Latest posts from National Screen Institute - Canada (NSI)

The Go-Getters, from director Jeremy Lalonde and producer Jordan Walker (both NSI Totally Television), is released in select Canadian theatres on December 7.

The Go-Getters screens at Calgary’s Globe Cinema, Ottawa’s Mayfair Theatre and Toronto’s Carlton Cinemas starting Friday. Director Jeremy and actor Tommie-Amber Pirie will attend Toronto’s opening weekend screenings and Q&A sessions on Friday and Saturday, December 7 and 8.

The film follows the F-bomb dropping couple Owen (Aaron Abrams) and Lacie (Tommie-Amber Pirie) as they argue their way through scheme after scheme as they get out of town and take over the house in Brockville currently occupied by Lacie’s grandmother.

The Go-Getters is distributed by Northern Banner Releasing. It will be available on demand in the US and Canada starting December 25.

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Congrats to Danishka Esterhazy and the team behind NSI Features First-developed Level 16. The film took home four awards at last week’s Blood in the Snow Canadian Film Festival in Toronto.

Danishka was named best director and rising star, while her writing on the film won her best screenplay. Katie Douglas (pictured) took home the best actress award.

Level 16 is a dystopian science-fiction thriller set in a strict boarding home for girls. Trapped in a sterile facility, 16-year-old Vivien (Katie Douglas) is taught the finer points of ‘feminine virtues’ by a Stepford-like headmistress (Sara Canning) and left to question what fate awaits her when she ages out of the institution.

Level 16 was developed through NSI Features First in 2006-07 by Stéphanie Chapelle and Danishka.

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NSI Features First provides development training for writer/producer teams looking to produce their first or second feature film with strong commercial appeal. Over 20 feature films developed through the program have been produced since 1997.

NSI Features First is funded by Presenting Sponsor Telefilm Canada; Supporting Sponsors Super Channel, Corus Entertainment and Breakthrough Entertainment; Provincial Sponsor Creative BC through the Daryl Duke and William Vince Scholarship Fund; and Industry Supporters William F. White and Deluxe. NSI Core Funders are Manitoba Sport, Culture & Heritage and the City of Winnipeg through the Winnipeg Arts Council.

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Above: Melanie Hadley pictured (centre) with NSI grads Vanessa Loewen (left) and Rhonda Lucy during NSI’s reception at imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival earlier this month

I’m going to be really real with you. I’m still pretty new to investing in the next generation of Canadian storytellers.

For so long I was on the receiving end of other’s generosity. I had no idea how fulfilling it was to be on the giving end. It’s pretty great – so I’m asking you to join me in giving to NSI today. They need us!

It’s easy to give, and your support trains amazing people to tell amazing stories. Together, we create great stories and change communities.

You’ve seen NSI-developed stories. They’re on large and small screen across the country and around the globe, and they are all inspiring. This is an opportunity to be part of that – and to ensure we continue to see those stories. Your support makes this happen – for people of all backgrounds.

When we give, we also create opportunities for new voices, bringing incredible content and new perspectives to Canadian screens.

I know you understand the importance of NSI. As we approach the holiday giving season, I invite you to join me in making a gift to NSI.

Together, we can create programs that change the world for artists and audiences.

(NSI is a charity, and all your donations will be receipted.)

Melanie Hadley is the executive in charge of production, drama, CBC scripted content, English services. She is also a graduate of CBC New Indigenous Voices and a current NSI board member

Original photo by: Mike Tjioe

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A laid off oil field worker tries to find a little music.

Creative team

Writer/director/producer: Dylan Rhys Howard

Filmmaker’s statement

To me this movie is about how we as a culture (particularly in Western Canada, where I’m from) need to move away from the traditionally masculine, emotionally repressed homeostasis that has been the norm for generations, and replace it with vulnerability and honesty.

By the end of the film, I hope the central character understands that, even if he might not ever express it that way. I hope we can all follow him into the future.

