Latest posts from National Screen Institute - Canada (NSI)

Farpoint Films‘ John Barnard, Chris Charney and Kyle Bornais (all NSI Features First) have begun production on new feature Sorry For Your Loss.

Sorry For Your Loss is the story of new dad, Ken, who returns home to bury his estranged father only to have things take a turn for the complicated as the dead man’s final wish is to have his ashes scattered on the field of his beloved football team.

Production is taking place in Winnipeg through the end of May. The film stars Justin Bartha and Bruce Greenwood.

The post Farpoint Films’ new feature Sorry For Your Loss starts production in Winnipeg appeared first on National Screen Institute - Canada (NSI).

This is Saifan Estefan’s story.

From the escape of the Armenian genocide by Saifan’s grandfather to Saifan’s own displacement due to the Iraq War and the Syrian Civil War, to his harrowing experience with Turkey’s current refugee crisis, it would seem that Saifan’s family legacy is that of discrimination, war and flight.

But with his young family – wife Talar and son Zenos – Saifan hopes for a safer and more inclusive future.

This is his journey.

Creative team

Directors: Patrick Barfoot, Leila Almawy
Producers: Derrick O’Toole, Ben J Abbey, Leila Almawy, Patrick Barfoot

Filmmakers’ statement

Documentaries inform, they entertain but, most important to us, they create intimacy. This intimacy is between the subject and an audience through the art of storytelling.

Stories, at their core, reveal essential humanity; our needs and wants, our fears and desires. When an audience comes face to face with the reality of the subject’s existence, their biases and prejudices fade in the light of our shared humanity.

We both believe that the world would be a little better off if only we told more stories about each other.

About Patrick Barfoot

Patrick Barfoot is an instructor and documentarian from Owen Sound, ON.

He is passionate about media literacy for children from at-risk communities and is creative director of Babel Collective, an experimental film collective that focuses on giving opportunities to first generation Canadians.

About Leila Almawy

Leila Almawy is a community producer and activist from London, ON.

Her parents fled to Canada from a war-torn Lebanon in 1976. Leila’s passion for peace and social justice is motivated by her parents’ experience as immigrants.

The post The Constant Refugee appeared first on National Screen Institute - Canada (NSI).

On Declan’s sixth birthday his baby brother, Michael, dies of sudden infant death syndrome. He’s left wondering if he will suffer the same mysterious fate.

Based on a true story, Sound Asleep is an intimate drama about death from the perspective of a young boy.

Creative team

Writer/director: Aisling Chin-Lee
Producer: John Christou

Filmmaker’s statement

My parents had always planned on having four children. And as luck and fertility would have it, they did. Simon, Fionn, Kevin, and me, Aisling.

But you will not find a family photo with all of us in it. There are many of my brothers Simon and Fionn and I growing up over the years. But there are precious few photos of Simon, Fionn and Kevin, and none of the four of us. Kevin was the brother I never knew.

Kevin, a little brown haired baby (both Simon and Fionn were born with black hair) died at only three months old on April 27, 1981.

On April 29, 1982, I – a baby girl with brown hair – was born. It was commented in secret how much I looked like Kevin – being fairer skinned with brown hair as he had. My birthday has since been intrinsically linked with Kevin’s death day.

In the first years of my life I was continuously under the watchful eye of my parents and their family and friends. My brothers both assumed I would die any day. My parents reassured them by allowing them to hold me whenever they wanted, or wake me up during naps if they were worried I would stay asleep forever. I think this has much to do with the fact I am a chronic insomniac to this day.

I grew up hearing Kevin’s name and pretended to have known him too, before I was born.  Having grown up in a Catholic household I made up stories about us during the time after he died when I grew in my mother’s belly. I told my brothers I knew him in heaven. I claimed we played basketball together there, and that I was a much better player.

The pain of losing a sibling or child does not disappear. You just learn how to deal with it. You need to carry on and find new ways to be a family, to be a brother or a parent. I learned that having a brother you never knew does not mean you are not profoundly affected by his life.

Sound Asleep is the story of a young boy, Declan, living an adult’s pain, trying to cope with the death of his baby brother and his parents’ grief at the same time. Confused and sad, Declan tries to bring his family back together, through the only tools that he has: his imagination and his forgotten birthday.

Based on my family’s experience, Sound Asleep is a story about understanding loss that can be told only from the perspective of a SIDS sibling who has lived with the tragedy of losing a family member too young.

About Aisling Chin-Lee

Aisling Chin-Yee is a producer and director based in Montreal. She most recently produced an EDM musical series with Fluent Films and New Form Digital.

She began her career at the National Film Board of Canada in 2006 and joined Prospector Films in 2010. She has produced the acclaimed shorts Three Mothers (2008), The Color of Beauty (2010) and Sorry, Rabbi (2011).

In 2013 she produced the feature film Rhymes for Young Ghouls – a TIFF Top 10 film – and produced the documentary Last Woman Standing.

In 2014 she made Sound Asleep, her first short film as writer/director. In 2015, she directed the short documentary Synesthesia and produced The Saver.

As a writer and director she is currently developing a feature documentary entitled Color, and writing her feature drama The Day Between.

The post Sound Asleep appeared first on National Screen Institute - Canada (NSI).

Bill dreamed of life on the land from as far back as he can remember.

Trapline is a portrait of the modern Canadian trapper.

Creative team

Director: Dustin Chok
Producers: Dustin Chok, Bill Abercrombie

Filmmaker’s statement

Bill Abercrombie is one of Alberta’s true modern trappers.

Bill came from a family that has love for the outdoors and outdoor activities. He created out of that upbringing a romanticized vision of living on the land. For Bill, it is not necessarily catching animals that is important but the process of trapping and living it that creates purpose for him.

It is true that trapping is a dying way of life. The more that people move to and live in cities the less people are exposed to the benefits of experiencing this subsistent way of life.

Trapline is a meditation on how trapping, as a lifestyle, shapes the people who partake in it – a lyrical documentary that attempts to replicate the feeling of a day out in the bush with Bill.

About Dustin Chok

Trapline is Dustin’s first film.

Dustin spent four years working and living with Bill Abercrombie to gain an experienced understanding of the trapping lifestyle before completing the film.

As a lesson in ethnographic filmmaking, Trapline is built on the relationship formed by Bill and Dustin working in the bush together. The film has also screened at the Yellowknife International Film Festival.

The post Trapline appeared first on National Screen Institute - Canada (NSI).

Stan and Shirley have been married for 67 years, but in 2001 Shirley was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. Stan devoted the next 15 years taking care of his beloved wife, extending her life far beyond hope.

A film where past, present and future steadily disintegrate and, yet, a most profound love endures. Using 8mm footage from 1955 to GoPro video from 2015, Before She’s Gone … is a love story for the ages.

Creative team

Writers: Ana Carrizales, Arun Fryer, Nadim Hejeili
Director: Arun Fryer
Producers: Ana Carrizales, Arun Fryer

Filmmaker’s statement

The number of people with Alzheimer’s is expected to grow significantly in the next few decades so it’s important to prepare and nurture a positive mindset when caring for a loved one stricken with the mental disease.

I believe my grandfather, Stan Fryer, is a shining example of a caregiver who acts with patience and love, teaching us life is what you make of it, one day at a time.

I hope the audience leaves the film with a sense of hope, believing that in the midst of everyday adversity, it is still possible to enjoy life and love to its fullest. Thank you for watching.

About Arun Fryer

Arun Fryer is an award-winning filmmaker and media producer from Vancouver, BC.

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