In The Odds, writer director Simon Davidson offers audiences a fast paced murder mystery set in the dark underbelly of teenage gambling.  COURTESY V KELLY & ASSOCIATES INC.

The shady world of illegal teenage gambling is the setting for Simon Davidson’s murder mystery film The Odds which opens tomorrow night at the AMC Yonge and Dundas in Toronto. 

British Columbia native Tyler Johnston (The Killing, Less Than Kind) stars as Desson Orr, a seventeen-year-old who loves the high of gambling on anything from poker to high school wrestling.   

Desson’s friends share his love of gambling and all find themselves in over their heads when his best friend Barry is found dead of an apparent suicide.

Convinced that there must be more to the story, Desson sets upon a dangerous search for the truth that leads him into a dark underworld and exposes his own unknowing role in his best friend’s death.

Writer and director Simon Davidson told thedailyplanet.com that the film was inspired to an extent by his own teenage brushes with the law. 

“I wanted to tell that kind of a situation but I didn’t want to tell my own personal real story so I started looking around and I read an article about a gambling ring that was set up in a Singapore high school,” said Davidson. 

“This totally intrigued me and I decided that this would be a world in which to tell the story of a young guy in a life crisis.”

Shot entirely in Vancouver, The Odds is Davidson’s first feature project having spent most of his career making short films. 

Although he made the transition from short to feature successfully, it definitely came with a new set of challenges.

“I would say the biggest challenge for me in making a feature versus a short is remembering and figuring out where I was in the story,” he said.

“On day twelve, when you haven’t slept for that many days, you come up to a scene and sometimes go ‘where the hell are we in this scene again?’”

Davidson told thedailyplanet.com that he hopes to work on more feature projects in the future and is planning a new short film once the weather improves in Vancouver where he currently resides.

The film had its world premier at the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival and was also screened at last year’s Busan International Film Festival in Korea. 

PHOTO BY HOLLY CROOKS COPYRIGHT SNOWGLOBE FILMS INC.

Opening at the Cumberland theatre in Toronto on February 24 is SNOW, a feature drama about the life of a Sri Lankan immigrant in Canada. 

Directed, written and produced by Rohan Fernando, the film follows Parvati, a woman who has lost everything, including her immediate family, in the 2004 tsunami.

Forced to relocate to Halifax, she is taken in by distant relatives she has never met and struggles with life in a foreign culture.

Still mourning the loss of her family and growing increasingly uncomfortable with her new home life, she befriends a homeless musician with whom she travels to Cape Breton. 

Kalista Zackhariyas, who stars as Parvarti, told thedailyplanet.com that she drew from her own Sri-Lankan Canadian background in preparing for the role.

“I understand what our culture is like, how women in our culture are raised,” said Zackhariyas.  “She’s a woman who has immigrated to Canada, she’s coping with grief and there’s no one to make decisions for her.”

Fernando, an award winning documentary filmmaker, provided his actors with very little script and encouraged them to base their characters on their own individual traits and experiences.

“When I initially auditioned, I didn’t know a lot about the character but she looked like a challenge from the beginning because of the little dialogue and what he wanted me to convey,” said Zackhariyas.

 “After I landed the role I fell in love with the character, there’s a lot of humility in her and a lot of growth in her and though she comes across as passive, there’s a lot of strength.”

The film has spent the last year on the festival circuit where it premiered at Cinequest, opened at Reelworld, and won “Best Music” at The Atlantic Film Festival.

Zackhariyas, whose own performance background includes dance, theatre and television, said the experience of making the film has inspired her to focus on film acting.

“I think I’ll try every aspect of performing just to know what it’s like and where I’m happy,“ she said.  “This role really changed my perspective on where I really want to focus my energy.”