St. Joseph's Catholic High School is not only known for its literacy rate, but also for it’s wide range of diversity. To showcase this, the school has hosted a week dedicated to Canada’s 150th year where students get to participate in many events and express what it really means to be Canadian.
Canada’s diverse films were also recognized on Wednesday, September 27 when REEL Canada presented the students with Canadian movies. In addition to this, students were able to interact and learn more about 2 out of the 4 movies they screened through the interviews conducted after the first 2 films were displayed. The two guests interviewed via Skype were Vinay Virmani from Breakaway and Atom Egoyan, the director of Remember.
Vinay Virmani, born and raised in Toronto, is the writer and the man who also plays Rajveer Singh, the main character in Breakaway. The juniors were more than excited to watch the movie about Rajveer whose passion is to play hockey but was forbidden by his father to play and wanted him to instead focus on his Uncle Sammy’s business.
St. Joes' Junior Lasers were very fortunate to see Vinay Virmani's Breakaway. It was very well-received and on Monday when the trailer was screened! Photo by Melanie T.
“A lot of things you see in this movie are based on my own life, they’re based on things I have gone through with my dad when I told him I wanted to get into the movie business,” Virmani says about how much of the movie was real.
Many students also felt really passionate and glad to see people of colour included in the movie. Virmani adds, “[Breakaway] is really important for the developing Canadian film industry because I think one of the things us Canadians pride ourselves on is our diversity. I think our strength is our diversity and what also unites us is our love for hockey, so bringing those things together was really cool.” He also gave aspiring actors/actresses and screenwriters advice stating: "Educate yourselves and just live life, don’t hold back, experience things, meet new people, travel [and] have conversations with somebody you wouldn’t have before.”
St. Joes' Junior Lasers intently tune in to Breakaway. Who would ever want to miss a second in the film? Photo by Melanie T.
Juniors also watched The Whale, a documentary film that tells a story about a killer whale named Luna who separated with his pod at a young age which students found very interesting. On the other side of the school, seniors watched and enjoyed, “Remember” and “The “F” Word.” Overall, the day was an amazing experience for the students of St. Joseph's Catholic High School and many look forward to the other upcoming events “Canada 150 Week” will bring.
Watch the full interview here: