Note: You are viewing the unstyled version of CBC.ca because you can not see our css files, or because you do not have a standards-compliant browser or you are a mobile user.
Welcome to CBC.ca
| Story Tools: E-MAIL | PRINT | BOOKMARK PAGE | Text Size: |
Paul Nguyen, 26, and Mark Simms, 24, have been best friends since childhood. The aspiring filmmakers grew up in the Jane and Finch area and from a young age kept themselves out of trouble by making videos.
As kids, they used handycams to make movies about cops and robbers that they copied and passed around the neighbourhood. In high school, they made a zombie movie that found an audience online.
A thirty-second video the friends created for MuchMusic was among ten chosen from across the country for an anti-racism campaign.
After high school, Simms continued to shoot commercials and wedding videos and Nguyen went on to York University to earn a degree in film studies.
The site has created a profile for Nguyen and Simms in the neighbourhood and the two often speak at local schools and take part in community events to deliver an anti-violence message.
Today both are writing scripts for films that feature Jane and Finch as the setting. Nguyen's is about the cultural gap between second-generation Vietnamese kids and their immigrant parents. Simms' is a futuristic story of a holocaust in the neighbourhood.
Their next movie project, "Aliens vs. Jane and Finch", is a commentary on the fallout from Hurricane Katrina set, once again, in Jane and Finch.