Going Back to Meet the World (2022)
An old memory makes Mark decide to change his career as an electrician for a turn at theater school. Despite his friend’s objections, he sets off to find out that theater school isn’t all singing, and dancing, and laughing.
Going Back to Meet the World (2022).
Director’s Statement
‘Going Back to Meet the World’ is an attempt to make sense of four years spent in art school. It explores the experiences that the arts are an industrious environment; that as much as things seem to change in the socio-political arena, people are people; and that wanting to belong tends to background all other desires.
It is an experiment in translating reality into a fictional record of the people and spaces during a specific time in someone’s life. No auditions were held nor roles cast, and as such, no professional actors were on set. Everyone plays a version of themselves, a version that we discovered through rehearsals and conversations about the situations highlighted by the film. The themes explored surfaced from recent observations, for example, that artists and blue collar workers are cut from the same cloth, that it’s very hard for men to make friends in their thirties, and that some people, like Becca, go right for what they want and others, like Mark, build complex institutional paths out of simple desires.
This film brings together elements of humor, sadness, shame, failure, and beauty. The film benefits from effective and realistic performances, richness of the subtext (whether material through production design, or through backgrounded conversations), use of long takes, and avoidance of punch lines (for the most part) as it lays out intricate emotional processes onto classic narrative plot structures.
Screenings
‘Going Back to Meet the World’ had its world premiere at the Festival du Nouveau Cinéma in Montreal from October 10 – 12, 2022 where it won the Grand Prize for the RPCÉ presented by Netflix.
Cast
Mark Loader as Mark
Brynne Harper as Brynne
Robert Kitsos as The Professor
Sonja Tan as Sonja
Neil Madill as Neil
Amy Fisher as Amy
Alice Fisher Daniel as Alice
Rowan Landaiche as The Cinematographer
Zack Faulks as Zack
Lachlan Harris-Fiesel as Lachlan
Brendan Wren as The Guitarist
Garnet Tyler as The Assistant Camera
David William McEwen as Dave
Santi Henderson as Uncle Hermes
Sean Bray as Sean
March Loose as March
Vibert Jack as Vibert
Leon Pennjack as Leon
Nikolas Jugovac as Young Mark
Tony Charrette as Tony
Tamlin Vetter as Tamlin
Julia Cai as Julia
Sydney Bunning as The Drummer
Zach Walde as Theatre Student
Rebecca White as Becca
Niall Creegan as Drew
Ezra Sulin as Ezra
Leah Van Meer Mass as Leah
Elisa Penn as Elisa
Matilda Pennjack as Matilda
Amelia Frank as Young Brynne
Hassan Baber as Hassan
Jaeda Gonzales as Jaeda
Terris Tan as Terris
Michael McDiarmid as The Client
Ubair Shaheen as Bar Customer
Crew
Writer/Director – Santi Henderson
Director of Photography – Ubair Shaheen
Gaffer – Ivar Swanson
Editor – Santi Henderson
Costume Designer – Natali Karajeh
Dance Choreography – Brynne Harper
Assistant Directors – Rowan Landaiche, Anastasia Itkina, Vicente Villaroel, Niall Creegan, and Patrycja Kamska
Assistant Cameras – Katie Christing, Sydney Bunning, Pye Srisa-An, Malcolm Soundrup, Nastasja Sedi
Production Designers – Rowan Landaiche and Garnet Tyler
Producers – Santi Henderson and Anastasia Itkina
Associate Producers – Keegan Turnquist and Niall Creegan
Composer – Alex Abahmed
Sound Editor – Santi Henderson and Alex Abahmed
Sound Mixers – Audrey Kerridge, Tawan Shaller, and Grace Esplen
Boom Operators – Vicente Villaroel and Ezra Sulin
Grip – Zach Walde, Will Fitzsimmons, Baran Mehrdadian