Talent Trust Partners with FIN Atlantic International Film Festival for a Special Program

In celebration of our 75th anniversary, FIN Atlantic International Film Festival has partnered with us to showcase Talent Trust almuni, Gwyneth Christoffel, Chris Spencer-Lowe, Bretten Hannam, Ann Verrall, and Becka Barker as they bring you drama, documentary, animation, experimentation, poetry, music, and drawings, that expand the borders of cinematic story-telling with a special short film program curated by Dr. Shannon Brownlee.

Then, Now, Change: 
Visions of Nova Scotia

Thursday, September 19
at 9:10 p.m.

Cineplex Cinemas Park Lane, 
Theatre 1
5657 Spring Garden Rd, Halifax


Curator Shannon Brownlee writes:
This is a land of many traditions. The first are those of the Mi’kmaq, whose ancestral and unceded land we all occupy. More recently, Scots, African Nova Scotians, Irish, French, and many other people have brought their traditions to these shores.

This is also a land of vibrant youth, of exploration and inventiveness, of openness to change. These talented filmmakers remind us that the past is knitted into our bones but that tradition and innovation are not mutually exclusive.

Through the visions of children, collaborative filmmaking, and the re-envisioning of personal and public histories, these films expand our understanding of ourselves and each other, and where we may go from here.

Join us for the screening of the following short film program:

Transfer (Chris Spencer-Lowe, 2014) 17 mins
BUOY (Becka Barker, 2017) 7 mins
E’sekati (Bretten Hannam, 2017) 4:30
Deep End (Bretten Hannam, 2011) 6:30
Assembled (Becka Barker, 2006) 5:30
Torture by Sound (Gwyneth Christoffel, 2016) 4:30
Rain (Ann Verrall, 2000) 19 mins
And When Alone, Repeat (Becka Barker, 2017) 5:30


Filmmaker Bios

Becka Barker won NS Talent Trust scholarships in 1999 and 2000 for Super8 and 16mm film. Her work has screened across North America and throughout several countries across East Asia. She focuses on hand processes and collaboration.

The animated work of Gwyneth Christoffel has been screened in Europe, Asia, Australia, and North America. She held a film and video NS Talent Trust scholarship from 2013 to 2015.

Bretten Hannam is the writer, director, and producer of the feature film North Mountain (2015) and several shorts, which have been screened throughout North America and in Australia. He won a 2006 NS Talent Trust Scholarship in screenwriting.

Filmmaker and media artist Chris Spencer-Lowe’s films have been screened throughout Europe and North America. He is the winner of a 1996 NS Talent Trust directing scholarship.

Ann Verrall earned a NS Talent Trust directing scholarship in 1996. Her work has been screened in festivals in North America, the UK, and Australia has been broadcast on several television channels.

Curator Bio
Shannon Brownlee teaches in the Cinema and Media Studies and Gender and Women’s Studies programs at Dalhousie University. She researches animated film and film adaptation.



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In 2019, the Talent Trust is celebrating its 75th  anniversary featuring former scholarship recipients with a travelling art exhibition, pop-up events in theatre, music, and dance, film screenings and more.


The 75th anniversary activities are supported by the province of Nova Scotia, Halifax Regional Municipality, The Craig Foundation, Canadian Federation of Musicians, and Margaret and David Fountain. 

Gharrett Patrick Paon Gets Chosen for the 2019 NSI Features First Training Course.

Beginning next month, Gharrett Patrick Paon, along with his teammate Andrew Dryden Mortimer, will develop their film projects with the best industry experts in Canada as part of the competitive 2019 National Screen Institute's NSI Features First training course. 

In Gharrett’s application he wrote:

"Emerging east coast writers desperately require outside investment to help them and the Maritime film community at large grow and become internationally recognized. Andrew is exactly the kind of writer brimming with talent that our entire community will benefit from in the future."

The Talent Trust couldn’t agree more.

