Moving Pictures Forward on Prince Edward Island
Lovely Witches Club, the 7 episode webseries created by Renee Laprise and Patti Larsen, launches today! Lovely Witches Club is funded by Talent Fund and Telefilm through the Telefilm Micro-budget Production Program grant.
LWC is a multi-media project that combines dramatic narrative storytelling with ‘extras content’ embedded in the video to give the audience a deeper view into the world and its history. Accompanying each episode is a ‘novelette’ that dives deeper into the story of the episode. There is also a real life members-only club that is accessible on a pay-what-you-wish scale so that anyone can join and enjoy the content. Once all the episodes are released the series will be marketed at at a variety of venues. The webseries will be entered in festivals, the books will be featured at book conferences, hand crafted goods and LWC merchandise will be sold at craft markets and events such as the upcoming Witches Ball will feature all of the LWC content.
Lovely Witches Club (webseries 7 episodes)
A young woman is the key to saving the cursed magic of an entire Island but will she embrace her power to save the witch sisterhood or run away screaming!
Episode 1 – Rebel witches decide to take matters into their own hands and summon a long lost heir (Reese) to see if she has the power needed to break the curse destroying their Island’s magical core. Extras content embedded in the video and links are below.
Lovely Witches Club webseries air date schedule. http://lovelywitchesclub.com/webseries/
Join the club at www.lovelywitchesclub.com and have some witchy fun!
IMAC in partnership with the Black Cultural Society and Cinema Politica celebrate Black History month with a screening of Ninth Floor, Whitewash and from our own Scott Parsons the trailer for Jupiter Wise vs. The King.
Sun, Feb 12
2pm (doors open at 1:45)
City Cinema
By Donation
THE KING VS. JUPITER WISE
Trailer by Scott Parsons (director), Ryan Gallant (writer)
The King vs Jupiter Wise is a fictional adaptation of the life of Jupiter Wise, a slave on PEI in 1785. Jupiter wants to get on a boat and escape slavery on PEI. He wants the woman he loves who is owned by the Governor to go with him. As he is beginning his “run” he discovers that his owner’s son is being kidnapped and one of their buildings on fire. Jupiter decides to rescue the boy from his kidnappers. Thus begins a tale of truth, love, hardship and redemption. Screen play written by Ryan Gallant. Original soundtrack by Scott Parsons and Jonny King. Produced and directed by Scott Parsons and Eye Witness Productions Canada.
WHITEWASH
by Nadine Valcin / Canada / 6:20 / 2016 / English
Whitewash examines slavery in Canada and its omission from the national narrative. The country prides itself as being the benevolent refuge where enslaved Africans who were brought to United States gained their freedom via the Underground Railroad. That powerful image overshadows the fact that slavery was legal in Canada for over 200 years under both French and British rule. Whitewash brings to light some of the slave families that were brought to Prince Edward Island by Loyalists and looks at how nine generations of descendants have assimilated to the point of leaving very few visible traces of their origin.
The New Trailer from Scott Parsons: THE KING VS. JUPITER WISE
NINTH FLOOR
CANADA | ORIGINAL VERSION: ENGLISH | SUBTITLES: NONE
Over four decades after the infamous Sir George Williams Riot, Ninth Floor reopens the file on a watershed moment in Canadian race relations and one of the most contested episodes in the nation’s history. Making an audacious foray into non-fiction, writer and director Mina Shum engages the original protagonists in a compassionate cinematic exercise of reckoning and redemption.
Director: Mina Shum
Cast: Rodney John, Clarence Bayne, Senator Anne Cool
Year: 2015
Duration: 82 min
In 2016 the Island Media Arts Cooperative ran the Young Island Voices project. Our Youth Program Co-ordinator Noah Hoskins travelled across the Island to introduce teens to IMAC as a resource hub for young Island filmmakers. IMAC challenged youth to tell their own stories with film and three industrious teens took us up on our offer with fantastic results. Keelin Fremlin, Alexander Cairns, and Zaneta Ambassa created unique pieces with strong themes and engaging plot lines.
Seventeen year old Keelin Fremlin submitted two short films. The first, A Cup of Tea, follows a little girl (played by Evie Grace Mawson) living with an alcoholic mother. She dreams of a land and characters much like the ones written by Lewis Carroll in Alice in Wonderland to distract herself from her harsh reality. Keelin’s second piece Melody is an avant-garde, two and a half minute montage of her friends and peers speaking, playing music and making art while an angelic voice recites a monologue about the importance of music and creation. So inspiring! We look forward to following Keelin’s exciting career as a filmmaker.
Alexander Cairns (17) and his collaborators explore themes of teen drug and alcohol abuse in his short-film YOLO. The film follows a young man on a steady path to success. Unfortunately he falls off the tracks and ends up fraternizing with the wrong crowd with very poor results. The realness of this short acts as a warning to youth. Alex says the biggest thing he learned from this project was how to properly collaborate with his partners, “Even when your plans start to fall apart, you can make compromises and still finish with a great product.” We hope to see more work from Alexander in the future!
Twelve year old Zaneta Ambassa’s short film Muted follows a young musician who has been unintentionally muted by The Big Guy in the Sky as he relaxes in his “control room.” Seeing this character interact and attempt to communicate with her peers as she come to terms with her inability to speak is charming and comical. Zaneta wrote the script with her sister in a mere three days, “We didn’t want to forget anything and we didn’t want to take any breaks just in case!” Zaneta is a star in IMAC’s books and we look forward to seeing her next short!
