Coverage of Robocalls

First Robocop and now Robocalls.

Stephen Harper and the conservatives are being accused of leading voters astray in last May's federal election. Here is my report for @Humber.

David Shamoon of 'In Darkness'

One day eight years ago David Shamoon read a sentence in the Toronto Star that piqued his interest.

It led him down a path that has taken him to Sunday's Oscars.

What caught his attention was a line about a Catholic Polish man who hid a group of Jews in the sewers of Lvov during the Second World War.

The Markham native did some research and eventually came upon the book by Robert Marshall about the dangers of living underground in Nazi-occupied Poland called In the Sewers of Lvov.

Shamoon began writing the screenplay for what would become In Darkness, inspired also by his parents who were forced to flee Baghdad to escape Iraq's persecution of Jews.

The story looks at the complicated motivations of the anti-Semitic main character who hides the group of Jews, and the terrifying life that they lead below ground. All of the characters are deeply flawed and find various ways to deal with the terrible conditions they find themselves in.

Once the screenplay was written, Shamoon and director Agnieszka Holland had to negotiate the language of the film, which almost threw a wrench into the whole project.

The film is nominated for best foreign language film.

Here is an excerpt from an interview I had recently with Shamoon:


I understand that language was one of the things that hindered the advancement of the film?
I wanted Agnieszka to do the film but when we started talking about making it in English, we had to talk about accents -and actors putting on fake accents. Although there are very talented actors out there, she just didn’t want to go that route. She wanted it to be authentic with the real languages. I was reluctant and she gave me an ultimatum. Now looking back, it was totally the best decision. Agnieszka was bang on 100 per cent. We tried to reason with her but she stood strong. What made me change my mind was that she was the one on the planet to make the film. If we wanted her we didn’t really have a choice.


You’ve said that working with Agnieszka is like getting a PhD in filmmaking. What did you learn?

So much. It was like screenwriting 101. I learned that film is a visual medium and actors bring things to the project that do not require words. So much dialogue can be left out. Screenwriters tend to overwrite and when an actor gets involved you see what they bring to the table and how much they can get across without words. She also taught me about integrity and being an artist. First and foremost she is an artist. She is very courageous. Working with so many people with different languages it could get complicated and she just pushed through all of that. How can you not learn from someone like that? I keep pinching myself.

You’ve been working on this project for eight years. What kept you motivated through that whole process?

I felt like it was an important story. Although it’s a terrible one, it’s something we need to be reminded of. The story doesn’t just belong to the Jews – it belongs to us all. And it shows the worst and the best of mankind. It’s about the human element and it’s important to see there is good and bad in all of us with shades of grey in between. These were all people who were caught in an extreme situation. Honestly one per cent of the research that I did made it into the script. It was all just so horrifying and unimaginable.

The sole survivor saw the movie. What was that like, knowing that she would see it?

We flew to New York to screen the rough cut with Krystyna. Although the film is based on a true story there was also dramatization and fictionalization so I was worried about how she would react. As we were watching the film she whispered to her husband in Polish, which I don’t understand. And after it was over and the lights came on, her face was covered in tears. And then she said that was how it was. Honestly watching it was emotional for all of us. I’ve heard that she said she doesn’t want to watch it anymore and I understand that.

And you visited the sewers where this happened?

Yes I visited the camp in Lvov, which is now Lviv, Ukraine. We had planned to go in there for a few hours or something. But we didn’t last for more than 45 minutes. It was terrifying. We were walking on a ledge about a foot and a half wide, crouching. The person in front of me turned off the light a few times and it was pitch black. I can’t describe what it’s like when you truly can’t see anything. It was terrifying. I can’t tell you how they did it. I’m glad that I had the experience though.

Is it true that now you’re writing a comedy?

Yes. I’m going to LA soon to meet with the casting director. There will be a British director. It was refreshing to change gears. I was writing the comedy while I was doing rewrites and working through all the difficulty of In Darkness. It was kind of like escaping into the comedy because it was light and present day. It was a welcome change.

You have an incredible story yourself.  15 years ago you weren’t even writing screenplays and now you’re going to the Oscars.

Yes, it’s an unlikely story. I was in advertising and worked in art direction, then moved towards writing and eventually started my own agency. Then 15 years ago I got this crazy idea of writing screenplays and I learned all that I could about the craft and developed my skills as much as I could. I wrote on assignment for studios, and from there it was a pretty gradual thing.

When you heard that news about the nomination of the film for best foreign film, what was that like?

It was just a relief to be named. It’s a huge honour. What a lot of people seem to forget in all this is the Genie nomination, three in total (one for me), and 10 nominations at the Polish film awards. When I found out I was in my family room with the television on and I’m pretty sure I could hear about my heart pounding.



In Darkness is playing at the Varsity theatre in Toronto.

The birth of The Grid

Last spring Torontonians saw Eye Weekly boxes disappear across the city. Although they had sat side-by-side with rival NOW Magazine for two decades, Star Media Group (owners of Eye) decided it was time for a change. In May 2011, named after the layout of the city, a fully rebranded publication was unveiled and The Grid was born. 


Despite a circulation of over 200,000 at the time of the shift, the popularity of Eye Weekly never could quite surpass that of its lead competitor, NOW Magazine. NOW's circulation sits at about 350,000.  


