Maestro Tovey Nominated For Genie Award

The Vancouver Symphony Orchestra is pleased to announce that Maestro Bramwell Tovey has been nominated for a Genie Award, Canada's top cinematic honour (and answer to the Oscar), for penning the song In a Heartbeat for the movie for which he also wrote the score, Eighteen. In the category of Best Original Song, Tovey shares the honour with the film's writer/director Richard Bell, who co-wrote the lyrics. The Vancouver Symphony performed the song and the soundtrack for the motion picture.

Eighteen follows a troubled streetkid named Pip who, on his eighteenth birthday, receives his grandfather's war memoirs on audiocassette. Pip's grandfather (portrayed in voice by the iconic Sir Ian McKellen) relates the day he turned eighteen, fleeing German forces through the woods of France, with a dying comrade hanging on for life. In Pip's own and contemporary way, he begins to live the parallel life of his grandfather.

In a Heartbeat appears in the WWII thread of the film, sung by a sultry chanteuse (Queer as Folk's Thea Gill) to a crowd of eighteen year olds before they are shipped off to war. An original composition, In a Heartbeat was written in the style of such hits of the era as As Time Goes By and I'll Be Seeing You.

Eighteen unites the talents of celebrated Canadian stars Brendan Fletcher (Terry Gilliam's Tideland), Carly Pope (TV's Popular) and Tony Award winner Alan Cumming. It spent a successful year on the film festival circuit and was just launched on Movie Central for home viewing.

CRITIC'S QUOTES ON EIGHTEEN:

"an emotional walloP" - Christian Polidoro, Philadelphia City Paper

"a movie with street smarts; an earnest meditation on the corrupted state of human libido. the acting is punishingly sincere"¦ The musical score is granD AND OPERATIC"¦ The movie has the scale of 'Waydowntown' but the ambitions of 'The Sweet Hereafter'" - Chris DeVito, Xtra! West

""¦childhood traumas, life-and-death combat decisions, problematic sex and drugs -- everything but rock 'n' roll" - Barry Paris, The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

"disturbingly raw" - Beth McArthur, Movies for Breakfast.com

"Bell's ambitious foray into commercial feature filmmaking" - Gilbert Seah, Cinema Eye

"Love, sex, death, and Ian McKellen channeled through a Walkman - it's all here." - Brett Cullum, DVD Verdict.com

"a moving story about survival and the redemptive power of love." [Richard Bell] brings some great moments of performance to the screen, thanks in large part to a confident appearance from newcomer Paul Anthony, who does not flinch in the face of depicting primal fear." - Katherine Monk, The Vancouver Sun

""¦moments of beauty and pathos, as typified by its almost wordless, elegiac opening sequence. [EIGHTEEN] succeeds in bringing a begrudging tear to the eye." - Richard Watts, Melbourne Community Voice

"Paul Anthony gives an impressive debut performance"¦ High reaching cinematography graduates the film to a level beyond amateur Indie point and shoot." - Jarvis Handy, Tennessee Out and About

""¦forcefully but deftly acted by every single member of the fairly large cast, and written so dexterously there is never a false note, Eighteen really soars"¦ The two movies that comprise Eighteen glide felicitously in and out of each other, never once losing emotional velocity"¦ Bramwell Tovey's epic score hauntingly broadens the filmmaker's meticulous brush strokes"¦ By turns endearing and stinging, tender and savage, this powerful movie could really break your heart." - Tom Steele, Out.com. -- www.vancouversymphony.ca