The Sisters of Mercy - Film to String Quartet No. 2

CJ Wallis who directed Last Flowers and music video for The Rose now has a new project in the works featuring Sarah Slean.  Using Sarah's music for String Quartet No. 2 he is creating a film adaptation of Lucy Rupert's The Animals Are Planning An Intervention.  

A short synopsis can be found on the Forty FPS blog.  You can purchase the music on iTunes.

Lucy not only danced in the music video for The Rose but her and CJ worked worked on this music video too:

Rwanda Rises Up (Video, 8:42)

An 8 minute segment from Rwanda Rises Up was posted online today. The video depicts many of the scenes Sarah expressed in her journal.

Sarah hums a mournful tune with Damhnait Doyle to many of tragic and sad scenes. Short interview pieces with all the artists are stitched in through the documentary.

The televised airing of the full film has been changed to 8:00, June 19th on CityTV with the album following on the 22nd. A premiere event in Toronto is on the 17th to which I do not currently have further information on.

Song For Africa: Video Intro

A first look at the intro for Song For Africa, Rwanda Rises Up that features Sarah Slean.

Rwanda Rises Up - June 12th (TV)

Song for Africa, Rwanda Rises Up documentary featuring Sarah Slean will air June 12th on City TV. Pushed back slightly from date in May, the exact dates and times for the release were published in today's Song For Africa newsletter.

SFA Documentary #2 Filming in Rwanda
Production on the second SFA Documentary entitled Rwanda: Rises Up
successfully wrapped shooting in Rwanda last November. Director Derek
Horn once again took the helm and music producer David Bottrill (Tool,
Muse, Silverchair…) handled the recording aspect for the accompanying
album, with artists Damhnait Doyle, Steve Bay from Hot Hot Heat, Sarah
Slean and Tim Edwards from Crash Parallel along for the journey. Watch
for the documentary to be aired on City TV on Saturday, June 12th at
8pm. The accompanying album will be released on Sony Music on June
15th!

Source, Song for Africa Newsletter

Sarah on E.T. Canada Tomorrow

Sarah will be on Entertainment Tonight Canada tomorrow in promotion of CARE Canada. Sarah's visit to Rwanda for the Song for Africa project was put on by CARE. The news of this comes from Darcy Ataman's from SFA's Tweet.

CARE is currently promoting the film adaptation Half the Sky which has one night showing in Toronto tomorrow. Sarah will be attending and she has details of that event on her site.

Update 2010-3-04:

It was not on today's episode. Perhaps it will air on Friday's or on a later date.

Song for Africa - Album and Doc in May

The Song for Africa documentary that Sarah's journal entries from Rwanda have been referring to will be shown on City TV followed by the album release in May.

"Production on the second SFA Documentary entitled, Rwanda: Rising Up
successful wrapped shooting in Rwanda last month. Director Derek Horn once again
took the helm and producer David Bottrill handled the recording aspect for the
accompanying album with artists Damhnait Doyle, Steve Bay from Hot Hot Heat, Sarah Slean and Tim Edwards from Crash Parallel along for the
journey. Watch for the documentary to be aired on City TV and the
accompanying album on Sony Music in May!" - Song For Africa

The documentary will likely be made available for sale at a later date.

Last Flowers - littleslean Online Screening (links)

We have been following up on CJ Wallis' film Last Flowers since last year with the news of Sarah Slean's acting roll in it. Sometime ago I had the opportunity to screen an early version of the short film and was very impressed.

This is Sarah's biggest role on the silver screen since her role in the 2005 film de noir, Black Widow. Sarah and her counterpart, Joseph May, both shine in their roles as two very likeable and believable characters. At times in the film it is easy to forget that Sarah is playing the character of Mona Miller with the sincerity she takes to the role and the many similar traits they seem to share. The story surrounds the death of Mona's mother and her relationship to the obituary writer played by Joseph. Dealing with death, rejection, sickness and lies the characters wind themselves into some uncomfortable places but there is a positive feeling to the film with hope and inspiration.

Today I'm excited to announce CJ Wallis has teamed up with littleslean to allow you to have one of the first opportunities to view the entire film in HD.

To view the film, follow the links below with the password 'littleslean'

part one: http://www.vimeo.com/5441167
part two: http://www.vimeo.com/5581655

Make sure to note the film is split into two parts. Please share your thoughts of the film here in the comments or post a link to where we can view them. The video will be coming down at the end of this weekend so do pass on the information to others you feel might be interested. You can also join their Facebook group and let them know what you think.

Enjoy!

Update 2010-01-20

The film is now available via the above links to the public with no password required.

Sarah at the Rivoli - Review and Film News

Today marked the premiere of CitySonic's film of 'Sarah Slean at the Rivoli.' The free screening at a busy Dundas Square was mostly focused on Sarah and ironically didn't spend a great time on the Rivoli. She is interviewed around the Royal Conservatory and spoke about her time in school playing classical music. It spoke about her ambitions to play at the Rivoli as so many artists she admired played there and it was a place to learn how to play to a live crowd. There wasn't any mention to any of her past concerts dates there or bands she took in seeing there.

