Gonzales Filming 'Jazz Chess' Movie with Peaches, Tiga and Feist

Posted on Mar 15th 2010 12:00PM by Mike Doherty

Having bested Andrew WK in a piano duel and set a new world record for the longest-ever piano concert, Chilly Gonzales is now turning his thoughts to a more intense type of competition: chess.

The Paris-based provocateur and "entertainist" has scripted a feature-length film centred on the venerable board game and it's currently being filmed in his hometown of Toronto. 'Ivory Tower' stars Gonzales himself as Hershall Graves, an eccentric genius who invents an intuitive and collaborative style of play called "jazz chess."

Opposing him in chess, as well as in love, is his materialistic brother Thaddeus (played by electro producer Tiga); the object of the brothers' shared affection, a performance artist, is played by longtime Gonzales collaborator Peaches. Also appearing as a duo of "Canadian Chess Cyberchannel" journalists are comedy rocker Little Hamm and Gonzales' longtime friend and creative partner, Feist.

If the cast sounds like a Canadian indie music love-in, it is. But the idea, Gonzales insists, is to take everyone involved out of their collective comfort zone.

Speaking on-set at the Crescent School in north Toronto -- Gonzales' own alma mater -- he argues that his inexperience at film-making is advantageous. "I have the kind of tiger-in-a-paper-bag energy that I had on my first album when I didn't know what it was either. Learning on the job makes you very enthusiastic."

Gonzales and first-time director Adam Traynor (of Berlin-based puppet hip-hop group, Puppetmastaz) are amending the script as they go along – think "jazz film-making." Their crew is made up of a mixture of professionals and friends.

"If you had a full-on professional Toronto film crew," says producer Nicolas Kazamia, "they would not respond well. Chilly's stuff is all very intuitive, so you have to be able to improv a little bit. This is a little bit unorthodox. Believe it or not, we're on schedule, which is kinda shocking."

One aspect of the film has already wrapped: the soundtrack, made up of mostly instrumental "piano electronic" music composed by Gonzales and produced by Berlin techno DJ Boyz Noise.

Gonzales has been building the scenes around the music rather than the other way around. Nonetheless, he insists, "We're trying to do it as professionally as possible so that it can have a chance -- not just, 'Here's the new long-form video of the Gonzales album' -- so people can see it and be touched by the story, even if nobody had ever heard of Gonzales. That would be great. In my dreams, people can look at it and just enjoy the movie."

If all goes according to plan, expect to see 'Ivory Tower' in theatres in the fall.