Toronto, Canada’s most influential music collective, Broken Social Scene, are thrilled to announce their forthcoming new documentary, It’s All Gonna Break, directed by dear friend and filmmaker Stephen Chung. It’s All Gonna Break unearths the intimate, never before seen, behind-the-scenes footage documenting the creation of Canada’s indie-darlings of the early aughts. Featuring every member of the band – yes, every member of the band – who helped to catapult the group from the beer-soaked bars of Toronto to stadium stages at festivals across the United States and Europe, It’s All Gonna Break is not just a way to watch an incredible collective of friends and musicians come together to create timeless art; it’s the documentation of a moment that changed Canadian culture – and the sound of indie rock all over the world – forever.
The film will be premiering on October 16th at the Woodstock Film Festival; click HERE for tickets. Further festival appearances will be announced in the coming weeks.
Through never before seen personal archival footage, director and photographer Stephen Chung shares how he captured the very beginnings of this loose collective of artists, musicians, friends and lovers, and ended up documenting the creation of Broken Social Scene’s 2002’s groundbreaking sophomore album, You Forgot It In People, considered by many to be one of the best and most important indie albums of all time. With You Forgot It In People’s release and subsequent explosion on a global scale, Broken Social Scene started a movement without setting out to, putting a massive spotlight on their hometown – Toronto – a city whose musical output had slowed during the late 90s. Following the emergence of BSS, music fans around the world wanted to know who the next great band out of Canada was going to be, essentially putting Toronto and Montreal on the map as important musical hubs the way that cities like Omaha, Chicago, and Portland had been prior. Birthing other bands, solo projects, side projects, and more, Broken Social became the driving force behind a massive wave of talent whose influence continues to reverberate through indie rock today.
It’s All Gonna Break is also a story of Chung, himself a young artist in Toronto in the early 2000’s, a camera permanently in his hand, filming his friends doing what they loved to do – creating music, hanging out, finding the party, and finding each other. His friends, it turned out, coalesced into Broken Social Scene. Behind the lens of his camera, Chung grabbed this special moment in time, showing the reality of a group of young creatives navigating friendships, relationships, business and art, then learning how to deal with success.
In 2007, Chung wanted to make a film about it all, but the band said no to the rough cut. It was not the right time and not the right film. Almost 20 years later, the time is now. It’s All Gonna Break is a journey of how art is made, how it’s protected, how it impacts people all over the globe, how relationships change…and how we all have to grow up, eventually.
With modern day interviews with Kevin Drew, Brendan Canning, Feist, Emily Haines, Amy Milan, Charles Spearin, Andrew Whiteman, Justin Peroff, John Crossingham, Evan Cranley, James Shaw, Jeffrey Remedios and David Newfeld, we look back 20 years ago to when it all began, and how they all remember it now.
