PEI Pulse

by Harmony Wagner

For a look at a few of the projects on the go by PEI Women filmmakers… read on!

Charlottetown-based writer-director, Laurence Véron recently received a grant from Telefilm to go from treatment to first draft with her first feature-film Cap Rouge. This project, developed through the Écrire Au Long program for Francophone directors outside Québec, is a romantic comedy set in PEI’s Acadian Évangéline region.

Island Filmmaker Diane Barnes (TP Productions) has joined forces with NASCAR driver, Kirk Shelmerdine in making a new comedy series, Thrills & Spills, to highlight the PEI stock car racing scene. Inspired by her early days as a member of her brother’s pit crew Diane has teamed up with writing partner Dave Francis and attached Kirk Shelmerdine to play a recurring role as himself. TP Productions has developed a series bible and a series of scripts and is currently shopping Thrills and Spills to Canadian and U.S. broadcasters.

Up and comer Amy Sark, wrote, directed and produced Just by Chance with production financing from the Island Media Arts Co-op (IMAC) this past December. This gritty dramatic short about troubled youth is currently in post-production. Hitting the ground running, Amy has also been hired by the Mi’kmaq Confederacy of PEI to shoot, direct and edit a series of documentaries.

Patti Larsen, together with Brian Sharp, co-wrote and co-directed a dramatic short called Consequences with production financing from the (now defunct) Tech PEI Short Film Fund. With Consequences now in the final phases of post, Patti is developing pilots for the youth demographic, including a series she workshopped at the 2008 PEI Screenwriter’s Bootcamp.

Renee Laprise, Creative Producer of Mugisha Enterprises has produced Angora Napkin, an animated 30-minute pilot for Teletoon’s: Detours Pilot Project. Created by Island illustrator, Troy Little with Nick Cross, Angora Napkin, was premiered online by Teletoon in December 2009, with plans to broadcast in fall 2010.