King Arthur's Night screens at VIFF Centre starting July 10

Director John Bolton has transformed an inspired Vancouver theatre project into a richly layered film that bursts with both creative invention and human connection.

King Arthur's Night screens at the VIFF Centre on July 10, 11, 12, 14, and 18. The July 11 event includes a Q&A with the filmmakers, and July 12 and 18 feature relaxed screenings.

The original play, staged almost 10 years ago by Neworld Theatre as part of the PuSh International Performing Arts Festival, was an epically imagined, radical act of inclusion. It reframed the Arthurian legend through the uniquely creative lens of well-known Vancouver theatre artist and Down syndrome trailblazer Niall McNeil, working with his close friend, playwright Marcus Youssef. Bolton honours their inventively adapted rendition of King Arthur, while the medium of film allows its flights of fantasy to soar. At the same time, he cuts back and forth to behind-the-scenes looks at the artists who made it. Magic happens on both sides of the camera, as Bolton shows the power of unfettered imagination to bring people together—in the least sentimental way possible.

At the play's inception, McNeil's clear inspiration for Camelot was Harrison Hot Springs, a spot he visited annually. The film transports viewers directly to that slightly kitschy resort town, with the first scene finding a tormented king (McNeil, resplendent in a jewelled crown) walking down Harrison's mystical, mountain-shrouded pier toward a throne where the wizard Merlin (Youssef) stands. The creative team makes no attempt to make Harrison look like anything but the "magical resort municipality" that the narrator tells us it is. In a brilliant touch, the hotel ballroom's gaudy light-up dance floor becomes the setting not only for the knights' Round Table but also for circle discussions by the cast during the shoot. Cinematographer Vince Arvidson lenses it all in a way that adds to the heightened-myth feel.

Among McNeil's inspired touches is a goat uprising (McNeil has a long-standing fear of the creatures), while Nathan Kay's brilliantly treacherous knight Mordred sprouts horns, and Veda Hille leads a trio of "glam rock minstrels." Youssef helped create the musical by recording McNeil's ideas and songs and then drawing from them to form the structure and script. Early in the film, it's made clear that the actors can ad lib, an injection of randomness that provides King Arthur's Night with so much spontaneous reward.