Carl Bessai

Director

Edmonton, Canada

Biography

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Carl Bessai (born 1966 in Edmonton, Alberta) is a Canadian film director and screenwriter. Bessai studied at OCAD University and at York University in Toronto graduating with a Master of Fine Arts Degree. He got his start directing documentary films before moving to Vancouver and directing his debut feature film Johnny in 1999. Bessai has made a career working on low-budget independent features but has worked with A-List actors Ian McKellen and Deborah …

Filmography

5.1

Normal

A deadly car accident brings together a group of previously unrelated people, each of whom is forced to deal with the emotional fallout.

4.8

Hiccups

Millie Upton is a successful children's author who's prone to flying off the handle. Stan Dirko is Millie's less-than-qualified life-coach. Together, they work through Millie's...err...unpredictable spasms. It's a case of the lost leading the lost, with the best of intentions and very little chance of success.

5.8

Repeaters

A gritty mind-bending thriller about three twenty-somethings who find themselves in an impossible time labyrinth, where each day they awaken to the same terrifying day as the preceding one.

5.3

No Clue

When a beautiful and mysterious woman bursts into the office of Leo Falloon, desperate to find her missing brother, it's just another day in the life of a hard-boiled detective. The problem is, Leo's not a detective. He sells novelty advertising across the hall from the detective, but how hard can it be?

2.7

Fathers & Sons

Fathers & Sons is a comedic exploration of a group of men and their relationships with their fathers. A middle-aged Jewish man meets his father for the first time at the funeral of his mother. A south-Asian accountant introduces his white fiance to his father - a gay, Bollywood choreographer. A recently bankrupted Wall-Street broker has come home to borrow money from his music teacher father, and four brothers gather at the paternal home to pay their last respects and to collect their inheritance.

3.5

Bad City

Bad City is on the edge of falling into the hands of a madman, you dig? A strange and funky new party drug is killing kids left and right and that jive-ass, crooked city councilor Dominic Kincaid is behind it all. After murdering the mayor, Kincaid has his sights set on taking over and running the city his way, the bad way. Thankfully, the one and only superfly Detective Franky New Guinea and his new partner, the truly unruly Detective Reverend Grizzly Night-Bear, are here to make sure that Bad City stays groovy and is run the good way: the Bad way (it's different from the first bad way, and better). So get ready to boogie, cats, 'cause these cops are outta sight like dy-no-mite and the only thing they love more than sex, drugs, and growing body hair is taking down turkeys like Kincaid who threaten their BAD CITY.

5.3

The Lears

A modern take on William Shakespeare's King Lear.

4.0

Ungodly Acts

Inspired by actual events. When Melissa Cooper's body is found hanging from a swing set, the 27-year-old's death is initially ruled a suicide. But two weeks later a young man, Adam, comes forward claiming he murdered Melissa on the orders of her husband, Daniel Cooper.

5.2

Mr. Miracle

Heavenly angel Harry Mills is sent to Earth on a trial assignment to intervene in the life of a woman who needs help getting her life on track after the death of her father. With a deadline of Christmas day, he attempts to help her heal in order to embrace a new future, and an unexpected love, just in time to celebrate the miracle of the holiday season.

N/A

Field Sketches

Peter has been trying to get back to his creative roots as an architect. His successful partnership with his college friend Bruce has left him feeling as though he can no longer find the art in his creative practice. But downsizing to his own firm proves more difficult than expected and when he realizes he has to sell his house in order to survive, his girlfriend leaves him. With nothing left to hold him in the city, he decides to move out to his cousin’s farm and spend the winter in Saskatchewan. At first his plan is to build a cabin and winter like his mentor Henry Thoreau, but the weather soon overwhelms him.

4.7

Sisters & Brothers

An ensemble comedy about the love and dysfunction shared among four sets of siblings.

4.8

Severed

A multi-national forestry company engages in genetic experimentation to increase logging yield in a remote section of forest...

3.7

Rehearsal

Faced with financial ruin, an aging theater director struggling to stay relevant must cast a young action movie star in his new play. When the director's theatrical nature clashes with the movie star's Hollywood attitude, they must figure out how to make this work because on way or another, the show must go on!

6.5

Cole

A small town youth finds fulfillment and romance in a big city's creative writing course, but feels obliged to sacrifice them when his sister's home life deteriorates in his absence.

6.2

Emile

In a story weaving the past and present together, Emile seeks redemption from the family he abandoned.

4.4

Unnatural & Accidental

Rebecca has returned home to be with her dying father. His last wish is that she track down her mother, an aboriginal woman who has long been missing. As she turns over the stones that hide the debris of the unwanted and forgotten, she is drawn into the mysteries of ten missing native women whose spirits lead Rebecca to the killer who still haunts the alleys, streets and hotels of this urban wasteland.

1.0

Mothers & Daughters

Comedy about three very different women and the complex relationship they have with their mothers.

4.9

Lola

The story follows a troubled woman and her search for identity. She is given a choice between a return to the dysfunction of the past, or a new life in self assumed identity.

5.0

Johnny

Johnny, the megalomaniac leader of a group of squeegee kids, finds a video camera and pushes his followers into "acting" out increasingly dangerous "scenes".

6.0

Evelyne

A Zimbabwean immigrant struggles to find a foothold until a gentle apartment caretaker named Gary reaches out to help her, in ways that exemplify the best of goodwill and empathy.