Laas Turnbull took on the position as the publisher and editor-in-chief at the alt-weekly in August 2010 after Toronto Star publisher John Cruickshank approached him. “Eye Weekly was not working as a business and John said to me, 'Figure it out,'” Turnbull told me.


This isn’t the first time that Turnbull has been put in charge  of a big transformation. When he took over as editor-in-chief at the Globe and Mail's Report on Business in 2003, he completely changed the editorial vision. 


Turnbull installed an unapologetically Bay Street-centred perspective. He wanted to focus on the most important players in Canadian business rather than run how-to columns on small-time investment. 


“You're talking about huge egos, a-type personalities, intensive competition, and people trying to beat the shit out of each other,” he said. “The stakes are really high. So rather than talking about the dollars and cents, [I thought] let's try to tap into that drama.”


It was time for the Eye Weekly tenure to end for many reasons, according to Cruickshank. “I didn't like that we relied on adult classifieds for our business case,” he said. “And I didn't feel that the editorial was particularly distinguished. I also didn't feel that we were competing successfully with NOW Magazine - Eye's sense of mission was too similar to that of NOW.” 


Turnbull agreed: “It doesn't make sense in a city of this size to have two alternative newsweeklies,” he said.


James Adams is the columnist behind the Globe and Mail's “On the Stand: A weekly roundup of the best magazine reads”. Things needed to change or Eye Weekly would have continued to come in second, he said.


“Eye was always the weak sister to the NOW machine,” Adams told me. “Just in terms of page count and ads, it never ever could come close to NOW. NOW's enduring appeal is its listings, it's comprehensiveness of the live culture scene. Eye was never really able to eclipse NOW in that.”


After taking the helm at The Grid, Turnbull thought about where it would fit in the bigger picture. “I wanted to look at the wider scope of what was happening in the publishing scene here and figure out where the sweet spot was going to be,” he said. “And not just the editorial sweet spot – there needed to be a business case that ties into it too.”


That sweet spot is where The Grid has looked to put down its roots.  

Grey Cup anthem penned by Toronto songwriter Donovan Woods

Toronto songwriter Donovan Woods wrote a song based on his dad's envy for his cousin's football ring. 

That song ("My Cousin Has a Grey Cup Ring") has become an unlikely Canadian football anthem. 

Now Donovan's dad sends him a constant flow of e-mails with interesting newspaper clippings hoping to inspire him to write more songs. 

"He’s still working hard to inspire other songs," Donovan told me. "Every day he'll send me scanned articles from the newspaper. And I say ‘Dad, you can find online versions of all these news articles.' But he still cuts them out and scans them. It’s kind of nice. It’s nice to get a big ol' file in your inbox."

Although most sports anthems are usually upbeat tracks, this song has a bit of a melancholy tinge. 

"It’s a song about feeling inadequate," Donovan explained. "For me, anyway, my favourite folk songs are wistful songs that say, ‘Yeah you’re inadequate but it’s going to be okay.’"

Read the full article here, at thedailyplanet.com. 

The shoe tree: One of nature's greatest mysteries

This shoe tree was discovered in a small town in the countryside of south-western Ontario. How can it be, that a tree produces shoes as its fruit? We will never know. And maybe we were never meant to. 

Court hears testimony in second-degree murder trial

The jury heard testimony from three witnesses at the second-degree murder trial of Humber student Nahor Araya Monday. The testimonies came from three men who were at Buttonwood Park on Oct. 3, 2008 when Boris Cikovic, 17, was shot.

The court has heard that Cikovic allegedly defended himself with an electrical stunning device before he was fatally shot in the abdomen by the suspect. Three men allegedly tried to rob the victim of his backpack before things escalated.

Nathan Azzopardi told the court that he was one of the first to come to the aid of Cikovic after he was gunned down.

“All I heard was two shots ring out and I ran,” Azzopardi testified. “Then I saw Boris on the ground and I had my hand on the bullet wound. After that he started going into shock.”

The court heard that after the shooting, three black males were seen walking away into a grassy area near the tennis courts at the park.

Defence attorney Stacey Nichols asked Azzopardi about some discrepancies between the statement he gave police the night of the shooting versus what he testified in court. In his statement, he told police that he saw Cikovic take out a tazer and shock one of the suspects. In court, Azzopardi said that he did not see the electric shock device at any time. “I never saw him use it with my own eyes,” he said.

Azzopardi said he remembers what he saw the night of the shooting. “I remember what I've seen,” he told the court. “My mind was everywhere that night. I just watched my best friend get shot. He pretty much died in my arms.”

Aaron Stirtzinger-Bell, 19, was the second witness to testify Monday. He told the court that he only knew one of the teens drinking in the park that night and did not see Cikovic get shot. As he left the courtroom, Stirtzinger-Bell shook the hands of Davorin and Vesna Cikovic, parents of the slain teen, and was given a hug and a kiss on the cheek by Vesna Cikovik.

The third witness was Nikola Kilibarda, 19, who will continue his testimony Tuesday.

Araya, 21, is a third-year arts student at Humber College and is the only person charged in the murder. Crown attorney Patrick Travers told the court that Araya did not pull the trigger, but is just as guilty for his involvement in the fatal botched robbery.

iPhone 4S causes long line-ups across GTA

Check out this report I did along with Kelly Hall for Humber News on the release of the new iPhone.