Exotica is a 1994 Canadian movie about a Toronto nightclub called 'Exotica'. It was written and directed by Atom Egoyan. 1994 (MCMXCIV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International year of the Family. ... Films are produced by recording actual people and objects with cameras, or by creating them using animation techniques and/or special effects. ... Template:Hide = Motto: Template:Unhide = Diversity Our Strength Image:Toronto, Ontario Location. ... A nightclub (often shortened to club) is an entertainment venue which does its primary business after dark. ... The term writer can apply to anyone who creates a written work, but the word more usually designates those who write creatively or professionally, or those who have written in many different forms. ... The film director, on the right, gives last minute direction to the cast and crew, whilst filming a costume drama on location in London. ... Atom Egoyan (born July 19, 1960) is a critically acclaimed Canadian filmmaker of Armenian descent. ...

Main Cast:

• Mia Kirshner ... Christina
• Elias Koteas ... Eric
• Sarah Polley ... Tracey Brown
• Victor Garber ... Harold Brown
• Arsinée Khanjian ... Zoe
• Don McKellar ... Thomas Pinto
• Bruce Greenwood ... Francis Brown

Chyler Leigh (in orange) and Mia Kirshner (in blue) on the cover of Stuff Magazine. ... Elias Koteas (born 11 March 1961 in Montréal, Canada) is a Greek Canadian actor. ... Sarah Polley Sarah Polley (born on January 8, 1979, in Toronto, Ontario) is a Canadian actress and director of short films. ... Victor Garber Victor Joseph Garber, born March 16, 1949, in London, Ontario, Canada, is a film, stage, and television actor of Russian Jewish descent. ... Arsinée Khanjian (born 1958 in Beirut, Lebanon) is a Canadian actress and producer. ... Donald Don McKellar (born August 17, 1963 in Toronto, Ontario) is a Canadian actor, writer, and filmmaker. ... Bruce Greenwood is a Canadian actor born on August 12, 1956 in Noranda, Quebec. ...

Synopsis

Note: The story of Exotica is not told in chronological order and important information is often withheld from the viewer until late in the film. The following synopsis thus does not reflect the viewer's actual experience of the events as they unfold.

Exotica presents a disparate group of characters whose lives are interconnected through the Exotica nightclub. Christina (Mia Kirshner) is an exotic dancer at Exotica, owned by Zoe (Arsinée Khanjian). Eric (Elias Koteas) is the club's DJ, and Christina's former boyfriend. Francis (Bruce Greenwood) is a customer who comes in nightly and always has Christina dance for him, which inspires Eric's jealousy. European Translation Example of a European exotic dancer. ... DJ or dj may stand for Disc jockey, dinner jacket The DeadJournal website, or Djibouti. ...

In his professional life, Francis is an auditor, and Thomas (Don McKellar) is the gay pet store owner whose ledgers Francis is reviewing. Audit can refer to: Telecommunication audit Financial audit Performance audit Completion of a course of study for which no assessment is completed or grade awarded; especially audit is awarded to those who have elected not to receive a letter grade for a course in which letter grades typically awarded. ... Castro Street in San Francisco Look up gay in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...

Francis is eventually banned from the club when Eric manipulates him into touching Christina during one of her dances (which is against the rules of the club). Around the same time, Francis discovers illegal activities in Thomas' financial records, and forces Thomas to get involved in his conflict with the nightclub - and we eventually learn that Francis' obsession with Christina has much more complex roots than it first appears. The film's final scene, set many years before the others, also drastically reconfigures our understanding of the characters, especially Christina.

Themes

The film deals with issues of loss, grief and isolation. An important recurring manifestation of this theme revolves around touch - almost every time a character in the film touches another one, he or she is punished or rebuked for it. Only Thomas, already an outsider because of his sexuality, avoids this fate. He has a strategy for making physical connections: he buys opera tickets, and then tries to sell them to another man before the performance - but instead of selling the tickets for money, he takes the man home for sex. Loss has several meanings including: Loss in electronics is the ratio of the system output to system input In electronics, loss is the ratio of system output to system input. ... A funeral in Sarajevo, in 1992-1993. ... Isolation can refer to: Isolation as a psychological phenomenon (see also Solitude). ...

All of the characters harbour desires that they can never fulfill. Exotica is a dark, complex psychological study of people coping with loneliness and pain, and trying, with little success, to reach out. Psychology (ancient Greek: psyche = soul and logos = word) is the study of mind, thought, and behaviour. ... Loneliness is an emotional state in which a person experiences a powerful longing for contact with another person or other people. ... Pain is an unpleasant sensation which may be associated with actual or potential tissue damage and which may have physical and emotional components. ...

Awards

• At the 1994 Cannes Film Festival, Exotica was nominated for the Palme d'or, and won the FIPRESCI Prize.
• Don McKellar won Best Supporting Actor at the 1996 Chlotrudis Awards for independent film.
• Exotica won Best Foreign Film from the French Syndicate of Cinema Critics in 1995.
• At the 1994 Genie Awards for Canadian cinema, Exotica won Best Motion Picture, as well as awrds for the best screenplay, direction, music, costume design, cinematography and production design. Don McKellar won the award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role.
• Exotica was named Best Canadian Feature Film at the Toronto International Film Festival.
• To judge from his own account, Egoyan was quite amused by an unlikely award that this film won: the Adult Video News award for Best Alternative Adult Film of 1996.

The Palais des Festivals in which the festival takes place. ... The Palme dOr (Golden Palm) is the name of the highest prize given to a film at the Cannes Film Festival. ... FIPRESCI (short for Fédération Internationale de la Presse Cinématographique), in English known as International Federation of Film Critics, comprised of the national organizations of professional film critics and film journalists from around the world for the promotion and development of film culture and for the safeguarding of... Donald Don McKellar (born August 17, 1963 in Toronto, Ontario) is a Canadian actor, writer, and filmmaker. ... The Genie Awards are given out to recognize the best of Canadian films and television, by the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television. ... Poster for the 2005 Toronto International Film Festival The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) is widely considered to be one of the top film festivals in the world and is the premiere film festival in North America which the Oscars race begins from. ... AVN (Adult Video News) Magazine is the standard trade magazine of the Adult Video Production, Adult Novelty Production, and Adult Retailing industry in the United States. ...

External link

• Exotica at IMDB.com

Reference

• Egoyan, Atom, "Dr Gonad", Granta #86 (Summer 2004) touches upon Egoyan's unlikely Adult Video award.