SCREEN | 'It's All Gonna Break' Collects A Broken Social Scene

"It's really difficult to put that much chaos on stage."

Blue Ice Docs / Fathom Film

Influential Toronto indie rock collective Broken Social Scene gets the documentary treatment in It's All Gonna Break, an intimate time capsule aiming to capture the youthful spirt of the underground explosion of musical creativity in the early 2000s thanks to cheap rent and a bunch of talented musicians living near each other.

Shot and directed by cinematographer Stephen Chung, the film has its counterculture roots in an earlier project originating when frontmen Kevin Drew and Brendan Canning first started the indie-darling musical group with an initial rough cut delivered way back in 2007. Full of fly-on-the-wall, never-before-seen behind-the-scenes material, how a ragtag bunch of Toronto artists created a beautifully chaotic, soul-stirring musical experience known as Broken Social Scene does not fail to impress.

Beyond being a roving band, its musical force established a movement, that became a phenomenon as Chung's compilation of footage, interviews, and storytelling weave the interlocking interpersonal stories of how Drew and Canning brought together so many wonderful musicians to make rebelliously joyous music fans became enamoured with.

Ultimately, It's All Gonna Break is a documentation the chaotic origins of how a remarkable group of friends came together to create timeless music in a specific era and place. It chronicles a moment of renaissance that changed Canadian culture just as it reached out to rest of the world by connecting people through its much-loved indie rock sound.

It's All Gonna Break screens at the VIFF Centre starting January 31st. It also screens as part of the Victoria Film Festival at The Vic Theatre on February 14th.


More | 2011 / CBC / Exclaim