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.

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.

Gharrett Paon film to be screened at Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival

Actor, producer filmmaker Gharrett Paon.

Gharrett Paon (with Bretten Hannam) will have his short film WILDFIRE screened at the Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival in France as part of Telefilm Canada's "Not Short On Talent" showcase.

The screening takes place on February 6, 2019.

Gharrett is a Métis (Mi’kmaq/Acadian) actor, producer, and co-founder of Rebel Road Films. 

He received a Talent Trust film scholarship as well as the Shelagh Mackenzie Award and the 2011 Canada Games Young Artists of Excellence in 2017, the same year he graduated from Dalhousie University and completed a residency in the Canadian Film Centre’s Cineplex Entertainment Film Program.

The Clermont-Ferrand Short Film Festival is the world's largest film festival dedicated to short films, the second largest film festival in France after Cannes.

Founded in 1981, the first International Festival was presented in 1988. The 2017 Festival saw more than 160,000 entries and welcomed more than 3,500 professionals.