Wallaceburg writer featured in documentary

An upcoming documentary screening has several Wallaceburg connections.

Mitchell Graszat

Mitchell Graszat has been making movies since he was a young boy growing up in Barrie, Ontario.

He has won several film festival awards for his short films and he is currently attending film studies at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo.

Mitchell, who is 19-years-old and the grandson of Carol and the late Ken McPhail of Wallaceburg, has just finished work on his biggest project to date – a 59-minute documentary called ‘Memories for Sale’, based on last spring’s ‘Memories for Sale Book and Other Stuff Tour’ organized by Wallaceburg author John Gardiner.

Gardiner put the tour together to help promote his recently-published literary collection, Memories for Sale: Tales from a Small Town. Check out our story from July 2017, here.

The series of words and music events stopped at 10 locations across Southern Ontario from April through June, and the young filmmaker shadowed Gardiner at nearly every stop, collecting considerable content for the documentary.

The Memories for Sale documentary is set to screen at the Jeanne Gordon Theatre in Wallaceburg on Friday, November 2 at 8 p.m.

There will be light refreshments and there is no admission fee.

For information, people can call Gardiner at 519-627-5978.

“We had a screening of the documentary in my hometown of Hanover in early October, and we’re just trying to gauge public reaction to the film,” Gardiner said in a media release.

“Mitchell has already been entering it in several select film festivals and it really is a brilliant piece of work. He’s a talented young man.”

The Wallaceburg event is sponsored by the Wallaceburg and District Council for the Arts as part of its effort to promote and nurture the local arts and culture scene.

“This a unique event for this community,” Gardiner said.

“And we’re grateful to the Arts Council for getting involved. It is really a local event. I’ve lived here for over three decades now and Mitchell has a solid Wallaceburg heritage. His grandparents were both local residents and his mother, Joanne, was raised in the community.”

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