that propelled Matt into a career in film festivals. “That’s probably the year I thought wow, running a film festival is fun if you love films- because you get to watch a lot, you get to travel to film festivals, but it is also a cause in many ways. If you are working to showcase a cinema that is otherwise underrepresented then you are doing something beyond what say running a cinema entails- you are actually fighting for a cause. It is a cause I immediately recognised, it was something I believed in.”
The full interview can be read at Trespass
