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"The Basketball Game" is a graphic novel adaptation of the award-winning National Film Board of Canada animated short of the same name – intended for audiences aged 12 years and up. It's a poignant tale of the power of community as a means to rise above hatred and bigotry. In the end, as is recognized by the kids playing the basketball game, we're all in this together.

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Tag: sci-fi

Unique science fiction volume

Unique science fiction volume

Emanuel Lottem, left, and Sheldon Teitelbaum. (photo by Roni Sofer)

After four years of hard work, Sheldon Teitelbaum and Emanuel Lottem have completed the first instalment of Zion’s Fiction: A Treasure of Israeli Speculative Literature.

Today, Montreal-born Teitelbaum lives with his family in Los Angeles, but, before that, he lived in Israel for many years – starting with five years in the Israeli army, a period of service that included the 1982 Lebanon War.

“I lived to tell the tale and, when I came back, I received an offer from some local magazines and newspapers, including the Jewish Post & News [in Winnipeg], to write pieces for them, which I accepted, in addition to working on the night desk as a sub-editor,” Teitelbaum told the Independent.

Then, he was hired by the Weizmann Institute of Science as a writer, which he did for a couple of years before moving with his family to California. There, he began writing for the Los Angeles Times, as well as writing a number of articles for the New York Times, Wired, Entertainment Weekly and other publications, while also working at University of Southern California as a science writer.

About Zion’s Fiction, Teitelbaum said, “It is not a book of my stories. I have absolutely no apparent talent in writing stories. But, I have been involved in Israeli science fiction and have been reading it for 40 years. And, it occurred to me at a certain point that the local (Israeli) fiction had reached a level of confidence that merited the attention of the world. As a result, I called up my partner, Emanuel Lottem, who is Israel’s premier interpreter, translator actually, of science fiction … and, I Skyped him and said, ‘You know, I just want to lay down two words to you – Zion’s fiction.’ Apparently, his jaw dropped. It just says the whole story.”

Teitelbaum contacted science fiction grandmaster Robert Silverberg, who he has interviewed in the past, and pitched the idea. Silverberg was hooked and agreed to provide a foreword and to connect them with agent Eddie Schneider of JABberwocky Literary Agency in New York.

As it turned out, publishing houses were not interested and, if not for the last publishing house on their list, they would have had to wait even longer to see their idea in print.

Once they had a publishing house, next came the difficult task of determining what would go into the book.

“We actually had twice as many stories than we needed,” said Teitelbaum. “We decided to save them for the next volume. However, we had a book launching at the Israeli Science Fiction convention in September, and we met with the head of the Israeli Society for Fantasy and Science Fiction. In conjunction with them, we’d publish their newly released volume – a collection of the best of the best of the Geffen winners of the last 17 years.”

(The Geffen Awards are named after the late Amos Geffen, one of the first editors and translators of science fiction in Israel.)

“As you might know,” continued Teitelbaum, “translation is a hideously expensive engagement. And they were gracious enough to take on the initial translation with Emanuel, and I was ready to hunker down with the actual line editing.”

All 16 stories that were selected for the first volume of Zion’s Fiction have received positive reviews worldwide. They are very different from the kind of speculative fiction people read in the West, according to Teitelbaum.

For most Israelis, when it comes to science fiction, Teitelbaum said, “It’s a thing that’s extremely fragile – more fragile than you’d find anywhere else in the world … because, when Hezbollah bombs starts flying, everyone’s nose is to the ground … and there ain’t no room for the fantasy.

“Not to mention that Israel is situated at a crossroads fortress called Megiddo, which the Greeks gave the name Armageddon, which is a lodestone for apocalyptic worry and fretting all over the world … and especially in Israel, [where] nobody does a better job of trying to put off disaster by writing about it.”

The Israeli science fiction that is broadly popular is that which deals with near-future developments in society, with specific connections to what is going on politically.

In terms of readership, Teitelbaum feels Zion’s Fiction will appeal to academics, noting, “There are several Jewish studies programs in North America and Europe [interested]. As someone who volunteers at the local high school my kids went to, teaching science fiction as a course for senior English, I know that, if you want to get kids to read, this is one of the ways to do it.

