Meet the Makers: “Scratch” Director, Maninder Chana

“Meet the Makers” is a series of interviews to introduce the filmmakers of the 2016 Willson Oakville Film Festival. Answers are edited for clarity and space.

ABOUT THE FILMMAKER: MANINDER CHANA, writer/director
An award-winning writer, director, producer and actor, Maninder Chana was the driving force behind the comedy troupe ‘Mixed Nuts’. He is the writer of the feature film ‘Cell 213’, and is the writer-director of the film, ‘Little Terrors’. You can meet Maninder following the screening of “Scratch” on Saturday, June 25, 9:30PM.

ABOUT THE FILM: “Scratch” is about a female rookie armoured truck guard who is caught between her co-workers’ plot to rob their own truck and greedy gangsters desperate to grab the loot.

Q: How would you describe the comedy style and tone of the film, “Scratch”?

Maninder: Dark comedy. It starts comedic then switches gears to something more serious then switches tone again when everything goes south. I have a comedy background – I used to be in a comedy troupe – and I took the elements of the heist genre but brought a dark comedy tone to it.

Q: This film plays with the elements and tropes of the heist genre. How did this develop?

Maninder: I like deconstruction pieces. This is a deconstruction of a heist movie. To go back to the beginning, I was approached by the producer, Michael Dragnea, who had seen my film, “Little Terrors”. When I was first told the concept, it struck me as being like films I’d seen before, right down to all the characters being white. After some discussions with Michael, I reworked the idea. I stuck to the spirit of the story but I took what was basically a linear, straightforward tale and turned it on it’s head. It was important to not do the same old thing – like it was important to me to not have the black characters killed first as they so often are in American films. Another character that changed a lot from the original script was Steve. He’s the one who comes up with the great idea to pull off the heist. I made him a racist, homophobic, misogynistic guy who’s in this situation with 2 black guys and a gay gangster. What could be more complicated and terrifying for a racist homophobe? I also cast against stereotypes. I like multicultural casts, so I wanted Russians who could actually speak Russian – not English-speaking actors affecting a bad Russian accent. With the recent debate at the Oscars about the problem of all-white casting (#oscarssowhite), I believe that one way we can change that is to go out and cast multicultural. I have a great casting director (Sweeney MacArthur) who found good actors of colour. We found J.J. Reville who plays the transvestite singer, Gigi, who’s kidnapped by the Russian gangsters. Instead of being a helpless victim, Gigi gives the bad guys a hard time. And of course, we found Julie Romaniuk as Samantha. She’s believable as a straight up character but there’s also a femme fatale quality about her; she’s more than an innocent victim.

Q: Samantha seems at first to be an unassuming and incorruptible protagonist but there’s more to her. Help us understand her character.

Maninder: Samantha (played by Julie Romaniuk) is from a poor background and she’s struggling to make it on her own. Without giving too much away – she needs this steady job with good pay. We perceive her as a goody two-shoes who is thrown in with men who, unknown to her, are planning a heist. She’s a fish out of water and everything that can go wrong, goes wrong. Instinct kicks in as she tries to save herself.

Q: For what audience did you make “Scratch”?

Maninder: The film evolved in such a strange way. It was originally for an action movie audience. Then I rewrote it to bring in a dark comedic element and also a bit of artistry. The film’s appeal is broader than any niche. It’s for people who like action and dark comedy. I didn’t want to make a pretentious film. My last film, “Little Terrors” was serious, so I wanted to have fun with this one.

Q: What do you want the audience to take away from “Scratch”?

Maninder: I want them to have a good time. I want them to relax and lose themselves for a couple of hours. You have to use your brain a bit to put together the pieces of the puzzle but it’s fun and uncomplicated. Enjoy the ride.

Interview by Cathleen MacDonald
Cathleen MacDonald is a writer and filmmaker.