Katherine: I heard that the idea behind "Adoration" was inspired by an account that you had read in the newspaper...

Atom: Initially it’s based upon a true story about a Jordanian guy who talked his Irish girlfriend who is pregnant with his child onto a flight and unbeknownst to her she was carrying a bomb. This happened in 1986 and that story has always stayed with me. I started thinking also a lot about my adolescence because our son is now 14. I was thinking about how important high school drama was to me and about what would happen if I was doing high school drama now. And of course the Internet became really interesting. And then the two stories collided. I thought of Simon imagining himself with this unborn child and it began to cook, as they say.

K: When did you read the story?

Atom: I knew the story from when it happened, but I came across it again recently in a book called, “The Great War for Civilisation” by Robert Fisk. He devoted some pages to it and it sort of came back through that.

K: So that was kind of sign to do it...

Atom: Yeah. I think it’s amazing when you’re writing because your antenna are so sensitive to any sort of information you get – you read it and interpret it. It came [together] really quickly once I combined those two stories.

K: So how did it even develop into the story you have in the film? It's obviously not anywhere being an exact account of that incident...

Atom: Basically, he [the boy in the film] begins to interpret it from a story that he told in a French class and I think what became really interesting to me is not the actual facts of that particular narrative but how someone could create an alternate version of themselves. And how easy that might be. This character who does something that is very irresponsible but he is 15 and he is looking for himself. It is ultimately a coming-of-age story set in the time of the Internet.

K: Why did you use this as a coming-of-age story – why did you use that as a platform to talk about technology and terrorism?

Atom: Because I think it is dealing with an act of – there is an act of terrorism within the family. There is the grandfather who is suppressed and created this really horrifying version of the father for his own reasons. The only way that the boy can actually rationalize that is by creating this imaginary character where he the son of an actual terrorist.

I think we’re surrounded by narratives of violence all the time. It’s not unimaginable that something like that couldn’t happen. Certainly, when a history is denied or suppressed, it kind of bends itself out of shape. You can have very violence results. And I think that is what we’re seeing in this film. I think the boy is heading towards what might have been a potential terrorist act in order fulfill this fantasy he has of himself. That’s a scary thought. But very real – possible.

K: You did a lot of research in terms of technology…

Atom: Yeah. I’m involved with an initiative called Reel Canada which is an attempt to get Canadian films into high schools (so it is not so different from what [First Weekend Club] is doing).

I’ve been trying to really evaluate how involved these kids are with the Internet. So we actually set up these model chat rooms and got the kids talking in a number of high schools. And all of the kids that you see in the film are actual high school students from Toronto. And a lot of that dialogue is improvised.

K: Yeah. And you also have some of your friends in those improvised sequences as well?

Atom: Yeah. That’s right.

K: Why did you decide to do it that way?

Atom: Because I think they’re really interesting friends. And I think they have really interesting things to say.

K: That is a good thing.

Atom: I love the idea of using their talents even if it is in this kind of strange way.

Janice Stein, for example, was my university prof at the University of Toronto so it was great to invite her back and be able to give this incredible analysis. When she read the script she said it was so interesting how it deals with the idea of victim culture. I said, “I want you to say that in the film.” So she ended up playing that character.

Because they were done on video there was a lot of latitude. There was an ability to kind of experiment and see how it could work.

K: In terms of the boy in the story, why do you think he chose these kind of parents where the dad is a terrorist… instead of a "fairy tale" sort of family.

Atom: Because I think that he is having to deal with this image of his father that his grandfather has taught him to believe. He uses it as a conduit to explore – the alternate version of what his grandfather has painted his father to be like.

K: But he didn’t want to go the opposite way…

Atom: I think he is prepared to do that by the end of the film. I think that is why the film is quite happy in a way because I think he has gone through that. Once he has followed through he is now able to accept this real version – and certainly with the help of Sabine. I think that it happens very often when someone is disturbed that they are going to follow the darkest path first.

K: Yeah, I guess. You form an attachment to the darker things sometimes...

Atom: Yeah, you do. Especially at that age, right?

K: Yeah. The theme that seems to recur throughout your work is the construction of a persona and especially how it interacts with technology. Why is this so important to you? Is this a conscious decision for you?

Atom: I think it is because there are certain things that I read when I was really young that used technology and that kind of blew my mind and I’m thinking about works like "Krapp's Last Tape" by Samuel Beckett etc. I think it was also because my dad has always recorded his history – and kept journals and he’s kept tape recordings. When we moved to Canada, we had videos or home movies of our lives in Egypt. And people would ask me if I remember Egypt. I remember watching these old home movies and I couldn't really differentiate between my real experience and the experience that was projected to me through these technologies.

K: That is very interesting. My own memories of growing up in a different country, although not on video, are based pretty much almost entirely on stories, so it's a similar experience... Now, your last film was “Where the Truth Lies”. That was a much bigger budget that you were working with – a cast that was arguably better known...

Atom: Yeah.

K: Now you are going back to this film that is, in some ways, more personal – seems more like you are going back to your roots. Is this something that you consciously did?

Atom: Yeah. I think “Where the Truth Lies” is a genre movie and it required a bigger budget to tell that particular story. It is sort of unique – when you have a bigger budget you have to use more recognizable names. It’s just part of the way the industry works.

K: But you can do genre films all the time. You chose to not….