To encourage these enterprising young filmmakers, IMAC’s Executive Director Renee Laprise proudly awarded each a $250.00 grant in support of their next project. “IMAC is thrilled to support young, local artists and their dreams. We are here to help you tell your stories.” Youth interested in filmmaking are encouraged to contact IMAC. We want to see more films by youth in 2017. Tell us your story!
IMAC would like to acknowledge the support of the PEI Community Cultural Partnerships Program and the Canada Council for the Arts.
Links to the films:
Keelin Fremlin: A Cup of Tea/Melody
Alex Cairns: YOLO
Zaneta Ambassa: Muted
Application Deadline: April 3, 2017
Workshop Dates: June 3 – 7, 2017
Training Opportunities for Producers and Screenwriters.
This coming June, the Island Media Arts Coop (IMAC) will be hosting the eleventh PEI Screenwriters’ Bootcamp, a professional development workshop series for emerging screenwriters and producers from Atlantic Canada. These writers and producers will participate in five days of intensive professional development and be part of networking activities with producers and broadcasters in search of their next big production of feature films, documentaries, web and television drama.
The organizers are excited to welcome for the first time Deb Patz, author of Production Management 101 to mentor emerging producers. Returning mentors Tom Shoebridge, Sharon Buckingham, and Hannah Cheesman will be working with screenwriters again this year. In total, there are four workshops on offer that cover writing a feature from an idea, writing a next draft for a feature, writing a dramatic series, and production management. As an added bonus, Jan Miller will work her magic with the participants, preparing them for pitching and moving their projects forward.
With the support of Telefilm Canada, Innovation PEI, the Independent Production Fund, the Harold Greenberg Fund, the City of Charlottetown, CBC and Showcase, IMAC is able to offer these workshops at no charge to the talented individuals invited to participate.
Alisha Corrigan pitches her feature film project to Sharon Buckingham, T S B Productions on the final day of the PEI Screenwriters’ Bootcamp 2016.
Want to make a feature with Telefilm? Here’s how to qualify for their Micro-Budget Production Program (up to $127,500 from Telefilm).
IMAC has had 2 of its applications to the program accepted over the last 3 years. The feature film ” Kooperman” Jason Rogerson/Harmony Wagner and the webseries “Lovely Witches Club” Renee Laprise/Patti Larsen.
IMAC is on a mission to increase our membership numbers and diversify our board in order to strengthen our position with policy makers and funders provincially and federally. Our active membership last year was over 105 people and we hope to top that this year.
IMAC doesn’t just rent gear. We are facilitators, advocates, community partners, information disseminators, and content marketers. We’ve worked hard over the last 18 months for filmmakers and cultural workers in general by advocating for the their best interests on a provincial and federal level.
Filmmaking on PEI is currently seeing a renaissance. We want to build on this but we need the numbers. We need to band together to build up this important and active sector on PEI to convince potential funders that IMAC and Island filmmakers, actors, composers, sound designers, set builders, makeup artists, wardrobe people, and all the other cultural workers that go into making films, are here and active and worth investing in.
IMAC is a valuable resource within the cultural community. Please consider supporting IMAC with a General Membership today.
The presence of Island filmmakers at this year’s Atlantic Film Festival is amazing! We proudly celebrate the achievements of our members. Great work everyone!
MILLEFIORE CLARKES
September in Toronto.
“A journey back to the city of my birth—Toronto. How memory mixes with fresh experience. How experience comes in flashes, and fragments, impressions, and fleeting sensations.”
Across America.
“Not long ago my partner and I traversed the vast country of America (US). This dreamy lyrical documentary muses on the subtle shifts in landscape and how land shapes culture, and how tied together these elements create a national identity.
“i ran my hand over the spine of america / how coast lines become forests / turn foothills and mountains / how mountains level / to plateaus / grasslands crack wide to canyons / species shift / obeying the land / culture catches the light of the land / and beast / reflects and refines / all one land / one body / one animal family / breathe in and out / america.” Source: BUZZon.com
TINY TOWN – Jenna MacMillan, Tess Marie Garneau and Thom Smalley
THE GALLEY and FARMBOYS
Double bill at AFF!
PERISCOPE PICTURES – Harmony Wagner and Jason Rogerson
SINGING TO MYSELF
Presenting the Singing to Myself trailer. This isn’t a thousand dollar movie, it’s a million dollar movie!
“Debt. Underemployment. Awkward relationships.
Dissatisfied with her options in the world of striving, a young deaf woman, Iris, decides to give up on yearning to connect. Instead she floats along, working at a greenhouse, embracing her silent solitude and learning to be happy with less.
Everything is going just fine until she meets a precocious musician named Celeste.
Beautifully shot on Prince Edward lsland, Singing to Myself is an intimate gaze into the complexity and ease of female friendship.”
A 1K Wave Atlantic recipient and the second feature film from Harmony Wagner. Premieres Sept. 20, 3:30 pm at Park Lane Cineplex Cinemas as part of the Atlantic Film Festival.
JOHN HOPKINS
BLUEFIN
Bluefin is a tale of epic stakes set in North Lake, Prince Edward Island, known as the “tuna capital of the world.” Local fishermen swear the spectacular Atlantic bluefin tuna are so plentiful here they literally eat out of people’s hands. But many scientists contend the species is on the brink of collapse. Scientific assessments indicate tuna stocks are down by 90 percent. Can both claims be true?
With stunning cinematography, Director John Hopkins documents this baffling mystery, and brings the issues into sharp focus. How much of the oceans’ wildlife should we fish, and how much must we conserve? At the heart of the documentary lies a passionate concern about giant bluefin, the key breeders capable of replenishing the decimated stocks of the largest tuna species in the world.