TIFF spotlight: Kazik Radwanski and ‘How Heavy This Hammer’

TORONTO – As the Toronto International Film Festival is wrapping up, here’s a look at a Canadian project that was trying to break through at the 11-day movie marathon.

Film: “How Heavy This Hammer”

Synopsis: A 47-year-old married father of two spends his free time playing fantasy games online, in large part ignoring his wife and children. A portrait of an aimless man who just “drifts away.”

Director: Kazik Radwanski

Hometown: Toronto

Age: 30

Fun fact: Leading man Erwin Van Cotthem, 49, had to learn how to play rugby for the film. Radwanski, who played in high school, introduced him to a Toronto league for older players and they showed him the ropes.

The film’s origins: “He’s a lost character. Something starts stirring in this character, or maybe stops stirring. He’s a father, he’s in a marriage and he just drifts away. I was in search of a more sort of elusive problem, something that’s hard to pinpoint. A lot of the problems in the film are kind of obliquely sort of captured. Nothing’s too overtly displayed.”