Here’s a sample of what I can do.

Faisal Lutchmedial Editing Demo from Faisal Lutchmedial on Vimeo.

Three short clips from documentary projects I’ve edited.

1) Burgundy Jazz “Vice”. Part of the award winning interactive web series for Radio-Canada, produced by Catbird Productions. This clip has some fun motion graphics integrated with the interviews, putting live video “inside” the newspaper archives.

Winner – Digi Awards
Winner – Prix Boomerang
Winner – Prix Numix
Nominee – Canadian Screen Awards
Nominee – Prix Gémeaux
Nominee – Rockie Awards (Banff World Media Festival)
Nominee – Interactive Design Awards
Nominee – Webby Awards

2) Boogeymen “Lagarfljótsormurinn”. 1 hr doc series about tourist destinations where “monsters” reside. Aired on Evasion, a travel network in Quebec. I edited 5 episodes of this show, and assisted on a number of others.

3) Burgundy Jazz “Trains & Porters”. Another clip from this series about the history of Jazz culture in the Little Burgundy neighbourhood of Montreal.

Mr. Crab will be featured on the CBC Short Film Face Off this Saturday the 23rd of June at 7 pm (Quebec-BC), 8 pm (Atlantic Provinces) including an interview with the director Faisal Lutchmedial. Actor Ryan Singh is also made it out to Halifax, and got a chance to talk about his experience working with Faisal and the rest of the cast and crew. The short film was chosen out of entries from across Canada, and being invited is quite an honour. The estimated audience of the 2011 edition of the Face Off was around a million, so that’s a lot of people who are going to get the chance to see our movie.

Tune in and watch all the films (the first episode of the show is Saturday the 16th of June, also at 8 pm), and support short films being seen – and give the CBC a good reason to continue programming this kind of work in prime time!

You’ll also get the chance to watch the films on the show’s website after each episode, and after the last episode on the 30th, you can vote for your favourite finalist (one film is picked from each episode by the studio audience). We won’t tell you who the finalists were (suspense!) but will say that it’s all worth watching because these are truly some of the finest Canadian short films you’ll have the pleasure of seeing this year.

CBC Short Film Faceoff is a great national competition of some of the best short films made in Canada. It’s the second year of the program nationally (they had a more Atlantic version previously) and the whole Mr. Crab team is excited about this opportunity. It’s pretty rare to have a short play on television at all, but playing on this show in prime time across the country is fantastic.

The basic idea of the show is 9 different films (and their directors) face off against each other, judged by a panel of film professionals and a studio audience. The three top films from this round move on to a final round that allows the public to decide who wins the grand prize. The prize itself quite generous, a $40,000 rental / services grant, and a $10,000 cash grant toward your next film.

Keep your fingers (and claws) crossed for Mr. Crab! More news about broadcast time when we have it.

CBC anthology program Canadian Reflections will be broadcasting the award winning (Writers Guild of Canada English script prize Festival du Nouveau Cinema) short drama Useless Things written, directed and starring Faisal Lutchmedial Sunday July 24th, 2011 at midnight. This will be the short film’s broadcast premiere, and it will be playing with a short comedy called King Chicken directed by Nicholas Bolduc.

Useless Things follows the thoughts of Shashin (played by writer / director Faisal Lutchmedial), a second generation immigrant struggling to find his identity following the loss of his parents (Ranjana Jha and Anshu Pathak) . His girlfriend Agnis (Erica Smith) pushes him and asks the hard questions while we follow his thoughts about his chosen path, memories of his family, and dreams of Hindu mythology.   As he goes through boxes Shashin begins to find meaning in the seemingly insignificant odds and ends that fill the cold house that once was his home.  Taking us backward and forward in time to follow his memories, Useless Things is a dreamily crafted journey of forgiveness, enlightenment, and self-discovery.

Useless Things was produced by Peripheria Productions, and supported by SODEC and the NFB FAP program.

Erica Smith and Faisal Lutchmedial in Useless Things

The short was also accepted into the NSI Online Short Film Competition, and will be playing in that series sometime in the next few months. More information on that soon. For now, enjoy the trailer for the film here.