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Playback, January 17, 2005, Vol. 19 No. 9 --
Drinking up at the Agora round table
Calgary -- On any given Friday between 4 p.m. and 7 p.m., members of Calgary's film community can be found at local watering hole The Joyce on Fourth, huddled around a large table marked with a gold plaque that says "Edmund's Table." The weekly tradition was initiated in the fall by Edmund Oliverio, a partner in one of Calgary's newest production companies, Agora Films International.
"Even when we had to reschedule the meeting on a Thursday one week, we still had nearly 30 people attend," says Oliverio of the new tradition's growing popularity.
In 2005, the first productions will get underway at Agora, formed by industry vets Oliverio, Glenn Ludlow and John Labow. At 58, Oliverio wasn't about to retire and decided to revisit his film career because, he says, working in the industry was the most fun he remembers having. Oliverio worked in Alberta's film and television industry as a producer and publicist in the 1980s and early '90s.
As luck would have it, Ludlow, one of Alberta's first film commissioners, and Labow, a prolific documentary filmmaker who was instrumental in the creation of TVOntario, both moved back to Calgary around the same time and were keen to join Oliverio in the new venture.
In addition to bringing the film community together around a pint, Agora principals have also taken an active role mentoring emerging talent in the province. The company sponsors four students between the ages of 18 and 20, allowing them to enroll in training courses, attend industry events and become active members of the Alberta Motion Picture Industries Association.
Oliverio says he hopes Agora's documentary Lisa Mayes-Stringer: The Story of Passion and Challenges, the first project the company will complete, will help build popular support for women's sports. It focuses on the life of the first black woman to captain the national bobsled team.
Also in development at Agora is Extreme Trek, a doc that follows three waiters from Banff's Keg Steakhouse as they tackle the 256-kilometer trek along the rarely used Glacier Trail that connects Jasper and Banff.
Agora is also developing the MOW Espionage on the Hill, based on the true story of how journalist Paul Jackson, now a media critic for the Calgary Sun, was asked by Russian officials to become a spy while working as a reporter on Parliament Hill as a young man. Jackson went to the RCMP and ended up breaking a story about 17 Russian spies picked up in Canada.
-- Laura Bracken, Playback
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