By Steve Kupferman

You already knew the Yonge line was great for going north and south at high speeds, but did you know that it’s also really good at making us want to weep? No? Then maybe you should watch this video, The Last Goodbye at Summerhill, a (very) short film by third-year Ryerson Television and Radio Arts students Dan Busheikin and Anne Douris. Essentially, it’s what would happen if Casablanca were reshot in Summerhill Station, edited down to a minute and twenty-six seconds, and Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman’s parts were recast with tempera paint portraits of twenty-ish people from Toronto.
“The story is Anne’s,” Busheikin told us in an email, “and is in fact based on a real experience. It’s a small story that is meant to evoke the awkwardness and quiet pain of having to say your final goodbye, twice.”
Douris painted roughly four hundred and fifty separate images of the film’s two animated actors (who were designed to resemble their creators, somewhat), all of which were later superimposed on footage of Summerhill Station. Putting together the animation wasn’t the only difficult part of the production process. “As for shooting in the TTC,” wrote Busheikin. “We had to argue with numerous employees and constables about how we, contrary to TTC policy, were not a security threat. Eventually we got permission by calling the lovely woman at human resources. You gotta go straight to the top with these things.”
Thanks to reader Mike Kolberg for the tip.