Atom: Because this is a personal story. It’s like going back to a non-drama film. It’s a riskier project and that means you have to make it for less money – its as simple as that. If you want to have the freedom to do it, and it’s something I really enjoy, I’m comfortable working with a tighter budget. It's also not a conventional film and it’s not told in a conventional way – and ultimately "Where the Truth Lies" is just more conventional. And that’s part of the pleasure of it if you enjoy it. I enjoyed making it but it’s not asking the audience to go as deep as a film like this.

K: Right now we have such a conservative climate and a lot of cuts to the budget - including in the arts. It seems like a tougher climate to make these kinds of "more personal" films in...

Atom: Well, it’s very dispiriting when a leader of a country can call culture a niche activity and can refer to galas as being something that only a few elite people can enjoy. I was raised and became excited about being an artist in this country because there was such a feeling of support – a sense that our culture could match any culture in the world. And the people that I was inspired by were Canadian writers and filmmakers and musicians that were on that plateau. It seems that when you are a young artist you have to be able to aspire to something and it’s up to the leaders of the country to be able to create that sense of possibilities. It seems counterproductive to limit that in any way.

K: What does that say about Canada where a lot of people did vote for that particular leader and I am sure there are many people who do truly believe that arts are a "niche", a "pastime". Now what does that say about the value of art and why do you believe it is important anyways?

Atom: I think it is important because it is how we define ourselves. It’s ultimately what we export to the rest of the world. I think that the idea that – I think anyone would be able to understand that if you were to actually explain it to them – and spell it out. I think that this is the result of this knee-jerk reaction against what a lot a people see as being freeloading artists. And if they actually look at how hard most artists work. And how they live just barely above poverty level. There has to be a respect for the people who really are trying to have their antenna and give a sense back to their own culture of how we define ourselves. If the artists are not doing that – no one else is. It’s ultimately what we leave behind. We leave behind our culture. It’s a huge responsibility we have to the generations that are to come. I felt there was a huge inheritance that I was receiving. I will always fight to have that obviously. So I can pass it on to that next generation.

K: Of course, people can argue saying if that film doesn’t make money then nobody wants to see it.

Atom: But art has always found patrons. I think it is difficult sometimes for us to understand with film – because we are so under the shadow of the American film industry. But in order to create indigenous English-Canadian films and the film industry – it needs support. Otherwise, it just will not thrive – it can’t. That’s just the nature of a number of issues. There is a passionate film community – and that community of people who really love [to work within it]. But we don’t have a star system that is able to work the same as the American system. We have to find alternate ways. It is just the nature of art. It is our cultural predicament.

K: Do you consider yourself a Canadian director?

Atom: Absolutely.

K: Why? In what way?

Atom: Because I am product of the system that has nurtured my work and which has inspired me and – which I am proud to be a part of.

K: In what way would you say your films are Canadian?

Atom: Well, because look at the subject matter of “Adoration.” The way different cultures intersect with each other. The way there is this almost post-multicultural view that the film is presenting. It is so much a product of this strange place where we negotiate these different realities. We don’t have the defined ethos that is in the American system where people are proud first and foremost for this almost mythical sense of what America means. We are not at that level of consciousness for a very good reason. So we have a different approach to our minorities and people who come from elsewhere. Our tolerances are slightly different in a different way.

K: How do you feel that technology affects the perception of art?

Atom: It has certainly changed the concentration level. I think that when you watch a film projected in the theater it is a fundamentally different experience than watching it on an iPod. I think the idea that it is uninterrupted and that you’re watching it in a communal space and that it’s a dark room and that you are sort of overwhelmed by the image – that profoundly challenges and gives a different experience in what cinema is than watching it in a portable space that you can manipulate and control.

K: Personally, how do you prefer to see a film? What YOUR ideal setting?

Atom: Definitely in a cinema or large screen.

K: Would it be with a big group of people, a small group of people, alone?

Atom: You know, I’ve come to notice that is usually with a smaller group of people. And I realize that the film experience for me have actually not been in necessarily full theaters. I had a very pivotal moment when I was travelling in Paris in the mid 80s and I saw a lot of these amazing films in one of these cinemas on the Left Bank but they were not necessarily full. Just the idea that they were being screened – that there was this rarified sort of place. It was almost like a shrine or something.

But you know what. You can’t advocate that cinemas should only be seen in a half-empty theater. [laughs]

K: That’s right! I’ll put a disclaimer – "he's not advocating it folks". Now with "Adoration" you both wrote and directed it. You tend to do that with most of your films...?

Atom: Yeah. All of them – all 12 features.

K: Why do you feel a need to do that?

Atom: Because it brings me closer to the material. Maybe the next thing I do won’t be my own script. Maybe I should see how I would direct somebody else’s script.

K: Do you find it more challenging – saying here this is my script – you have to get behind it...

Atom: Well, no, in a way it immediately gives you an authority that you may not have with a script that isn’t yours. But I think these scripts – the stories that are told in such a particular way that they need to be written this way. The directing actually starts in the way they are written.

K: When you pick a project you know that you are going to have to work a long time on it... You probably have a lot of ideas so how do you decide which one to take and make a film out of?

Atom: Whichever one endures and in this case it has to stay interesting to you for the two-year period. Not only writing it and directing it but also then presenting it to the world.

K: So, what’s next for you then?