The Image Before Us: A History of Film in British Columbia – Take 4
Screening Dates
  • April 9, 2018 6:30
In Person: Tom Shandel

Vancouver writer-director Tom Shandel’s spirited social comedy, made for $200,000, takes satirical swipes at the business, academic, and arts communities and at ethnic enclaves. Henry Ramer plays Sonny Shewchuk, an ambitious Ukrainian-Canadian stockbroker who decides that the road to professional success is through cultural assimilation. He adapts an Anglo name—Harold Smith, or Smitty—and acquires a WASPy wife (prominent Canadian stage actress Francis Hyland, in an early screen role). But after he’s made it to the top, ​“Smitty” is ready to reclaim his ethnic heritage—and, heck, save some money on his taxes—by endowing a university building in the name of a 17th-century Ukrainian warlord, with hilarious results. Ukrainian-Canadians, it is said, were not amused by the film’s satire. A contemporary review by Province critic Michael Walsh deemed Shandel’s comedy ​“a happy surprise.”

DCP courtesy of Library and Archives Canada

Introduced by Curtis Woloschuk, Associate Director of Programming, VIFF