by Louise Lalonde
When I told people I was going to St. John’s for the first time, everyone said the same thing: “you’re gonna love it!” and they were right. I loved it in spite of the fact that it was either overcast or raining from the moment I stepped off the plane to the moment I got back on.
During the six days that I spent there, I took in the St. John’s Women’s International Film Festival where I met interesting people from different parts of the world, enjoyed some excellent films, and shared drinks and meals with a slue of film enthusiasts and filmmakers. One of them was Sherry White – an actor, writer, producer, director and a pretty hot commodity in the Canadian film and television industry right now.
We lunched at Bacalao, an intimate dining establishment where they pride themselves on serving “nouvelle Newfoundland cuisine.” While we enjoyed our calamari, scallops and cod, we covered a variety of topics, including Sherry’s film background. She is a graduate of the Fine Arts program at the Sir Wilfred Grenfell College in Corner Brook, Newfoundland. Much of her training and professional development in film and television came in the form of workshops such as the Talent Lab at the Toronto International Film Festival, and the Showrunners and Women in the Directors’ Chair Programs at the Banff Centre where she developed confidence and learned how to “play the game.”
Sherry’s debut film as writer/director, Crackie, a feature length drama starring Mary Walsh and newcomer, Megan Greeley closed the festival to a full house and thunderous applause.
Her journey with Crackie began when her screenplay won the 2004 Jim Burt Screenwriting Award from the Writer’s Guild of Canada, but it’s far from over. The film has been referred to as “a small masterpiece of Canadian realism” by John Doyle of the Globe and Mail, and he went on to write that the film “marks the arrival of a major filmmaking talent.”
Sherry has worked as a member of a writing team for CBC’s MVP: The Secret Lives of Hockey Wives and she also worked as a writer for the show Copper for ABC/Global. Her story is an inspiration to Canadian female screenwriters and directors, and she attributes a large portion of her success to the support, encouragement, and help she received through the Newfoundland Independent Filmmakers Coop (NIFCO) and from female mentors and friends. Her advice to emerging writers is to keep the passion, work hard, and believe in yourself.
By the end of the meal, we had moved on to analyzing the latest surge of activity in the film and television industry in Newfoundland and in particular, for women. We didn’t come up with any pat answers but we established that the continued support of the Women’s International Film Festival, NIFCO with programs such as Picture Start for emerging film makers, and the advent of a National Film Board one-woman office in St. John’s would almost certainly ensure continued growth for determined filmmakers.
Driving back to the festival activities, Sherry answered one question that she had been mulling over. What had been her biggest challenge to date? It turns out it wasn’t surviving all the headaches of getting her work produced or dealing with huge budgets and shooting schedules, but rather making sure her career didn’t get in the way of raising her eight-year-old son, Percy. Fortunately, Sherry writes mostly from her home in St. John’s and she and her son move to Toronto in the summer, allowing for plenty of quality family time.
Her latest feature screenplay in progress is inspired by the story of Maud Lewis, so stay tuned for more first-class work from Sherry White.
