Filmmaker Moxam mourned

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 16/04/2011 (4366 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The local film community is collectively stunned by the death of prolific Winnipeg filmmaker Winston Washington Moxam on Wednesday due to complications following heart surgery. He was 47.

Moxam was born in England and received his film education at Confederation College in Thunder Bay, but began his filmmaking career in Winnipeg with the 1993 short film The Barbeque, a comedy-drama in which a young black woman encounters subliminal racism when she meets her white boyfriend’s parents. Subsequent feature films include Barbara James (2003) and the historical drama Billy, which will be screened at Cinematheque June 17.

In an essay on Moxam titled From the Outside Looking In, fellow filmmaker Matthew Rankin celebrated Moxam as “maverick in a city of weirdos.”

He made “politically engaged dramatic films concerned with social justice and interracial understanding that are both deeply personal and defiantly, resiliently independent,” Rankin wrote.

Filmmaker Cory Lussier, a past president of the Winnipeg Film Group where Moxam made his films, remembered Moxam as “an inspiration to local indie filmmakers.

“He was always available to chat with people and give advice to beginner artists,” Lussier said. “I was on set for a few of his short films, and even in minus 30 weather, he kept us going with laughs and especially hot coffee.”

I’ll remember Winston from a chat we had a Manitoba Night party at the Toronto International Film Festival a few years back when he was trying to put together a feature film with characteristic enthusiasm. He was a class act.

Moxam’s memorial service will be held Wednesday, April 20, at 11 a.m. at the Whyte Ridge Baptist Church at 201 Scurfield Drive.

— — —

A local hockey dad may be the next great Canadian reality TV star if a Hollywood producer and a local businesswoman have their way.

Last Friday, novice producer Heather Stewart, local founder of Lilyfield Cakes, held a party at her Wellington Crescent condo for Lennie Stotts, a local businessman whose driving passion is facilitating his three sons’ passion for hockey.

Stewart enlisted the aid of Hollywood producer Andrew Golov, the executive producer of the still unreleased horror thriller Mother’s Day, to help realize her idea of building a reality series around Stotts.

“He’s a really sweet, funny character and he just believes anything is possible,” Stewart says.

Golov was so impressed with Stewart’s pitch that he visited Winnipeg — in February — to meet Stotts.

“We put them on camera and shot an hour’s worth of stuff of him talking about the kids,” Golov says. “Lenny is a really interesting guy. He’s got a lot of energy he’s very funny and appealing and he’s got a real commitment to his three boys, and I thought: You know what? This could actually work.

“I now call it the Kate Plus Eight on Skates, without the negative (connotation),” Golov laughs, adding that the show has the potential to hit Canadian audiences where they live.

“People can see themselves in this family,” Golov says.

randall.king@freepress.mb.ca

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