City Reels: Vancouver’s Independent Cinema Guide

Local Actor Set to Produce Feature Film

Twenty-three year old Vancouver actor Arleo Dordar has teamed up with writer/director Kevin Bottomley as executive producer of the feature film From the Sky. Dordar will also star in the lead role as Michael.

The film follows the urban adventures of Robert Mann, a petty thief trying to find his own path in an absurd world of crime and tenuous survival, and Marina Mishulovich, a domestic worker from the Ukraine who falls victim to sexual slavery.

Robert is led back to one night five years in his past, when he’s approached by a homeless orphan who tells him wild stories of clandestine underground societies. All this is nonsense to Robert…until the orphan’s revelations begin to come true.

Artist Bio

Before signing on with From the Sky, Dordar landed a supporting role on the up-coming TV series Shattered, a CSI-clone, alongside Callum Keith-Rennie of Battlestar Gallactica fame. Dordar has also appeared in numerous independent films, including Viva Italia, Earnest, and Rainmaker Entertainment’s Chicago Pianos, winner of a Best Cinematography award.

At an early age, Arleo garnered his first fans with a spot-on imitation of Stallone’s Rambo and parlayed his early success into a stage role at age 12.

“My passion for doing improv and impersonations inspired me to start acting, yet I found transforming myself into different personalities is what really fascinated me about acting,” says Dordar.

As owner of Burnaby’s Sport Kickboxing Academy where he trains over 200 members, Arleo distilled his personal motto - ‘Visualization, Action, Dedication’ – and carried that over into his acting gigs.

Arleo has honed his stagecraft in a bevy of local productions, including a stint as the leading man in the long-running Tony and Tina’s Wedding and various Shakespearean renditions such as Hamlet. “I found theatre to be a great way of practicing the craft and it being live really made me be on my feet,” says Arleo.

After winning a scholarship to performing arts school in 2005, he signed with one of the leading talent agencies in Vancouver, Webster Talent Agency.

To expand his horizons, he set out for the East Coast to study at the New York Film Academy. During his stay he landed a role with the Vital Theatre Company, playing the part of Bob in David Mamet’s American Buffalo. Upon his return to Vancouver, he appeared in The 4400 (rated the best sci-fi show in North America) alongside Steve Brady of Sex and the City fame.

Dordar became interested in producing when he created a ‘soviet-montage style’ short called Shadow of a Hero (check it out on YouTube).

“When I read the screenplay for From the Sky,” says Dordar, “I immediately saw it as a movie that I wanted to be a part of. I was attracted to the way the script blended action, mystery, and the internal conflict of the main character, a thief. It’s a movie where the audience will definitely see themselves reflected in the characters. I find movies to be a way of teaching people about life’s worst or best experiences. I want to make positive changes in the world and that’s why I became a producer. On top of that, the story is marketable and feasible on a low-budget. And it’s a Vancouver story, something we don’t have enough of here.”

From the Sky will be the first feature film of Leonic Pictures, Dordar’s production company. If fundraising efforts go well, principal photography is slated for later this fall.