Wesley Salter (left) and Kevan Funk (right)

A few months ago I got had the fine chance to meet  up with independent filmmaker Kevan Funk.  What an incredible force he is.  Mixing humility and talent with an unswerving arty vision that’ll get ya in the heart plus the gut.

And he can do that all on 47 bucks.

I was expecting to interview Kevan Funk for 20 minutes or so and ended up asking questions for over an hour. We aired an excerpted version of that interview on Christmas Eve on Mouth2Mouth on CJSF 90.1fm.  But I wanted to get  more of the interview out there because, well, I left it feeling changed.

And that’s exactly how I hope to leave every movie I go see. (Changed for the better that is…I’m still angry about seeing The Village in 2004).

But back to Kevan Funk.  Two things struck me right away about him: he is talented and real.

His grasp of reality and art left my fantasies of winning a karoke Dolly Parton competition while sharing a keyboard with Stevie Wonder wriggling on the floor. He made real life sound beautiful, intriguing, heart breaking and worthwhile.

I guess it is. (Pause the Dolly solo…)

So in the interview, Kevan talks about making films in Vancouver and how various limitations can actually help fuel some creative leaps and bounds.  We talk about his short  film Weight which was an official selection of the 2009 Vancouver International Film Festival and is currently an official selection of San Francisco’s Indie Film Festival.

Still image from Kevan Funk's film, Weight

We talk about what inspires him and what gets him out of his head.

If you believe in film, humility, art, possibility and making a budget  stretch far enough to make a fantastic film than you’re going to want to listen to this.

And of course I had to take a cheap shot and ask about his favourite film.