Sue Gibson Garvey, beloved director/curator of the Dalhousie Art Gallery, retired earlier this year after 17 years in the fold. This week, Dal announced her successor—local fave Peter Dykhuis, moving over from the Anna Leonowens Gallery, where he's been administrative director since 1996.
"Peter brings nearly 30 years of experience in the Canadian gallery system to Dalhousie," says lan Shaver, Dal's vice president academic and provost. "Susan Gibson Garvey, the outgoing director/curator, is a tough act to follow, but Peter really impressed the search committee with his creativity, energy and people skills. I'm sure he will be a great success and that the students and staff at Dalhousie, and members of the general public, will continue to find that the Dalhousie Art Gallery contributes greatly to their lives."
Dykhuis begins his stint in August with the support of his predecessor. "I am delighted that Peter has accepted this position," says Garvey. "We have worked together on projects in the past and I know he will do an excellent job."
TIFF twofers
There will be some strong Halifax representation at this year's Toronto International Film Festival, which announced its Canadian slate this week. As we speculated last week, the Halifax-shot Poor Boy's Game is in, and that film's local co-writer, Chaz "no relation" Thorne is on fire this year, with his directorial debut, Just Buried, being slotted as well.
Our own Kate Watson predicted this set-up last December after a visit to the set of what was then called Pushing Up Daisies, a better title if you're asking us: "If all goes according to schedule it seems possible that Pushing Up Daisies will be sharing the screen at the 2007 Atlantic Film Festival with another feature film written by Thorne, with Clement Virgo—Poor Boy's Game, which wrapped here in June and stars Danny Glover."
Starring Jay Baruchel (currently still on local screens as the guy with the weird hair in Knocked Up), Just Buried is a comedy about a dude who inherits a money pit of a funeral home. There's also an "enchanting mortician" (Rose Byrne) whose father is the chief of police, and a murder cover-up, and a love story.
Also pulling double duty will be Ellen Page, who appears in Bruce McDonald's The Tracey Fragments as well as Kari Skogland's The Stone Angel, with Ellen Burstyn.
No locals, unfortch, scored any of the 43 short slots. TIFF runs September 6 to 15.
Cheeky
The Atlantic Film Festival has announced a cool new program for this year's event. For the past couple years, LA director Norwood Cheek has come to town to lead the Attack of the 50 Foot Reels, a super-8 workshop in which participants shot, edited and screened a three-minute film in one weekend. (Last year's directors included Sue Leblanc-Crawford, Mitchell Wiebe, Veronique MacKenzie-Bourne and Jill Barber.) Cheek has directed more than 70 videos, including clips for Ben Folds Five, Superchunk, Velocity Girl and Archers of Loaf, as well as commercials for Converse and X-Large.
This year he has created 10x10, a program that will match up 10 directors with 10 bands to make 10 music videos. (No VideoFACT grants to fill out here!) So if you're a filmmaker who wants to make a video, or a band with at least one record who wants a video to be made, you should head over to atlanticfilm.com and apply by July 30. It'll cost you $25, which is cheaper than that time you had to FedEx your Factor apps.
Pod boy
Mike Clattenburg has directed the pilot of jPod, a new Canadian series based on the Douglas Coupland novel of the same name, marking Clattenburg's first post-Trailer Park Boys project. Coupland's popular 2006 novel is an update of his masterful 1994 tome Microserfs and centres on a handful of video game programmers in Vancouver and is full of the technology wanks, mafia side stories and remarkable coincidences Coupland has been employing in his last few books, as well as a character named Douglas Coupland. Alan Thicke is one of the stars, but he's unfortunately not playing Douglas Coupland. Look for jPod in 2008.
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