LET THERE BE RAVES, WELSH DIRECTOR SAYS

A WELSH tyro moviemaker offers his advice to Toronto, which, like
other North American cities, is grappling with raves and the use of
the drug Ecstasy at them:

Leave them alone and both raves and Ecstasy will fade away, as did the
widespread use of LSD in the late '70s.

That's the message writer-director Justin Kerrigan wants me to deliver
to Toronto Police Chief Julian Fantino and Mayor Mel Lastman.

Been there and done that, says the 26-year-old Kerrigan. He maintains
that he and his friends grew out of that scene, with no harm done, for
careers in law or business - or movie-making, in his case.

At 23, Kerrigan made his feature movie Human Traffic, which is about
typical boring weekdays in Cardiff and the rave weekends that he and
his friends used to live for.

Human Traffic opens in Toronto next Friday, by coincidence at the same
time as an inquest into the alleged Ecstasy overdose death of a 20
year old at a rave and a little over a week after Toronto city council
voted to suspend raves on city property at the prodding of Fantino.

Human Traffic is autobiographical, Kerrigan said on a recent
visit.

``This is me and my friends; even the girl and the guy who were just
friends and sleep together and are still together after
three-and-a-half years - that's me and my girlfriend.''

In the movie, set to a hiphop score, the friends, all in their 20s,
work at mundane jobs that bore them, selling clothes or records; one
sells drugs.

``The film is not the story of their lives, just a document about a
stereotypical weekend,'' Kerrigan insisted.

``Young people tend to go through phases of taking recreational drugs
and having problems with their parents. Every generation fundamentally
goes through the same thing.''

According to published reports, Kerrigan noted, while over 1 million
youths in Britain take Ecstasy every weekend, ``this culture has been
going on for 12 years, but over the past seven years only eight people
have died as a result of it.''

At the same time, he said, reports show that 300,000 to 400,000 people
in Britain every year have died of alcohol-related deaths and 100,000
of cigarette smoking.

Kerrigan was on a tour of major North American cities, not as a
spokesman for raves and Ecstasy, but to talk about the low-budget
Human Traffic, which last year had a multi-million dollar box office
in Britain and, because of its North American premiere at the Toronto
International Film Festival, secured distribution by powerful Miramax.

``Toronto is where it all happened,'' enthused Kerrigan about the film
landing North American cinema release and a first-option deal from
Miramax.

The morning after its first festival screening, Kerrigan recalled
being hungover and awakened by an excited call from his agent,
ordering him ``to get right over to the Four Seasons Hotel'' because
Miramax co-chief Harvey Weinstein wanted to talk to him.

``He bought it just like that,'' said Kerrigan. ``They also set me up
in an office.'' He's now developing a movie script about his
relationship with his late father.

Kerrigan's story so far is instructive to would-be moviemakers. He
attended film school in Wales. One of his instructors thought he had
talent and encouraged him to write the script for Human Traffic, which
he did after leaving school and while ``on the dole.''

That instructor later helped round up investors outside of Britain,
whom Kerrigan says he has never met.

British movie funders, he now laughs, ``didn't want to touch a film
about recreational drug-taking.

``The investors all got their money back and then some.''