Local filmmaker bends time in Beyond the Deep

by Tom Morrison

 

Filmmaker. Bank teller. Traveller.

In Kyle Mosonyi’s bedroom, DVDs overflow a bookshelf that covers almost the entire height of a wall. Framed degrees in mathematics and film are sandwiched between a professional The Departed movie poster and a map of the world with pins in the places he’s been. A large iMac computer sits on a desk waiting to be used for editing video.

Mosonyi has just shown the first public screenings of Riot, his first feature film which he directed, wrote and edited. It’s a project that dates back almost 10 years to writing a script when he was 17 or 18.

“When you’re younger you think you have all these amazing ideas that are going to guarantee to get you into Hollywood and all that stuff, so I sent it into a script reviewing thing through online,” says Mosonyi, 28. “It was over 200 pages, which is absurd for a script, but I had all of these ideas. I don’t even think I re-read it. I just pumped it and I just did it all through once, not even correct format. I sent it in and they destroyed it, obviously.”

Mosonyi left the project alone for a while until he started re-writing it in 2006, when he traveled to England on a student exchange while studying math at the University of Windsor. After beginning film school in 2008 at Red Deer College in Alberta, Mosonyi started filming his script in December 2009 and January 2010, then took a break until May and June 2010 to film scenes set in another season.

Shot on a budget of approximately $15,000, Riot is the story of a group of friends who go out to bars in downtown Windsor one night after university exams and are awoken by a break-in in one of their houses the next morning. Several months pass, the break-in is still on their minds and their friendships are tested.

Justin Tessier was one of the main cast members in the film, playing a character who, like Mosonyi, majored in math. He says Mosonyi let the actors choose how they wanted to portray their characters.

“Even though he wrote all of the roles, he was trying to approach it as much as he could from the actor’s interpretation,” Tessier says. “Instead of him having this idea set in stone and then you have to fit the mold, he lets you mold the character yourself, which I thought was really good because it allows for more artistic freedom.”

The movie features locations and slang that might only be familiar to people from Windsor. One character tells another in a text message that they are going to “lawyers,” referring to the Windsor bar The Honest Lawyer. Mosonyi says he was hoping people from the city would see the movie and find these things amusing.

“Windsorites that come up to me, they all have this image that Windsor’s just this ‘uh’ kind of place, but they saw it and said, ‘Wow, you made Windsor look really good,’ so I’m like, ‘Well that’s how it always is. Don’t take it for granted.’”

Born in Windsor, Mosonyi has always wanted to be involved in making movies. He started when he was about 14 by bringing a camera with him on family vacations and then compiling the footage into music videos.

After graduating with a bachelor’s degree in mathematics in 2007, Mosonyi worked at a place that sells loans and mortgages. He found out about the Red Deer College film school from another Windsor filmmaker, Dylan Pearce, who happened to be on the company’s call sheet. He applied to the school and got accepted the same time he was accepted into medical school.

“I had to choose one of the two and I ended up choosing the film school,” he says. “It was a huge decision and … my parents were a little nervous about it at first, but I think they’re happy that I’m doing something that I want to do and I can always explore that if this doesn’t work out.”

Using his mathematics degree, Mosonyi also works as a teller for National Bank of Canada and will be starting a new position as an adviser soon. He’s responsible for making deposits and withdrawals, assisting clients, doing ATM processes and other tasks. He says he was worried he would have to quit the job during the summer when he was filming his second feature film, but the company allowed him to take seven weeks off.

“I love it there, so I’m really happy to continue that because I can’t do one without the other. I can’t do the bank job without the film thing because I’m obviously so passionate about that, but I can’t do the film thing without the bank job because I just wouldn’t be able to accommodate myself and I got to support myself in a way,” Mosonyi says.

Another interest Mosonyi has is travelling. His time in England on a student exchange helped him build the confidence he needed to be in charge of a film set.

“I went there a very timid, very shy guy, but when you get there you’re forced – you don’t know anybody, you don’t know what you’re doing, you don’t know where you are. You just got to talk to people and connect with them and I definitely did that. I came back a different person.”

Mosonyi’s next movie, Beyond the Deep, is a step up in ambition from Riot. A man finds a wormhole in the forest that allows him to travel randomly forwards or backwards in time. He falls in love with a girl and goes back in the wormhole to find her after he realizes he made a mistake, but he runs the risk of traveling too far back in the past and erasing everything that comes after.

Most of the film finished shooting in September, but Mosonyi wants to get some winter footage in January 2013. It is expected to be released in 2014, according to the teaser trailer.

Just like Riot, Mosonyi’s second feature will be funded out of his own pocket. He says it’s helpful to have family support when you’re tackling a project outside of your day job.

“I wouldn’t say I’m a dependent person, but I live with my family still … they’ve been really nice to have me because I don’t have enough to get on the ground running because these two movies I’ve been making have just been clearing out my bank account because I’m paying for it all myself.

“It’s pretty risky, but you got to take a risk if you want to try to make it, so I guess that’s my risk.”