Local filmmaker Beth Mairs attended Sudbury's annual Margaret Atwood Birthday Party in 2010 with the aim of making a pitch to the Canadian literary legend.
She was hoping Atwood would appear in a cameo role in an adventure film parody she wanted to shoot.
Mairs, a huge Atwood fan, wrote up a pitch for the film, presenting it to the author in a birthday card. She found out who was driving Atwood back to the airport, and enlisted him to ask her what she thought of the pitch.
“He barely got the sentence out of his mouth when she said 'I read it, I like it, I'm saying yes, tell them yes, my people will call,'” Mairs said.
Fast forward three years, and Mairs' film, Awaiting Atwood, premiered at the ninth edition of the Margaret Atwood Birthday Party Nov. 14 before a sold-out crowd at Science North's Vale Cavern.
The event supported the Margaret Atwood Scholarship at Laurentian University.
As Atwood's books often address environmentalism and extinction, the birthday party was actually part of the international Thinking Extinction symposium, which was held at Laurentian Nov. 14-16.
In Awaiting Atwood, Mairs and partner Betty Ann McPherson misconstrue a series of emails, and mistakenly think that Atwood has invited her to her Toronto home.
“Having nothing better to do, they turn this into a summer of adventure,” she said.
“They go on bicycles, pulling a canoe in case they come across water they could paddle, and as they're travelling down from Sudbury to downtown Toronto, they encounter a series of misadventures.
“Each misadventure takes them into this side trip where they're pulled into the theme of another Atwood novel.”
Mairs said she got the idea for the adventure film satire from the Banff Mountain Film Festival, with which she and McPherson have a “love-hate relationship” because of its dearth of female protagonists.
The film is a parody of 2009 Banff award-winning film Finding Farley, which features a couple paddling across Canada to meet their literary hero, Farley Mowat.
“It's a feminist satire,” he said. “We're doing a send-up of adventure film. But we end up poking more fun at ourselves, because we are unlikely heroines of an adventure film.”
Addressing the audience after the film's screening, Atwood said she thought the film was quite weird, but exceptional. “What courage to let yourselves be shot without makeup so many times,” she joked.
Atwood, who also entertained the audience with a short talk about her latest novel, MaddAddam, told Northern Life she was happy to help out Mairs, as she was only in one scene, and “it wasn't a big deal.”
Shannon Hengen, the semi-retired Laurentian University English professor who organizes the event, said she loved Awaiting Atwood, especially all of the references to Atwood's work.
As for Atwood herself, who turns 74 on Nov. 18, Hengen said she “can't even say in words how wonderful it is” that she comes to Sudbury every year for the birthday celebration.
“It's a wonderful gift to us,” she said. “We hope she continues and enjoys it. We're lucky.”
Atwood said she always enjoys attending the event because it gives her an excuse to come to Sudbury, which is much rejuvenated from the moonscape she remembers from childhood visits.
Besides, she wants to support the worthy causes the event always benefits. “I think it's a good thing to do, don't you?” she asks.
