Guidance

[projekktor id=’20408′]

Guidance is a Canadian dark comedy written, directed, and starring Pat Mills. Premiering at last year’s Toronto International Film Festival, the film co-stars Zahra Bentham, Kevin Hanchard, Tracey Hoyt, Alex Ozerov, and Eleanor Zichy.

David Gold, 36, a pathologically immature former child actor, has never been able to get over high school. Today, he was just diagnosed with skin cancer and got fired from the last acting gig he could get. Desperate for money and with nothing else to lose, he fakes his resume, and gets a job as a high school guidance counsellor. The students of Grusin High love him – it might be because he drinks and smokes with them. But this is just the beginning of his downward spiral. When he meets Jabrielle, a teenaged outcast who’s just as screwed up as he is, he might learn that in the company of teenagers, sometimes you can go too far, especially when it comes to committing a ridiculous crime.

“As a writer/director, I am constantly exploring themes of youth, teenagers and high school,” says Mills. “With GUIDANCE, I wanted to play with themes of self-help, psychology, depression, alcoholism, self-medication, asexuality, gender and pathological immaturity, all through the lens of dark and twisted comedy. I wanted to tell a “coming out” story that wasn’t in such a straight line. I wanted to tell a story that doesn’t have that clichéd happy ending of self-acceptance. ”

Guidance is rated 14A.