Photo Courtesy Aaron James

By Tanner Smith

Art & Culture

Locally made film “Guitar Lessons” now showing at the Grande Prairie Cineplex

Dec 9, 2022 | 5:02 PM

An Alberta-made indie film is making its rounds across the province.

Guitar Lessons is a coming-of-age tale set in Paddle Prairie. It tells the story of a teenage Metis boy learning about life while a 50-year-old oilfield contractor teaches him to play guitar.

The writer and director was born in the Peace. Aaron James says it’s great to share this movie with the people from Grande Prairie as it isn’t often they see movies with local actors, let alone one set in Northern Alberta.

” It’s a nice story about a 15-year-old Metis kid from the wrong side of the tracks, who inherits this piece of junk guitar from a dad he never knew, and he’s mucking around town looking for someone to teach him how to play it.”

“There’s this oilfield contractor who’s got a bunch of dough and lives alone in the big house on the edge of town, and his name is Ray Mitchell and that’s the character played by Cord Lund, but the rumor around town is that back in the day he used to be something of a rock star.”

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James adds the kid keeps bugging him for lessons until Corb’s character caves in and decides to teach him. You then watch a rotten kid and a rotten middle-aged man, come together and grow up over their guitar lessons.

The film not only features Alberta-born country music star Corb Lund but another Alberta commodity, Conway Kootenay who provides some comedic relief.

However, James says this movie isn’t only about showing off the true way of life in northern Alberta to the world, but it’s also about people from this area seeing themselves and their culture on a movie screen.

“I made a movie called Hank Williams First Nation and it played in High Prairie, Alberta, which is up there in your neck of the woods, and I’m from the region. I grew up on a farm in Dixonville myself.

“When we were in High Prairie, a big Cree woman came up to me after the show and gave me a hug, lifted me up off the ground and put me down and said, ‘I’m 78 years old and that was the first time I’ve got to see my land, my language, and my people up on the big screen.”

In this movie, he also showcases the oilsands in northern Alberta, and he wanted to bring that same reaction to the people that work, grew up, and still live in this area.

James adds, even though he went into the arts, he has family members who worked and are still working in the patch. He spent time himself working in the oil industry, so it was important to him to showcase the real side of northern Albertans who grew up in this environment, not just the stereotypes that have been associated with this area.

” It’s funny, it’s such a big part of our culture and we don’t get to see this represented in our culture very often, and that’s one of the things I love about the movie. We’re actually out on the deck of a real rig in Zama as they’re pulling pipe, as they’re pulling a string out, and so it’s great to see real Alberta oilfield up on a big screen at a Cineplex.”

He says even our movie playing at a Cineplex feels surreal.

When this project was released, smaller communities from the Peace reached out asking for screenings, in one case, even turning the Flamingo lounge in High Level into a movie theatre for a week just to show the film.

Now due to its rising popularity, the movie will be shown at Cineplex all week, starting tonight (Friday, December 9) with Aaron James and some actors being on hand for a Q&A.

For all the show times and to buy your tickets, click here.