The Quad

Issue date: 12/3/07 Section: Entertainment

Are you a frustrated but aspiring filmmaker? Would you do anything to get your film picked up by a distributor and viewed in theaters across the nation?

Canadian filmmakers Karl DiPelino and Chris Ragonetti feel your pain; five years ago, they began shooting their first independent feature-film titled "PiGs." Now finally, in 2007, the film has been distributed and released theatrically and on DVD. DiPelino, who served as screenwriter and director, and Ragonetti, who took on the duties of screenwriter and producer, took time to talk to The Quad about their film.

DiPelino described "PiGs" as a romantic comedy involving a guy's quest to sleep with 26 girls, each representing a letter of the alphabet according to their last name. All of that changes when he meets and falls for girl X. "He has to decide between love and money," DiPelino said.

In the press release, "PiGs" is described as appealing to fans of the "American Pie" series. Ragonetti told The Quad that they were trying to reach the same, young demographic as the "Pie" movies, but at the same time they strived to be different. DiPelino remarked that they didn't want to "tread the same kind of ground."

"What I wanted to do is make the characters more realistic in the way that guys who would partake in this were really objectifying women, treating them like conquests," said DiPelino. "These aren't nice guys. We paint them accurately, and we don't make excuses for them. We've made a movie with lead characters that aren't flattering."

DiPelino and Ragonetti explained that, though the film is dramatic, at times it plays more like a documentary in the sense that it "feels like it's very handheld."

The production itself, which cost about 80 thousand Canadian dollars, was self-funded by DiPelino and Ragonetti, who were working day jobs at the time. In fact, Ragonetti is a physician. They told The Quad that they received a lot of financial support from their hometown simply because they were known locally.

Still, it was not an easy process to raise money, especially when trying to convince different organizations to contribute funds. DiPelino said, "(Raising money) takes time. To fill out the applications and wait for the deadlines. It could take six months to hear a no." Ragonetti remarked that "it was a matter of saving up over a long period of time."

Ragonetti went on to explain why the two decided to make the film, despite the fact that finding a distributor was no easy task. "We were really trying to get a calling card of what we could do," he said. "I always did think we would get distribution, (but) there were times I lost faith; I didn't necessarily think it would go around the world, it was unexpected. But I did have faith in it getting picked up."

Continued...

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