Latest posts from National Screen Institute - Canada (NSI)

After a mysterious business card is left on his car windshield, a 50-something divorced dad-type (Kevin McDonald) breaks his weekend routine of virtual golf and mustard sandwiches to unveil the mystery behind the strange card.

Creative team

Writers/directors/producers: Avery Stedman, AudioOpera (Graeme Barrett)

Filmmakers’ statement

This brief journey gives a bittersweet glimpse into the sad realities we imagine many post-divorce males must face.

About Avery Stedman and AudioOpera

Avery Stedman is an award-winning filmmaker from Winnipeg who has crafted a strong portfolio as a music video director and cinematographer, working with several mainstream and underground artists.

His works have been featured on VICE’s Noisey, Much Music, Paper Magazine, IX Daily, Booooooom, Radar Awards, Dazed Digital and Vimeo Staff Picks.

AudioOpera is a music producer from Winnipeg, Canada. Also known as Graeme Barrett, he is one of a handful of producers who employs associative techniques in his production.

He was recently signed to Noise Collector, a label composed entirely of associative musicians. His music is composed of playful but aware melody backed with cutting vocals.

His previous work has featured on numerous sites such as Dazed Digital, Much Music, i-D Vice, BBC Radio 1xtra, Weird Canada and The Fader.

Pregnancy can be a joyful time. It can also be a terrifying one.

In the mid-1960s, two prim and proper ladies get together for a baby shower. The results are unsettling.

Creative team

Director: Christopher Lazar
Writers/producers: Gwynne Phillips, Briana Templeton

Filmmaker’s statement

I’m very grateful to work with such talented writers and performers! This film presented some formidable challenges, but the crew did rise to the occasion.

About Christopher Lazar

Chris made the leap from the rolling mountains of Vancouver to the vaulting urban jungle of Toronto to pursue a career making films in 2007.

Since then, Chris has cultivated a diverse body of work that explores mediums and genres of all forms including commercials, music videos, web series, short films and documentaries. His work has been broadcast on CBC, Much Music, CMT, Bravo, Funny or Die, YouTube, Vimeo and iTunes.

In January 2014, Chris released his first feature-length documentary URBNET LIVE: featuring Canadian hip-hop artists Moka Only, D-Sisive, DL Incognito, Kae Sun, Wordburglar, Elaquent and Animal Nation.

Later that year, Chris began production on Rude Canadians, a documentary about stand-up comedy and the legal boarders imposed on free speech in Canada. The film is still in production and should see a release date in 2017.

As a result, Chris’s approach to storytelling has been shaped by the drama and excitement that reality-based content has to offer. Not to be confined by any genre, Chris’s goal is to engage audiences with real emotional experiences in every market from web-based media, advertisements and music videos, to documentaries, television and feature films.

An incident between two people is examined through the exploration of rooms.

Creative team

Writer/director/producer: Alicia Harris

Filmmaker’s statement

In an abandoned prison, we created these picturesque rooms. The space was transformed.

I was too.

About Alicia Harris

Alicia Harris is an emerging director from Toronto, Ontario.

Her first film, Fatherhood (2014) a short documentary on a young father, was broadcast nationally twice and screened in several festivals worldwide winning best short film at two of them (Canada International Film Festival, Scarborough Film Festival, 2015).

She recently graduated from Ryerson’s School of Image Arts where her fiction directorial debut, Love Stinks (2016), won best director, best film and the people’s choice award at the school’s end of year festival.

The film was featured on Indiewire and is currently screening in festivals, most recently the Oscar-qualifying Festival du Noveau Cinema in Montreal.

Alicia is determined to create stories featuring women and underrepresented groups. She is currently working on her second fiction short, Pick.