Toronto, summer, and hip-hop are the three words filmmaker Reza Dahya used to describe his upcoming project BOXCUTTER, a heartwarming and upbeat Indie film dedicated to the city.
The story follows an aspiring local rapper, who also works at a factory unpacking boxes (hence the name, BOXCUTTER), on a quest to recover his stolen laptop containing all of his music ahead of a life-changing meeting with a big-time music producer, whom is modelled after successful Toronto-raised icon Boi-1da.
Along with hip-hop at the forefront are themes of friendship and overcoming the fear of failure, a feeling Dahya says he knows all too well.
Dahya’s passion for music runs deep. With co-creator Ty Harper, he worked to put Toronto’s underappreciated hip-hop community on the radar with his mid-2000s radio show “O.T.A. (On the Air) Live!” on the now-defunct urban station FLOW 93.5. Transitioning from hosting and producing into filmmaking was a major change that he referred to as an “emotional roller coaster,” and Dahya says he channeled those same feelings into the film’s lead character.
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“In our show, “O.T.A. Live!,” we created every element – every sound and every song, we chose. That was our creation, but it’s still like a layer removed from being an actual artist. And so, in my transition, I finally figured out that I can put all my skills together in this thing called film, and then I can share something that I want to say personally,” Dahya said to Now Toronto on Wednesday.
“And that’s very terrifying and scary. Because I love and respect the art form, music and the culture so much, it’s terrifying to think that I would put something out there that’s mediocre or not received well, or doesn’t help people in some way. So, our character deals with that in his way.”
Describing the film as a “love letter” to Toronto, Dahya promises to avoid cliche topics often embedded in racialized hip-hop movies such as violence, drugs, poverty and the idea of “making it out of the hood.” Instead, he vowed to highlight the abundant vibrancy and cultural richness of the city which is often taken for granted and overlooked on a worldwide scale.
“I wholeheartedly believe those kinds of stories are real and important stories, and they should be told. But, they’re not the only stories,” he said.
“One of the main things for me was to showcase Toronto as this amazing place. It’s full of so much culture, life, energy, art and community. A lot of people know about the city, but they haven’t really seen it… So, it’s a love letter in the sense of saying, ‘Hey world, this is us.’ And for all of the Drake fans and The Weeknd fans in the world that might know about our city, here’s a look at it from a different lens.”
Dahya says BOXCUTTER is essential for Toronto audiences, especially due to the lack of Canadian representation on the big screen. He says growing up, there was often a struggle for voices in the city to be heard. With this film, he aims to instill and restore value in the city for future generations to look up to.
“Seeing ourselves on screen is always important. I think in Toronto, even just as Canadians, we have a lot of self-esteem issues. We’ve all grown up with American media and Canadian film, TV shows and music have had such a hard time competing with that… it’s kind of done its job on us. Self-pride is sometimes hard to find in Toronto. It’s better now, but definitely in my time coming up, it was a very difficult thing to battle,” he said.
“It’s important to show the city and the people in it as many times as we can, in as many formats as we can. We should have 20 BOXCUTTER kinds of movies by now… I just feel like what we have at home is so special and so beautiful. It’s important for me to offer up something where kids who were like me – finding music, hip-hop and culture – will now have examples of it from their hometown.”
The movie is set to premiere at the 24th Reelworld Film Festival+Summit on Oct. 26. The indie festival, which is screening more than 32 films this year, is the longest running organization for Black, Indigenous, Asian and People of Colour in the Canadian Screen Industries.
Dahya says he looks forward to the premiere, hoping that Torontonians will be able to see a piece of themselves within the film, and also says that screening it in the city is the “right fit.”
“It’s gonna just be a celebration,” he said.
“Our film has a very feel-good vibe with a lot of love in every frame. You will leave with a smile on your face. And so to celebrate that at Reelworld, I think it’s really going to mean a lot. It just feels right, it feels like home.”
