The Yorkton Film Festival kicked off with the arrival of James Brylowski, director of A Mile in these Hooves, a short comedy about a pair of brothers travelling to California in a two-person donkey suit. To celebrate the film's premiere in Yorkton, Brylowski travelled with the suit from Toronto, his arrival officially marking the beginning of the festival.
Brylowski says that he wanted to raise awareness for people in two-person costumes, stopping in different towns along the way to raise awareness and meet people, including meeting Prince Charles in Winnipeg.
The film itself might be fiction, but in order to get it on film they had to make the same journey, putting about 13,000 kms on the van in the process, Brylowski explains.
"It sounds like a goofy story, and it is goofy, but it's not as goofy as you think. It's actually really dramatic and intense, about these brothers and their relationship is falling apart... But they just so happen to be in a two-person donkey suit."
The idea for the film came from a combination of a love of landscape photography and a desire to set forth challenges involving two-person costumes.
"I wanted to make a road trip movie, but I wanted to make it ridiculous, so I really liked the idea of having this two-person donkey suit running across these majestic, beautiful landscapes."
The suit itself has seen better days, and Brylowski says filming has not been kind to the burlap creation, and the donkey itself is sun bleached and torn, but still in one piece.
"It's been in the Pacific Ocean, dragged through the streets of LA, constantly coming in and out of the van. It's a testament to Jamie Shannon, the donkey designer, that it's still standing after the hell we put this through."
Brylowski takes a Golden Sheaf Award for Best Comedy back with him to Toronto.
