Staige Azarova

The Story Our protagonist is at a very high moment in her life. She's a young queer woman who has a loving partner she is ready to spend the rest of her life with. On her way to make a proposal her day takes an unexpected turn. Her car runs out of gas, she gets splashed with mud on her way to the gas station, steps in dog feces, and gets stabbed at a c-store ending up in a hospital. On the day she thought might just be the happiest and more memorable of her life turned out to be exactly that, but for very different reasons. We are telling a human story of love, of failure, and of perseverance. It's a story that shows that love, no matter how hard your day might have been, could offer a release, and comfort you if the right person is by your side. Why Us? Why Now? Just 10 years ago our world was a different place to now. As kids we ventured to play on our imagination, with our hands, with our minds, with each other. Now, we can rely on social media to do the work for us. Human connection is becoming more and more isolating, more and more removed from reality. We are facing an era of loneliness, which is why this story is so important to tell now. We are a group of local artists who acknowledges the power we hold in our hands to tell stories and influence the world, to open this platform to those who haven't been able to speak up loudly enough for others to hear. Through comedy and drama of our story, we want to spark hope in our audiences, that being human can mean much more than we think. Our Goals We live and work in Northern Ontario, in Sudbury, where the community of film artists is very strong. But, most of government funding this year has gone to North Bay, which a bigger town near us, while Sudbury has been overlooked. So many of our friends who we want to employ, are by our opinion great artists. It's very important for us to keep building and developing film culture in our town, and give them and ourselves paid opportunities we deserve. Our Budget is planned for: Crew Fees - $12 800 (including all the key roles, Directors, Director of Photography, Production Designer, Production Manager, Make-up and prosthetics, Costume Designer, and assisting roles to those departments) Cast Fees - $2150 (accordingly compensating the talent including 7 actors) Equipment Services - $830 (hard drive, art supplies, props) Wardrobe & Make-up - $500 (costumes) Film Services on set - $1660 (a high-priority cost that includes food for all the cast&crew for 3 shooting days, and health&safety supplies that insure not only first aid, but also menstrual products to provide accessibility for EVERYone) Post-Production - $2100 (ensuring not only the editing itself, but quality sound mixing, colour grading, and the following costs for festival submissions) About Our Team Staige Azarova is a Ukrainian multidisciplinary artist based in Canada with a strong passion for storytelling. There are three main ways in which they express themselves - Photography, Filmmaking, and Design, which they refer to as PDF. Since coming to Canada Staige’s art career has been full of experiences. They’ve held their first photography exhibit with Art Works TO, written and directed their first short film ‘Winter Wind’ which is coming out later this year, illustrated their first book, worked in collaboration with Toronto Pride, local artists and musicians like Chinese Medicine, Typist Studios, House of Arts and Monstrosa. Professionally, last year was their debut in working on two feature film sets as an Art Director, which is a career path they’re currently pursuing alongside directing. Currently, they are in post-production of their second film, and in pre-production to co-direct "Best Day Ever" with a local Sudbury film artist Perry Kessler. Perry Kessler is a Czech-Canadian artist, born and raised in Sudbury, Ontario. His primary disciplines were music and graphic design, until he began to work on film sets, where he went from assisting grips on volunteer sets, to gaffing a feature production in under a year, this is how he found a love for storytelling through filmmaking. He’s eager to make his directorial debut with Staige as his primary support network, and is passionate about compensating for the incredible work of his artist friends. Previously Perry has self-produced and published albums with his bands Market Merchant, Biodreams, and Kananga Balloon. Presently Perry is involved in preproduction of his film “Best Day Ever”, and in the meantime will be gaffing on a passion project of another member of the community. Staige and Perry have been friends and colleagues on many projects, and this is their first collaboration as directors. They are extremely excited to bring their vision to life, and have been working hard to put this project together. Their goal is to tell an impactful story and work with local Sudbury filmmakers to represent Northern Ontario in the industry. Treatment Thank you!