Latest posts from National Screen Institute - Canada (NSI)

Alex has acquired the unpredictable super power of static electricity. Between high school and her absent father, she can’t keep her emotions in check or her powers from growing.

Creative team

Writer/director: Alayna Silverberg
Producers: Jon Silverberg, Marena Dix, Andy Hodgson

Filmmaker’s statement

Creating Static Alex was a huge learning experience for me as a new director.

I loved collaborating with such an experienced team, I soaked up every minute of it and I am so grateful for them.

Writing this story was sort of a cathartic release of my teenage years. As a teen I often felt like I was a bit of a strange/dark girl but a friend and mentor helped me turn my passion and strengths into a legacy that I can be proud of.

Following suit with TELUS STORYHIVE and the grant they provided us for the female directors edition, we ensured that more than 50% of our cast and crew were women, 55% in fact! I’m excited to continue this journey of creating female-led sci-fi films.

About Alayna Silverberg

Born in Vancouver and raised in Surrey, Alayna has been performing and writing from a very young age.

She attended Capilano University’s acting for film program in 2003, and went on to act in several indie projects.

After co-writing about half a dozen short films, she took the position of associate producer on Red Castle Films’ sci-fi short Disappeared, which continues to screen at film festivals around the world.

Her fashion film Fall in Love was accepted into the top 10 of the 2014 Elle Canada Film Competition and her second fashion film Forage for Fashion made it into the top three of the 2015 Elle Canada & Sorel Canada Film Competition.

Recently, her short sci-fi/drama Static Alex won a $10K grant from TELUS STORYHIVE for their female directors edition.

Alayna is currently developing sci-fi/drama project Out There. She looks forward to bringing female-centric sci-fi stories to life on the big screen.

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Lily must defeat the demons that lurk in her nightmares if she is to save herself and the woman she loves.

Creative team

Writer/director/producer: Anna Cooley

Filmmaker’s statement

Sleepwalker adapts the traditional role of the fairy tale to a modern context by giving voice to an alternative narrative of love. It explores themes such as mental illness, identity, diversity, gender and sexuality, challenging the dominant narratives in our historic and contemporary storytelling.

This queer Sleeping Beauty story was made in the style of the German Expressionists of the 1920s. As a director I wanted to limit myself in terms of tools and techniques employed. I designed shots that would have been possible in the 1920s, imagining the camera to be large and difficult to move.

I collaborated with my choreographer and actors to emphasize movement and expression as narrative tools. Set pieces and miniatures were designed to be asymmetrical and hauntingly whimsical, evoking movement within static frames. I think this approach expanded the creativity of Sleepwalker and recreated a feel for films of that period.

About Anna Cooley

Sleepwalker is Anna Cooley’s first narrative short film.

In 2014 she travelled to Romania to shoot her first feature documentary, A Sauropod Abroad, which won best feature documentary at the Brasov International Film Festival and best female filmmaker at the Hollywood Boulevard Film Festival.

She started her own production company, Erratic Pictures, in 2015 which produces short and feature-length documentaries on topics ranging from environmental sustainability to domestic violence prevention.

She has worked in the Calgary film industry since 2010 in the props, set decoration and art departments, developing skills that have translated to her own independent projects.

She is currently working on short films, grant applications and proposals while writing short and feature-length screenplays.

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

It’s been years since Merle has visited the cabin where he spent much of his childhood. The cabin’s the same as he remembers, but there’s something different about the woods.

Creative team

Writer: Josh Holland
Director: Matt Holland
Producer: Mohammed Saadoun

Filmmaker’s statement

Malignance is a collaboration between my brother Josh and I. We grew up loving all films, but what kids growing up in the ’80s and ’90s didn’t love horror films?

We were at our family cabin sitting on the deck one late, dark night and an animal of some sort rustled by and caught our attention. Josh called out to it and much to our surprise it called back in an eerie belt and then carried on through the woods.

Film talk always being a popular conversation [with us], we started on about ‘cabin in the woods’ style films that haven’t been done yet and by the following weekend Josh had some insane monologues written about a poetic monster that lured you to your death instead of just attacking. We were itching to make something and already had the location so it was easy to get started.

In horror films, there’s always a monster lingering just outside the cabin wanting to animalistic-ly eat the character, while they try desperately to escape. That’s the staple of the genre! Our intentions were to create a monster that makes the character want the monster to eat them. We wanted to the film to twist your perception of reality but at the same time try to ground it.

I was just finishing film school and Josh was just starting in the same program so we recruited our classmates as crew and I used a visual storytelling class to develop the mood and aesthetic of Malignance. Things were coming together when we received a small grant from our local film cooperative and some additional funding enough to pay for the equipment and basic amenities during production.

We returned to the secluded cabin later that fall and the entire crew lived at the cabin without distraction from the rest of the world.

In my opinion, the best way to describe Malignance is an art-house thriller/horror hybrid cabin in the woods film.

About Matt Holland

Always obsessed with the imagery of motion pictures, Matt Holland got his start making films at a young age with his brother Josh.

While attending film school at the University of Regina he worked in the film and television industry as an editor and on set in the camera and lighting department. After school he began producing and directing commercials, documentaries and short films.

Matt loves to tell a story with pictures and is always trying something new.

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