It was a well done interview and did come out quite beautifully. The music of California was played near the start and one of the most impressive visual scenes were animations of some of Sarah's paintings done to the music of Get Home. The art work came to life in a way that far different from the flash animation style used by Nelson Chan in the Tales of The Baroness, Day One and Mary.

If you missed it at TIFF, the film will likely see its way online by CitySonic in the near future. They have frequently been puting up episodes in this series to YouTube.

Earlier during the festival, The Translator was shown during the festival that features a cameo appearance by Sarah. The brief scene at the start of the film credits her as 'The French Speaking Girl". This film is currently available free to view at the Fim Festival site here.

Lastly, more exciting news is to follow regarding C. J. Wallis's film, Last Flowers. Stay tuned as a review and for a special announcement to littleslean readers.

Free Sarah Slean Documentary @ TIFF (Update)

For months I have been following City Sonic as they put together an episode where artists discuss an venue they have been intimately tied too.

The filmed piece directed by Rob Pilichowski that focuses on Sarah Slean and the Queen Street concert venue the Rivoli will be premiering as part of The Toronto International Film Festival. The Rivoli was one of the venues Sarah started her career at continued to play many memorable sold out shows there including her annual holiday shows. Her signed portrait photograph was the only one to hang above the stage bar for a number of years.

The film will be shown as one of the free showings at Dundas Square which this year at the festival will also include free musical concerts be Neil Young and Joan Baez.

The date and time of the showing have yet to be announced.

September 15th, 12pm Followed by Sweet Toronto - Update 2009-08-19

For those that can not make it to the free showing, City Sonic has been putting up the videos in high quality to YouTube and to one of my favourite music sites, Aux TV.

Last Flowers - Full Trailer

A full trailer for Last Flowers that features Sarah Slean has now been uploaded. View it in HD on YouTube or over here.

The trailer does give you an idea of what the film is about without unveiling any big spoilers.

Sarah Slean is acting in the film, Last Flowers

between takes
Originally uploaded by zablotny

Sarah is making a return to film in a CJ Wallis short film titled, Last Flowers. Sarah's acting debut to film came in 2005's Black Widow.

Currently, not much has been published on the film as it just stated filming on October 30th (and wraps this Wednesday). In Sarah's recent Question and Answer session she didn't mention the film in her list of projects but did bring up working on a Modern Man movie.

Many thanks to a Flickr user who has provided me some greater information and has uploaded an excellent set of photos to flickr in his set for Last Flowers. You can view the images here.

From the film's faecbook page, the following information is revealed:

Last Flowers is an uplifting dramatic short film about an author named Harvey Harris.

With Harvey’s latest novel being universally rejected, he is feeling more distanced than ever from the world and everyone that surrounds him - a desperate move leads him to sneaking into the very funerals he writes about as a bizarre form of self-help therapy, gaining temporary love and acceptance from those people who are at their most vulnerable and self-less state of mind.

The death of Harvey’s mother, coupled with a chance meeting of a strong-willed woman named Mona, will force Harvey to confront his greatest fears about loss and rejection and how to find a way to connect through the most severe forms of disconnection.


Written & Directed by: CJ Wallis
Produced by: Elli Weisbaum
DP: Robert Walsh
Original Score: Kevin James Maher


Cast: Joseph May, Sarah Slean, Troy De Lottinville & Rikki Gagne

I encourage you all to join the facebook group as they will be posting news, pictures, and video from the production. Currently, they have one video of Sarah walking herself to the piano with a wine glass in hand.

I was also able to receive the following information.

Last Flowers is being screened at 2009's sundance film festival, and is directed by CJ Wallis. It's been an absolute blast to work with Sarah, and everyone is having a fantastic time. There will eventually be a DVD release of some form with lots of extra fancy things.

The 2009 Sundance Film Festival is only 74 days away.

The film director CJ Wallis has put Sarah Slean in his 'Top 4' on his myspace page for the film Heat Sink. The site's picture page and the film's poster shows a strong resemblance to Sarah's keyboard following her 2005 concert at the Phoenix.

Update: 2008-11-13
Exclaim magazine has a few updates on Last Flowers. The film is to be 20 minutes long and hopes are for public viewing to start in early 2009. The film's music is being scored by Fake Shark of Real Zombie,

Tales of the Baroness - DVD Release

The film Tales of The Baroness by Sarah Slean and Nelson Chan is slated for DVD release this month. Last year part 1 of the three part trilogy was shown on television.

Details such as the DVD's costs and features has not yet been made available. At this time your prompted to reserve a copy on the website www.talesofthebaroness.com .



In addition to the film's trailer, animation tests have been added by Nelson Chan to his YouTube account. Nelson Chan is also the video director of Sarah's videos Day One and Mary.

Update, 2008-02-12: The DVD is indefinitely delayed accorded to a recent post on the Sarah Slean forum.

Tales of The Baroness - Coming Soon to TV

A reminder that the film by Nelson Chan and Sarah Slean titled, Tales of the Baroness shows this Friday on Bravo TV with following air dates on City TV and the A channel over the weekend. With promo posters indicating it's "Part One" I'm uncertain to if the runtime will be longer then 15 minutes and how many segments the complete feature will be.

For complete times, trailers, and downloads visit: www.talesofthebaroness.com

Image used with permission.