“I also know that Introduction to Science Fiction in undergraduate classes has upwards of 600 people, and I’d hope this series would ultimately provide academics with a reason to fashion courses on the subject of the Israeli fantastique.”

Teitelbaum also thinks that Zion’s Fiction could serve as an excellent gift for anyone with a soft spot for Israel or an interest in Israeli writing, or for science fiction lovers wanting to explore a unique segment in the genre.

“Unlike American Jewish science fiction, which hits you over the head with issues of religion and intermarriage and, you know, all of the shtetl nonsense, Israeli science fiction is a lot more subtle,” said Teitelbaum. “It doesn’t deal with the Holocaust directly in most instances, although you can see that it’s an underlying theme.

“It takes place in the near future, rather than the far. It’s a little more realistic than you would find in American science fiction. It doesn’t concern itself with Jewish folklore from the old country. It wears its Israeliness easily. Its Israeli characters are identifiable as Israelis.”

Zion’s Fiction is widely available and has already been translated for sale in countries such as Japan, Korea and Russia, with interest expressed in Turkey and Germany. For more information, visit zionsfiction.com. To order the book, go to amazon.com.

Rebeca Kuropatwa is a Winnipeg freelance writer.

Format ImagePosted on November 30, 2018November 29, 2018Author Rebeca KuropatwaCategories BooksTags Emanuel Lottem, Israel, sci-fi, science fiction, Sheldon Teitelbaum
Envisioning the world

Envisioning the world

Brothers Tony and Ryan Smith are in the process of bringing the feature film Volition to the screen. (photo from Smith Brothers Film Company)

Local Jewish brothers Ryan and Tony Smith have worked in the film and television industry in Vancouver for most of their careers, and their latest project, a feature film, is set to begin filming in May 2017.

“Volition is a film about a man named James, who is afflicted with clairvoyance – the ability to see snippets of his future, out of order, before they happen,” Ryan told the Independent. “James gets involved in some shady dealings, using this ability. However, he soon has a disturbing clairvoyant vision: he sees his own imminent murder. At that point, he realizes that, if he has any chance of survival, he must go on the run.”

Tony has always loved metaphysics and both brothers are fans of the cerebral science fiction genre. The inspiration for Volition came during Tony’s film school days, and returned many years later, when he was going through a period in his life where he was feeling stuck.

The idea of the observer being responsible for the existence he or she sees resonated, “so, if I see the world positively, I might see the world positively; if my thoughts are negative, I’ll see the world that way,” he said. “I started to think that, what if where I’m stuck is because of my thought process, and those thought processes are almost creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. Then I thought, what would it take to get me off my ass and try something different – that turned into the character [in Volition] seeing his own death. What if that is what it takes to finally motivate somebody to change?”

Born in South Africa, and raised for the better part of their childhood in Vancouver, Tony and Ryan were exposed to the magic of illusion at an early age. Both their father and grandfather were professional magicians in South Africa. One of Tony’s earliest memories is of his dad performing a magic trick, ending with his mother locked in a trunk.

When they moved to Vancouver in 1990, their dad continued his work as a jewelry designer but remained a part of the International Brotherhood of Magicians. Their dad is still a great storyteller, and is also a budding actor – “Our dad wants to really be cast in it [Volition], but we can’t afford him,” said Ryan.

The early exposure to magic is, as Ryan puts it, related to filmmaking in terms of “what you’re presenting, where the twist is and what the audience is watching, when.”

Oxford Dictionaries defines volition as “the faculty or power of using one’s will.” About how the film’s protagonist will employ this faculty, Tony said, “That’s what it’s all about. James doesn’t believe he has free will, because he sees pieces of his future ahead of time, and his visions always come true. He almost has an arrogance to him, in that he knows something the rest of us don’t. Through the narrative, he’s faced with the daunting task of not only trying to avoid his murder, but of attempting to undo his own belief system. He needs to believe in free will, even though his life has shown him that its existence is an illusion.”

Tony is a director, writer and editor, whose short film Reflection earned five Leo Award nominations, including for best picture and best director. Ryan is a full-time writer for television (Reboot: The Guardian Code, Mr. Young, Some Assembly Required), which has earned him two Leos.