Gharrett Patrick Paon is an actor/producer with Acadian and Mi’kmaq ancestry from Halifax, Nova Scotia. He is a recent alumnus of the Canadian Film Centre Producer’s Lab and holds a bachelor of commerce degree from Dalhousie University.

In 2018, he won Telefilm Canada’s Pitch This! competition with writer/director Bretten Hannam at Toronto International Film Festival for Wildhood, a two-spirit, coming-of-age road film currently in development with CBC Films.

Gharrett is the president of Rebel Road Films Inc. The company is in production on season one of Spirit Talker, a 13 x 30 minute documentary series for APTN. Gharrett recently produced Wildfire, a short film version of Wildhood, which had its world premiere at BFI Flare, the largest LGBTQ+ film festival in Europe, and was one of 10 Canadian shorts selected for Telefilm Canada’s Not Short on Talent showcase at Clermont-Ferrand.

In 2017 Gharrett was the recipient of the prestigious Nova Scotia Talent Trust Young Artist of Excellence Award and The Shelagh Mackenzie Award for filmmaking.

Ariella Pahlke’s Conviction has its World Premiere at Hot Docs on April 28, 2019.

Ariella Pahlke, together with co-writers and directors Nance Ackerman, Teresa Macinnes screen the world premier of their feature documentary Conviction at Hot Docs, the largest documentary festival in North America.

Photo from www.convictiondocumentary.com

April 28, 6:30pm

TIFF Lightbox
350 King Street

April 29, 1:15pm
Tiff Lightbox
350 King Street

May 2, 12:30pm
Hart House Threatre
7 Hart House Circle

According to the filmmakers, the film envisions alternatives to prison through the eyes of women behind bars and those fighting on the front lines of the decarceration movement.

The three filmmakers collaborated with incarcerated women to question the issues facing the rising rates of women’s incarceration. Together they envision a more ideal world, authoring their own narratives through art. They join advocates and politicians in a worldwide movement questioning the ideas of punishment and prison.

Ariella Pahlke is a documentary and video artist, curator, and educator. With a background in philosophy, Ariella has spent the past seventeen years creating documentaries and independent shorts, collaborating on multi-media performance pieces, curating, facilitating video projects with community groups, and teaching. Her film and video work has been shown on television, at festivals and in galleries throughout Canada and the U.S., and in Norway, India, and New Zealand.

Biographical info from www.burningrubber.ca

Writer/director Bretten Hannam & producer Gharrett Patrick Paon screen WILDFIRE at the BFI Flare LGBTQ+ Film Festival on March 22 & 23 2019.

WILDFIRE is a short film about a rebellious Mi'kmaw runaway, stalked by his abusive white father, who meets a two-spirit teenager drawn to his journey. As he learns Mi'kmaw language and culture from his new companion a deeper bond begins to grow between them. 

As Bretten Hannam reveals in his director’s notes, WILDFIRE is a story drawn from personal experience, re-imagined and turned on its head. On the surface the story is very much an adventure—three boys travelling the back roads on a quest. In reality, it’s a very personal story of reconnecting to heritage and coming to terms with two-spirit identity. 

Since Nova Scotia doesn’t have any Indigenous teenage actors in ACTRA (the professional actors union). Bretten and Gharrett set out on a grassroots journey to find their two leads. Over 2 weeks they traveled to various reserves and communities in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick and auditioned over 50 Mi’kmaq teenagers, become the largest casting search ever, for Indigenous talent on the east coast on Canada.

The BFI Flare LGBTQ+ Film Festival is the biggest LGBTQ+ film festival in Europe and running for over 30 years. Wildfire is programmed in CHALLENGE ACCEPTED, a selection of ‘bold shorts showing the courage, intelligence and heart of those who have found a way to rise above their circumstances’.

Wildfire is a part of Telefilm’s Not Short on Talent program, and was one of ten short films in Canada selected for Telefilm’s Not Short on Talent showcase at the 2019 Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival. Not Short on Talent is a Telefilm Canada initiative that presents a selection of new Canadian short films at international markets.