BY MICHAEL JAMES
Cinefest Sudbury International Film festival may not have all the glamour and glitz of the Toronto International Film Festival, but 21-year-old Kristin Adams is thrilled to be here nonetheless.
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Toronto actress Kristin Adams stars in the creepy, but powerful Canadian film Falling Angels. |
The Toronto-based actress was in town Thursday night for the opening of Falling Angels, her first feature-length film.
It?s also the first time she?s been to either Sudbury or Cinefest, Adams said, adding she plans to remain in Sudbury for a day or two and hopes to take in some films during Cinefest, which wraps up tonight.
So far, all she?s done, besides relax, is visit Science North.
In the movie, Adams plays 16-year-old Sandy, the youngest of three teenage sisters struggling to come to terms with love, sex, a dysfunctional family and a terrible secret during the late 1960s and early 70s.
Unlike her on screen family, Adams said the family she grew up in was quite normal.
?I had a stable family life,? she said.
Adams said she first caught the acting bug when she was around five years old. Although she admits to having had no formal acting training beyond high school - she attended a performing arts high school in Toronto - Adams said she has always enjoyed acting and singing in school plays.
?When I was 16, I decided to (look for) an agent,? she said, ?and I?ve been with her ever since.?
Over the last five years Adams has done fairly well for herself. She has kept busy doing commercials and making guest appearances on television shows, the most notable being Dear America for HBO, a TV series called Playmakers and 72 Hours, a crime drama.
Adams said when she first read the Falling Angels script, based on the novel by Canadian author Barbara Gowdy, she found she could relate to the character of Sandy?a beautiful, needy and vulnerable young woman who seeks love wherever she can.
?I found there were (a number) of parallels between us,? she said. ?It was kind of scary, actually.?
Even though she does tend to get cast as the young ingenue, Adams said the character of Sandy is quite a departure from other roles she has played.
?Sandy is different because she?s a character from a very-well written novel...and, because the film is set in the late 60s, it allows the character a kind of innocence and naivete that you wouldn?t normally find today,? she said.
Adams said it was ?amazing? working with seasoned veterans Callum Keith Rennie and Miranda Richardson.
?I had a one-on-one scene with Miranda, and even though she doesn?t say much in the scene, she?s so into it...so believable...you don?t feel like you?re acting (at all),? she said.
Cinefest 2003 has films showing all day at Silver City Cinemas.
The closing gala film is the acclaimed new film Lost in Translation, starring Bill Murray. The film is directed by
Sofia Coppola, the daughter of legendary American director Francis Ford Coppola.
Lost in Translation will play at 7 pm.
The closing evening gala party will take place in the Palladium Room at the Ramada Inn in the Rainbow Outlet
Centre.