Reflection and Volition seem to share similar themes of loss, regret, isolation, hope and the need to be understood. Tony said he and his brother like writing redemptive, honest stories. Ryan added that, underlying these two films, “there is a hopefulness of returning to a truer sense of self – the character is going through something, a struggle, and they’re hopefully getting to a place of self-understanding and growth even though it can go through some dark places.”

photo - Filming for Volition is set to begin in May
Filming for Volition is set to begin in May.

Tony will be directing Volition and Ryan will be the film’s producer; both brothers are credited as writers. When asked about the challenges of working together closely, as brothers, Tony, who is the oldest, said, “Because I came to this world first and it was my kingdom first,” he has that older brother “of course, I’m right about this thing” mentality. He said he even went so far as to coerce Ryan into signing a contract (with no expiry date) at a very young age, which states, “Ryan will shoot the scene whether he wants to or not, he won’t go crying or wimping.”

Nevertheless, as Ryan grew up, he started speaking his mind. “We have so much video evidence of the short films and the things that we’ve done through the years,” said Tony. “I found this moment when Ryan is an early teenager and he’s starting to give me lip. He’s actually on-camera starting to disagree with me!”

The brothers said they come from a relatively traditional Jewish family. Ryan attended King David in South Africa and then, on moving here, enrolled in Vancouver Talmud Torah. He said his days at these two Jewish schools and his engagement with the Torah stories “were, in a way, early touchstones for story and myth.”

For Tony, Judaism’s spiritualism and mysticism also inspire his storytelling. “I still have my first Bible,” he said.

“I love the Genesis story, I love the Noah story, and my mum, at an early age, I asked her, ‘How did the world get made in seven days?’ ‘Well it’s a metaphor,’ she said. At an early age, she was letting me in on abstract ideas and symbolism,” said Tony.

Filming for Volition is expected to begin in May, and Ryan and Tony are currently in the process of gathering the crew and auditioning for the two lead roles. Veteran Vancouver actor John Cassini has signed on for the role of the villain, Ray, a corrupt businessman, and his brother Frank Cassini will also feature. Tony and John worked on Comedy Network together, and Tony said John is “such a presence … he could read the phone book and make it interesting.” Tony also noted that John brings “an authenticity to the role – it’s not a two-dimensional villain, it’s a very textured antagonist.”

The latest casting announcement came just this past Monday, on Feb. 27. Canadian actor Bill Marchant will play, according to the film’s website, the “mentor character, Elliot Williams, a troubled psychologist with a dark secret.”

The Smith brothers are taking a unique approach to their pre-production process, documenting the journey through semi-monthly webisodes.

Volition is being produced by Smith Brothers Film Company in partnership with Paly Productions Inc., and Paly has been a “driving force behind doing this indie webisode marketing,” said Tony. The brothers, who are normally private about their creative process, liked the approach of “getting to know our audience from day one and welcom[ing] them into the process so we can build a grassroot connection with them.”

Readers can check out the webisodes and follow the brothers’ journey on volitionthemovie.com.

Alice Howell is a graduate of the University of Otago in New Zealand, with a bachelor of arts in film and media studies and a bachelor of science in psychology. She is a writer and actor based in Vancouver.

Format ImagePosted on March 3, 2017February 28, 2017Author Alice HowellCategories TV & FilmTags sci-fi, Volition
Comic book radio show

Comic book radio show

The Intergalactic Nemesis: Target Earth comes to York Theatre April 30 and May 1. (photo from Jason Neulander)

The story takes place in 1933. And, were it not the full-color cartoon panels being projected onto a large screen, you might feel as if you were also back in 1933 while watching the live performance of The Intergalactic Nemesis: Target Earth at York Theatre April 30 and May 1.

Target Earth is the first instalment of a trilogy that follows “Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Molly Sloan and her intrepid research assistant Timmy Mendez,” as they “team up with a mysterious librarian … named Ben Wilcott. Together, they travel from Romania to Scotland to the Alps to Tunis to the Robot Planet and finally to Imperial Zygon to defeat a terrible threat to the very future of humanity: an invading force of sludge-monsters from the planet Zygon!”

