An independent Canadian feature film years in the making opens in select cities across Canada this weekend.
Written by director Dale Hildebrand and actor Charly Chiarelli, Road to The Lemon Grove follows the story of Calogero Contatini as he tries to mend his tattered relationship with his late father and reconnect with his ancestral home. Turns out his father, Antonio, cannot enter the Pearly Gates until he makes peace with his son. And so, he appears to Calogero as a ghost and forces him to bring his ashes back to Sicily.
A reluctant Calogero must also settle a long family feud over a secluded abandoned family lemon grove in Sicily. Its worth is not so much in the production of lemons, but in the statue of a Madonna that supposedly performs miracles. He parents also happened to fall in love in that very grove.
Chiarelli is a Canadian storyteller, best known for his one-man shows, Cu’Fu, Mangia Cake, and Bruta Figura. In Road to The Lemon Grove, he plays four different characters, including father and son, Antonio and Calogero.
The transformation into the 90-something Antonio is almost flawless thanks to prosthetics by Emmy Award winning makeup artist Charles Porlier and amazing acting chops on the part of Chiarelli.
“On the days I played Antonio, make up would take five and a half hours. And I would get two hours of sleep. I started telling Dale that I didn’t think I needed make up to look old anymore,” Chiarelli muses.
Dale Hildebrand himself wears numerous hats on Lemon Grove: writer, director, producer, and editor.
The original story idea was that of Hildebrand. After writing a first draft, using his previous work and his Italian-Canadian wife’s family stories as inspiration, he approached Chiarelli for collaboration.
The scriptwriting progressed as the production team attempted an always risky challenge – making a professional feature film on a shoestring budget. Hildebrand, for example, used his Air Miles to fly the Canadian crew to Italy.
“The story evolved over the years it took us to make it. In the end it’s a film about a father and son, about the love of land, and the love of a woman,” Chiarelli explains.
During the team’s initial scouting trip to Sicily, Hildebrand asked Chiarelli to bring his character’s suit. As they travelled dozens of cities, Hildebrand couldn’t resist picking up the camera and filming. Some of those shots ended up in the film.
“We wanted to depict a lot of cities into one fictional village. In the end, we filmed in 23 different cities to create the fictional town of Terramare,” Chiarelli explains.
The duo toyed with many professions for Calogero, eventually settling on professor of linguistics. The professor records a visual blogs as lesson material for his students. As Calogero’s journey intensifies, the blogs become a storytelling vehicle – at times, the audience feels as if the professor is addressing them directly.
“Linguistics has become Calogero’s world. He becomes consumed with what he’s discussing. He wants his audience to understand the immigrant experience. One way or another – except for the aboriginals – we are all descents of immigrants. All nationalities can relate to this story,” Hildebrand explains.
“The blog was a perfect vehicle to make our argument in an intellectual manner. This gave us a way to talk about language. There are 7,000 languages in the world right now. 90% of those will be gone in 100 years,” Chiarelli continues.
“Immigrants become nation builders everywhere they go, and then at one point they want go back to reconnect with their roots,” Hildebrand adds.
Was this a labour of love?
“Well, more a love-hate relationship,” Hildebrand muses.
With Road to the Lemon Grove finally hitting theatres, the duo admits that they have My-Big-Fat-Greek-Wedding-type dreams for the film.
The film has already garnered several awards: Best Comedy Feature at the Edmonton International Film Festival; the Cirs Award at the Taormina Film Festival; as well as two awards at Toronto’s Italian Contemporary Film Festival – Excellence in Performance and Best in Italian-Canadian Cinema.
Now, all they can do is wait to see if theatre audiences react just as well.
“This is a story about a father-son relationship in conflict. Yes, there is love in the heart. However, the son is an educated professor and the father is a terrone. It’s really a coming of age story for our main character. As our tag line says, it’s never too late to come of age,” Chiarelli comments.
Road to the Lemon Grove is now playing in select cities across Canada. Please check your local listings for details.
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