fiction
81 min
English
35 mm
1997

featuring
Romano Orzari
Marisa Malone
Ivaylo Founev
Brea Asher

writer & director
Eugene Garcia
executive producers
David Weiser
Anne-Marie Gélinas
Salvatore V Barrera
producers
Anne-Marie Gélinas
Salvatore V Barrera
associate producer
Gregory Fine
directors of photography
Salvatore V Barrera
Gregory Fine
editor
Suzanne Turgeon
sound design
Peter "Pepe" Lopata
Sylvain Bellemare
original music
Haig Vartzbedian

distribution
Film Tonic

festivals
Montreal International Festival of New Cinema and New Media (FCMM)
Molodist International Film Festival,
Kiev, Ukraine
IFFM, New York
IFFM, Los Angeles

released
1997

broadcast
Super Écran

awards
Telefilm Canada public choice award - Best Canadian Independent Film, Montreal International Festival of New Cinema and New Media 1997 (FCMM)
Yves Montand Prize for Best Actor (Romano Orzari as Ivan), Molodist International Film Festival, Kiev, Ukraine

produced with the
participation of

Telefilm Canada

SODEC Société de développement des entreprises culturelles - Québec
Programme d'aide aux jeunes créateurs

National Film Board of Canada

Government of Québec (Québec Tax Credit Program)

Government of Canada (Film or Video Production Tax Credit)

The deferred salaries of the technicians and of the actors

Productions Jeux d'Ombres Inc.
Ch!wawa Communications Inc.

Burnt Eden is the story of Ivan, a young man in his late twenties caught in a familiar, often deadly loop - he is intelligent enough to see what is wrong with his life, yet can't find reason enough to avoid the crash he's so clearly headed for.

Burnt Eden evolves as a series of intense events that occur in Ivan's life over the course of a single week, during which his raging abuse of alcohol and drugs finally pushes him to a resolute break from a blurry past. Whether that break is metaphorical or real is left unclear. It is a struggle with demons of the most familiar order - unfulfilling relationships, lack of money, and disorientation in the larger picture that is the world. On the journey towards his own private exit point, Ivan leads us through an electrifying vision of the urban hell he navigates.