Humber talent bites Big Apple

Humber theatre student premieres film in L.A. and showcases in New York

(Originally published on March 13, 2006)

Philip Phangsoa wanted to make some money.

Now, the third-year theatre student at Humber College will bring his first feature- length film, Time in a Life, to the New York Independent Film and Video Festival in May.

Phangsoa says the script creation and finalizing, casting, rehearsing and filming happened over three months. Their longest days, he says, were during a weekend of filming in a Toronto hotel, which was paid from his own funds.

“The film is a stepping stone so we could make the film that we actually wanted to make,” Phangsoa explains. “The thing with this film is that we had to think of something that we could film right now, that we were capable of filming right now.”

Based on a video game, the film follows the life of a young hit man, Chame Leon, played by Humber theatre student Sefton Jackson, that must face some serious decisions when his best friend’s sister gets abducted.

When rescuing the girl (film and television student Jessica Boivin), Leon is pulled along through a series of unexpected twists and turns.

Phangsoa and his co-director, Michael Luckett, say they had no idea it was going to turn into a feature length project.

“For me, I was always like, ‘Okay, let’s dumb it down. Let’s keep it simple,’ But [Phangsoa] kept pushing the script,” Luckett says. “And I was like, ‘Alright.’ And it worked.”

It was during a meeting at Denny's in the summer of 2004 when Phangsoa told him the idea.

Phangsoa was taking a year off school at the time, working as a quality control agent at a pharmaceutical company where he earned the money to buy the camera used for the film, their biggest investment on the project.

Theatre student Rory Shaw Duddy was asked to play the role of Leon's best friend the same time Jackson was cast as the lead character. Boivin was then recommended for the part of the abducted sister.

The film has been presented to production companies, including Lion’s Gate Entertainment (Crash, Saw III), where Phangsoa and Luckett hope it will be picked up, even if it goes straight to video.

The film is planned to be the first out of a trilogy, with a prequel and sequel in the works. The sequel will be a spin-off based on a character from Time, Hite Linden, which is played by Phangsoa.

Time in a Life premiered this past weekend in Los Angeles as part of the New York Independent Film and Video Festival on March 11 and will be screened again in New York in May.

Photography: Young Aria

Source: The Guelph-Humber Radix, March edition