Canadian filmmaker, Ben Hoskyn, is set to premiere his debut feature film “8 Minutes Ahead” at the 2017 edition of the Whistler Film Festival.
Written by Allan Mackey, Nick Dolinski and Nate Estabrooks, and directed by Hoskyn, the full-length international drama explores the conflicting themes of greed, loyalty, and ambition within a family of Chinese Canadians and their Hong Kong relatives.
After decades spent building a shipping company from the ground up, and now at the end of his life, the workaholic and success-obsessed Zhou Li, played by Tseng Chang (Romeo Must Die, Dim Sum Funeral), is wondering what it all really amounted to.
When he makes a sudden change to his will and to the inheritance his children stand to receive, his eldest son (Raugi Yu – jPod, Mr. Young) is faced with an age-old dilemma. In the pursuit of wealth, how much is enough, and at what cost? Each must decide between devoting their lives to the family business, or breaking away from it in order to live a life their father never could.
8 MINUTES AHEAD Trailer from Ben Hoskyn on Vimeo.
The film draws inspiration from Hoskyn’s teenage years spent in Hong Kong. After years away, he started work on his first feature film- what Hoskyn calls “a blend of Canadiana introspection and Hong Kong talkie melded into one”.
When asked about his inspiration for the film Hoskyn said, “I started writing a story of a dying patriarch who tries to make things right in his final days, and originally it was an oil man in Alberta. But over time the story came closer to home and connected with places and relationships that have been more a part of my life.”
Four years in the making, the Space Tigers Inc. produced “8 Minutes Ahead” was shot on two continents, with production taking place in Hong Kong, Vancouver and Ottawa.
The BCIT Broadcast & Media Communications alum and film and television vet sees Whistler as the perfect launchpad for the film.
“Whistler is the perfect festival for us to premiere ‘8 Minutes Ahead’. It’s a world-renowned festival, they really focus on bringing in emerging talent who are telling culturally diverse stories – and audiences come for that exact reason – so I can’t wait to show them the film. I’m so grateful that Paul Gratton and the team at WFF connected with our story and saw its potential to reach people. We have a lot of cast and crew coming up from Vancouver for the premiere as well so it’ll be a good time. There are so many other amazing and meaningful films showing this weekend and I want to take in as many of them as I can”, Hoskyn said ahead of this weekend’s premiere.
“8 Minutes Ahead” will be showing at the Whistler Film Festival on November 30, 2017 at 5:30pm at Village 8 – Theatre 6, Whistler and on December 1, 2017 at 12:00pm at Squamish Lil’Wat Cultural Centre, Whistler.
For more information about the Whistler Film Festival showing of “8 Minutes Ahead” visit https://whistlerfilmfestival.com/film/8-minutes-ahead-2/
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