The dozens of characters are voiced on stage by three actors. They are joined by a Foley artist, who creates all of the sound effects, and a pianist/organist who provides the music soundtrack. The full-color comic book is projected onto a movie screen. In Vancouver, the actors will be Rachel Landon, Brock England and Jeff Mills, with Kelly Matthews in charge of the sound effects and Harlan Hodges on piano and organ.

The series – comprised of Target Earth, Robot Planet and Twin Infinity – is produced and directed by Jason Neulander.

photo - Jason Neulander
Jason Neulander (photo from Jason Neulander)

Neulander grew up in New Jersey and went to college at Brown University in Providence, R.I., where he majored in theatre.

“Right out of school, I founded a company called Salvage Vanguard Theatre in Austin, Tex., where we developed and produced new plays. The Intergalactic Nemesis came out of that company, originally as a radio play,” he told the Independent.

“I ran Salvage from 1994 to 2008 and built the company up to a point where it’s now something of a local institution. They’re still going strong without me. In 2008, I decided to focus entirely on The Intergalactic Nemesis and got invited to bring the show to the Long Centre for the Performing Arts [in Austin]. The venue there was 2,400 seats and I felt like that was too big to house my little radio play. So, I came up with the idea of projecting comic book artwork to create a visual spectacle to fill the room. That version of the show premièred in 2010 and we’ve been on the road with it ever since.”

Based on an original idea by Ray Patrick Colgan, the touring show was adapted from the radio drama by Colgan, Neulander, Jessica Reisman, Julia Edwards and Lisa D’Amour. The comic-book artwork for Target Earth is by Tim Doyle with Paul Hanley and Lee Duhig; the sound effects were created by Buzz Moran; and Graham Reynolds was the composer. Others, of course, helped bring the whole production to fruition.

For his part, Neulander said his biggest inspiration for The Intergalactic Nemesis was his kids. “I wanted to make something that I could enjoy with them,” he said. “That’s actually worked out pretty well! Artistically, this show is all about pushing my own inner-kid buttons. I was 7 when Star Wars came out (the first one) and 12 when Raiders of the Lost Ark came out and I love that kind of storytelling.

“One of my favorite memories as a kid was watching the old Flash Gordon serials and the old Ray Harryhausen movies on TV with my dad on Saturday mornings. When I was a little older, I got really into golden-age sci-fi short fiction, like Bradbury and Asimov and those guys. When I was a young adult, I discovered golden-age Hollywood movies for myself – His Girl Friday hugely influenced our script. I kind of backed into both radio drama and comic books, so maybe those are actually a little less influential on the show than those other things.”

While there is no overt Jewish aspect to the story, Neulander said his sense of Jewish heritage played a role in its creation.

“This show is all about the heroes defeating the bad guys more through smarts than through violence,” he explained. “The main male character is a librarian, so I feel like there’s got to be some Talmud in there somewhere. But, more than that, I think my upbringing taught me that if you work hard, you can succeed against all odds. I’m not sure if that’s solely a Jewish thing, but it’s definitely what the story of this show is all about.”

And Target Earth won’t just take you to another time, but place.

“It’s so much fun!” said Neulander. “It’s like getting to watch an animated movie and seeing how they do it all at the same time. The visual images are just beautiful to look at and then you have three voice actors playing so many characters, often in the same scene, you have one person using all these unusual objects to make sounds you never thought they could make (my favorite is a trail from a box of mac and cheese), and the music just soars. You really do get taken to another world.”

While Neulander is taking a creative break from the Intergalactic world – “I’m just wrapping up a script for a thriller, which will be my film directing debut” – the series’ shows keep touring. This summer, said Neulander, “we are taking Twin Infinity to the fringe festival in Edinburgh in what we think will be a very splashy U.K. première.”

But first, Target Earth and target Vancouver.

“We’ve been itching to get to Vancouver for a few years now,” said Neulander. “I think that your city really is one of the ideal places for this show. I just think audiences are going to eat it up! Can’t wait to get there!”

Shows are April 30, 4 and 7 p.m., and May 1, 2 p.m. Tickets start at $25 from tickets.thecultch.com or 604-251-1363.

Format ImagePosted on April 22, 2016April 20, 2016Author Cynthia RamsayCategories Performing ArtsTags comics, Cultch, Intergalactic, Neulander, sci-fi
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