Getting your very first movie made in Canada is no easy feat.  Getting it into the Toronto International Film Fest is another thing altogether. 

So, for writer and director Charles Officer, all the positive reviews he’s been receiving for his urban drama Nurse. Fighter. Boy have been the proverbial icing on the cake.

“I was preparing myself for the worst because I think you have no idea how something’s going to be received,” says Officer. “Any sort of criticism — I probably already thought of it so nothing is really going to phase me.”

Lucky for the actor-turned-filmmaker, criticism has been minor and, in fact, most people are enjoying the intimate love story between the eponymous nurse, a fighter and a boy.

Clark Johnson (TV’s The Wire) stars as Silence, a washed-up boxer who street fights in order to get by.  When one battle turns particularly ugly, Silence heads to the hospital where he meets Jude (Karen LeBlanc), an ailing nurse and single mom to Ciel (Daniel J. Gordon), a boy who performs magic and doesn’t really fit in with the other kids.

“I’m the boy, but I probably won a few more fights (than the character does),” says Officer.  “I would say a lot of the scenes and the idea and where the film comes from is just from things that I experienced.”

The film explores the faith and trust of people growing up in an urban Toronto neighborhood and the search for family and a sense of home.  It was capturing those themes that led Officer to sign up cinematographer Steve Cosens (The Tracey Fragments) to play with the use of color to set the tone.

“(Cosens and I) talked a lot about creating a hybrid-organic look and I wanted it to feel raw and just have an honest look and a stylized look as well,” explains Officer.

As such, Nurse. Fighter. Boy is a powerful film to watch, distinguishing locations with strong colours of the palette that wash scenes in bright blue and orange. “It does have a logical effect whether you know it or not,” says Officer.  “Colours represent things and it was really great to explore that.”