Canadian Women Film Directors Database
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Bordertown Café

Directed by Norma Bailey
Canada, 1993 (fiction, 101 minutes, colour, English)
Bordertown Café
Image: © National Film Board of Canada

Film Description [in French] :
"Bienvenue au Bordertown Café. Marlene, la romantique propriétaire d'un café, situé à la frontière canado-étatsunienne, rêve qu'un jour, son ex-mari camionneur reviendra et qu'ils se réconcilieront. Sa mère, Maxine, une Étatsunienne loquace qui s'occupe du restaurant et qui a la nostalgie de sons pays natal, est mariée à un cultivateur albertain qui aime la terre. Le fils de Marlene, Jimmy, rêve de quitter le café poussiéreux pour habiter dans une vraie maison."
-- Noah Cowan (source)

Film Description:
"Marlene is the owner of a nostalgic café on the border of Canada and the U.S.A. Filled with quirky and charming characters, life at the café is exciting, entertaining and sometimes chaotic. The envy of his friends because of his eccentric lifestyle, Marlene's seventeen-year-old son, Jimmy dreams of a life behind a white picket fence. His mother's attachment to the past and her reluctance to move on, severely strains their relationship. Jimmy's wishes come true when his father remarries, and asks Jimmy to join him in his new life. The stability that Jimmy has been yearning for is suddenly at his fingertips. Jimmy feels inexplicably torn. Marlene, devastated with the news, finally finds herself reaching out to Jimmy."
-- National Film Board of Canada (source)


Film Credits (partial):
Written by: Kelly Rebar
Based on: Bordertown Café, a play by Kelly Rebar
Produced by: Norma Bailey, Stephen J. Roth, Joe MacDonald, Ches Yetman
Principal Cast: Susan Hogan, Janet Wright, Gordon Woolvett, Sean McCann, Nicholas Campbell, Ric Reid, Lora Schroeder, Victor Cowie, James Holland, Rugard Drusche
Cinematography: Ian Elkin
Film Editing: Lara Mazur
Music: Ben Mink
Production Company: National Film Board of Canada / Office national du film du Canada
(sources)

Award won by Bordertown Café

Quote about Bordertown Café

"[Norma] Bailey's choice to include in the film [Bordertown Café] Jimmy's trip south of the border is clearly motivated by film's putative need for movement, but it essentially reasserts the theme of the play, for, while spending time with his father, the cinematic Jimmy comes to the very same realization as his theatrical counterpart. He belongs at the café, and the efforts of the (filmic) outsider to break the unity (of space) of the (dramatic) family ultimately fails. The play, like the characters, comes to recognize the benefits of cinematic travel but in the end strengthens the value of stasis."
-- André Loiselle (source)

Bibliography for Bordertown Café

Brief Sections of Books

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