About Dylan Rhys Howard

Born in Wellington, New Zealand and raised in Edmonton, Alberta, Dylan Rhys Howard is an independent filmmaker whose work has been described as “quiet and upfront, honest, real, rich, fertile, built on characters with depth and complexity.”

In 2018, his short film Peak Oil was selected to be part of Telefilm Canada’s Not Short On Talent program and screened at the Marché Du Film Court at the Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival in France. Peak Oil also received an Alberta Motion Picture Industries Association award for best narrative short.

His documentary Lifetimes Of Snow, a portrait of musician Jom Comyn and the hometown they share, was named the most outstanding Albertan short documentary at NorthWest Fest in 2016. His one-minute silent film A Brief Portrait Of A Northern Summer In Progress received first place at Edmonton’s Gotta Minute Film Festival in 2015.

He has served on the board of directors for the Film And Video Arts Society – Alberta since 2016 and the Metro Cinema Society’s Programming Committee since January 2018.

When not doing any of the above, you can catch him reading Ted Hughes poems to his wife, writer Lizzie Derksen, or walking an energetic dog named Ranger who incidentally has truncated any further development of this bio, as its writing has begun to impinge on the time allocated for an afternoon walk.

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When word gets out that up-and-coming TV jingle writer Audrey Ragnarson doesn’t have a complete education, she loses the prestigious Mr. Nogs Noggy Egg Nog campaign and is forced to go back to school to complete the year she missed: kindergarten.

Creative team

Writer: Aubrey Arnason
Directors: Aubrey Arnason, Kalyn Miles
Producer: Laura Toplass

Filmmaker’s statement

Kindergarten, Da Bin Ich Wieder is based on a true story. I (Aubrey Arnason) didn’t attend kindergarten because my father was at the end of an NHL career and was playing a season in Germany. I couldn’t speak the language and didn’t like my first day, and my mother never made me go back.

Cut to many years later a friend of mine – who happens to be a kindergarten teacher – said, “It makes sense you never attended kindergarten. You can’t print, you walk to the front of line-ups …” That was the spark for the idea.

The film was part of the Crazy8s film event where 98 teams pitch ideas and six are chosen to make their film in only eight days. The films are then screened in front of 1,700 people.

Kindergarten, Da Bin Ich Wieder was shot with a whimsical tone. Kalyn Miles (my co-director) and I wanted it to feel like a fable or children’s book. We chose to use lots of oners, for feel and because they really helped with our time constraints!

There are 11 four-to-seven year olds in the film, one bunny and a hamster. People say to never work with children or animals but I disagree. Hammy the hamster did his close-up in one take, and the kids had the most energy and amazing instincts and ideas throughout the shoot.

Kindergarten, Da Bin Ich Wieder will always hold a special place in my heart. I live by the lessons of the film, and the coming together of community to make a movie in only a week is something magical. – Aubrey Arnason

About Aubrey Arnason

Aubrey Arnason is a graduate of the Vancouver Film School (VFS). She is a 12-time Leo Award nominee for writing, producing and hosting, and a one-time Leo Award recipient.

Aubrey directed over 60 episodes of Shaw TV’s lifestyle segment Wedding Belles, two VFS Port Shorts, as well as the pilot episode of Talk to Us, a studio talk series.

She is a NSI Totally Television alum and in 2013 was granted the Bell Media Fellowship. She has co-created and executive produced two comedy pilots for Citytv (Rogers), Kits and The Range. The Range placed top three at the Banff international pilot competition.

Recently Aubrey wrote a short film called Payment and received a BravoFACT grant.

About Kalyn Miles

Kalyn Miles is a graduate of Grant MacEwan University’s theatre arts program, where she studied musical theatre and classical theatre. She trained with the Second City in Chicago for improv, sketch-comedy writing and directing.

Kalyn created, produced and directed Cocktails and Holywater, a hit live sketch-comedy show. She has directed over 30 live episodes of Cocktails and Holywater and directed and edited more than 100 digital comedic shorts.

Kalyn also hosted Citytv and OLN’s lifestyle series Get Stuffed, for which she received a Leo Award.

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