Martha Burns (left) and Susan Coyne (right) visited the Ancaster Film Fest to present their brilliant short film HOW ARE YOU? Despite being only 18 minutes long, the short was a multi-layered, unique, poignant and often humourous look at dealing with the grief that follows a separation. They added a very interesting and insightful introduction and commentary and provided a wonderful Q&A following each screening. We were delighted and fortunate to have these outstanding award-winning actresses and now screenwriters/directors/producers to our venue. We will anxiously be awaiting their next project LITTLE FILMS ABOUT BIG MOMENTS which grew indirectly out of their experiences in making HOW ARE YOU?
HOW ARE YOU? was co-written and co-directed by Martha and Susan.
Martha Burns is an award-winning Canadian actress known for her stage work and youth outreach in Ontario and her leading role in the TV drama SLINGS AND ARROWS, a TV series about a Canadian theatre company. She has garnered a Genie for Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role for LONG DAY'S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT and two Gemini awards for her performance as Shakespearean diva Ellen Fanshaw in SLINGS AND ARROWS.
Susan Coyne is an acclaimed actor, author and playwright and one of the co-creators and co-stars of the award-winning SLINGS AND ARROWS. In 2006, she won two Gemini Awards for her work on the show, one for best performance in a supporting role and one for best writing for a dramatic series (shared with her fellow co-creators). In 2007, she again won for writing with co-star Martha Burns winning in the acting category. She also won two Writers Guild of Canada awards, in 2006 and 2007. Martha and Susan are founding members of Toronto's Soulpepper Theatre Company, a company that includes a number of theatre veterans from the Stratford Theatre Festival. Martha has performed leading roles at Stratford, the Shaw Festival, the National Arts Centre and the Tarragon Theatre, to name just a few. She has been nominated five times for a Dora Mavor Moore Award, winning twice: in 1986 for The Miracle Worker and in 1984 for Trafford Tanzi. As associate artistic director at Soulpepper, Burns headed up its extensive youth outreach program. Earlier in her career, she founded the Toronto Arts for Youth Association and was a co-founder of another youth theatre project in Toronto, Masterclass Theatre. She has worked as an instructor for the theatre programs at George Brown College and Ryerson University. In 2005 she was honoured for her career in the theatre with the Barbara Hamilton Award.
Susan is currently a playwrite-in-residence at the Tarragon Theatre. Her two best-known plays are KINGFISHER DAYS, an adaptation of her critically-acclaimed memoir of the same name, and ALICE'S AFFAIR. The edition of this memoir that was published in America was titled IN THE KINGDOM OF FAIRIES. It recounts her experiences in the summer of 1963 at her family's summer cottage on Lake of the Woods. She is also known for her translations of Anton Chekhov.
Their latest project, LITTLE FILMS ABOUT BIG MOMENTS, contains ten short films from ten emerging filmmakers from a concept they created with producer Sonya Di Rienzo.
A dutiful daughter makes an impulsive decision about her aging father. A teenage girl confides in her sister and is unnerved by her reaction. A man is handed a pregnancy test and sees his world turned upside down. A woman looks at her dog waiting to go out and has a surprising revelation…. LITTLE FILMS ABOUT BIG MOMENTS is about epiphanies. It’s about the instant when the penny drops, the mind opens, the heart contracts, and something suddenly becomes clear - perhaps a little too clear.
The LITTLE FILMS filmmakers are not writers or directors, but rather people in the film industry who have a story to tell, and a willingness to take a risk. They are working under the guidance of experienced mentors who are encouraging them to engage in new ways of thinking and seeing. The whole experience is being documented for an hour-long companion piece documentary.
Each film was being shot in one day over a period of two weeks with the same production team. Semi Chellas (THE ELEVENTH HOUR) and Susan Coyne are the Story Mentors, Rudi Blahacek (SLINGS AND ARROWS) is the Director of Photography, Adam Wilson is the Production Designer, under the mentorship of Phillip Barker (ADORATION) and Tamara Deverall (BREAKFAST WITH SCOT), Shelley Mansell (NEMESIS GAME) is the Costume Designer, and Paul Day (DEAD LIKE ME) is the Editor. Dominika Dittwald (THIS BEAUTIFUL CITY) is the Director of the LITTLE FILMS Documentary.
LITTLE FILMS ABOUT BIG MOMENTS will be presented as a one-hour special on Movie Central and TMN in the fall of 2009. The ten short films will also be shown individually on both networks.
Julian D.
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