Films and Fond of Tigers with Colin Garcia

To kick-off AN EVENING WITH FOND OF TIGERS at Club PuSh (Jan. 28, Fox Cabaret), the band has selected several short films by American filmmaker COLIN GARCIA. We spoke with Colin about his films and involvement with Fond of Tigers.

HOW DID YOU DISCOVER FOND OF TIGERS AND WHAT IMPRESSED YOU?
I discovered FoT on a lark. The first time I visited Vancouver back in 2007, I went to Zulu Records with the intention of leaving there with an album by a local act that wasn't The New Pornographers (I say that endearingly). Having just been released that year, I settled on FoT's Release the Saviours, a decision based purely on the album art alone. Strangely, I used to do that a lot when buying music. The band's energy and shear sonic breadth of the music itself captured me right away; it was familiar yet totally unlike anything I had ever heard. I grew up listening to film scores quite a bit so the cinematic tendencies of the arrangements really made a quick impression on me. There's even a palpable tension and suspense woven throughout the music that I absolutely adore, probably because I'm so wound up all the time.

GIVE US YOUR BASIC BIOGRAPHY.
I was born and raised in a bourbon barrel in Louisville, Kentucky. I graduated in 2004 with a BA in Sculpture, but have always loved and, thus, dabbled in film. Having worked a few silly jobs right out of university, eventually, I focused all my energies on professional film, music video and high-end commercial work.

TELL US A LITTLE ABOUT EACH OF THE FILMS AND HOW THE MUSIC FIGURES INTO THEM.
Soheb isn't really a film at all: it's essentially the unofficial/official music video I made without the band's blessing for the first song off their Continent & Westernalbum. I was going through a weird royalty free archival stock footage phase at the time and this was a direct result. It's kind of a manic even amateurish shitshow of an assemblage, but the band seemed to like it so that made me happy.

Ulla is an odd little experimentalish narrative short I directed and co-wrote with my old friend, Tora Eff, who also played the character of Ulla. We shot the film entirely in her native Danish tongue, a language I don't speak nor comprehend. We cut the film using two FoT songs from Continent & Western as temp tracks, but I grew to love the impact they had on the tone of the film so much that we used them in the final cut. Again, it was a situation where the brooding, tense nature of the band's music is exactly what the movie needed.

NIMBI is my first foray into the wide world of documentary and FoT figures into the film on practically every level. Honestly, it seems to have morphed into this abstract, existential tone poemesque love letter to the band (weird?) and even Vancouver itself. I've been trying to build a legion of FoT followers for nearly ten years now, so I suppose it could function as a propaganda film too.

YOU CAME TO VANCOUVER LAST SUMMER TO CATCH THE BAND RECORDING – WHAT INSIGHTS DID YOU GAIN ABOUT THEM?
The most pivotal insight I gained speaks to the integrity of these seven individuals. The immense trust that the band exhibited by simply allowing this lanky dude from Kentucky – a stranger in many respects – to infiltrate and document a very intimate situation still amazes me. I feel very privileged indeed. Moreover, I realized that this is a group of really lovely, kind, dynamic and supremely talented fellows whom I hope will continue to make music together until I need a pacemaker and/or colostomy bag(s).

WHAT ARE YOU WORKING ON NOW?
We're currently in pre-production on a creepy, horror/thriller narrative short a wrote last year called Of A Certain Pedigree. Concurrently, I'm writing the screenplay for what I hope will be my feature directorial debut.