Director's Notes
PIO AND THE CRACKS grew not from a script but from a question, “Is the world cracking up?” I created the character of Pio Baroja then set out to answer the question with an actor and a small group of professional friends. The film was shot on a shoestring, guerrilla style, over four years straddling the millennium from 1999 to 2004, using Toronto city streets as the film set. It was to be a piece of raw street theatre set in a vibrant multi-ethnic metropolis against a backdrop of confusion, sensory overload and fragmentation. To achieve this, the drama was incorporated into the street life and street performers became part of the supporting cast. The production was often scheduled around ethnic street festivals and colourful events such as the CNE, Caribanna and the millennium fireworks.
The film itself was constructed in fragments and layers, mixing reality and fiction. The actor playing Pio was planted in impromptu situations with real people who were unaware that he was playing a fictional character. Sometimes real people played opposite Pio in dramatic enactments. In other scenes, actors portrayed characters drawn from real life: Pio’s Spanish speaking sister and her family, his French speaking ex-girlfriend and his English speaking theatre friends. Working closely with the Director, the actors improvised their roles and dialogue.
The “Vox Pop” segments of the film comprised another layer of reality. The intent was to create a world-wide, multi-lingual “polemic” from the point of view of the person on the street. The segments were picked up over time around the world: in Paris, Cologne and Toronto (cheating for Africa, Pakistan and Korea), as well as, by associates in Belgrade and California’s Mojave Desert. On camera subjects were real people giving their own opinions in their own language: French, German, Eritrean, Punjabi, Korean, Serbian and Spanish.
As the film took shape on the edit table, the soundtrack elements were added, like the visuals, in fragments and layers. The original music score was composed according to visual sequences while other pre-recorded music was used thematically. The dramatic voice-over was the final element, scripted, recorded and placed when the picture was locked.