The Huffington Post B.C. | By Sara Horowitz
Posted: 10/03/2014
For much of his life, Academy Award-winning, Vancouver filmmaker John Zaritsky was a self-proclaimed “closet eccentric.”
But then he spent some time with those who live life on its fringes, and “couldn’t help” but be inspired by them.
Eccentrics are the subject of Zaritsky’s new documentary film, “A Different Drummer,” which makes its world premiere next week at the Vancouver International Film Festival.
To be clear, it’s not a film that makes fun of eccentrics; in fact, it celebrates them.
“What I didn’t want was for this to just be a voyeuristic experience for an audience, ‘Here are these weirdos,’ like a freak show or something,” Zaritsky — who won a best documentary Oscar in 1981 for “Just Another Missing Kid” — told The Huffington Post B.C. in a phone interview.
“I wanted the audience to take away from this film something more than just looking at people who are different than they are.”