After 35 years, the St. John’s International Women’s Film Festival is still frank and intimate

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The St. John’s International Women’s Film Festival (SJIWFF) celebrates its 35th anniversary this year, the longest-running festival in Canada showing only work by women-identifying writers and/or directors. The festival and the Newfoundland/Labrador film and television industry have grown up together (the province’s film commission, Picture NL, is only 27) and fed one another; now they’re as intertwined as a braid.

From Oct. 22 to 26, a host of filmmakers, funders and industry players – including Killer Films’ Christine Vachon, Sort Of’s creator/star Bilal Baig, and imagineNATIVE’s Naomi Johnson – will screen and talk about their work to 6,000 attendees.

That’s lightyears beyond the festival’s scrappy origins, when a gaggle of women led by founder Noreen Golfman – many of whom were also having house parties and selling home brew to fund the city’s first abortion clinics – willed it into being. And yet the original vibe remains intact: intimate, frank, inspiring.

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Ruth Lawrence, whose web series The Missus Downstairs, starring Mary Walsh, will screen at SJIWFF, calls the festival “my film school.” The producer/director Sherry White (Crackie, Law & Order Toronto: Criminal Intent) says that going to SJIWFF her first year after theatre school, “changed what I wanted to do with my life, in one sitting.” And as SJIWFF’s executive director Jenn Brown puts it, “The feel of the festival is that feeling of taking off your bra at the end of the day.”

In keeping with SJIWFF’s collective spirit, here’s a chorus of voices on the impact the festival has had, and why it’s still needed.

Melanie Oates, whose film Sweet Angel Baby opens this year’s SJIWFF, grew up in Fermeuse, on Newfoundland’s southern shore, and moved to St. John’s when she was 18.

Melanie Oates, writer director: “I bought two tickets to opening night but I couldn’t find someone to go with me, so I had this empty seat beside me. But they played Diamonds in a Bucket, Sherry White’s short, and I was awestruck. She leaned into Newfoundland, our dialogue, it was sad and yet funny. I had no idea there were filmmakers here, let alone women filmmakers. It was like a door of possibility cracking open.

“I’ve come every year since. Its superpower is how intimate it is. Everyone goes to the screenings, and the next morning, everyone is at the panels. You meet someone, you make a genuine connection, then you see them multiple times more.”

Deanne Foley has a big career in television: Hudson & Rex, Son of a Critch, Republic of Doyle.

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Deanne Foley, director: “Growing up in Newfoundland, I was fascinated with the idea of filmmaking, but my only exposure was Hollywood movies at the mall. We don’t have independent cinemas. The festival was my door into the independent world.”

The first time Jennifer Robertson (Schitt’s Creek) went to SJIWFF, she met Dani Kind (Wynonna Earp) and two other actors, who began a text chain that they’ve used every day since.

Jennifer Robertson, actress: “A lot of the texts are about our guilt around work and motherhood, and we always encourage each other, ‘Follow your dreams, set an example for your kids.’ There’s something about this festival that leads to that kind of thing.”

After a few years, SJIWFF realized showing films wasn’t enough – it needed to connect to the industry. It added a forum and expanded into year-round training programs and events. Killer Films’ Vachon’s first appearance 15 years ago drew other high-profile attendees, who were then inspired to bring their productions to Newfoundland, including the series Random Passage and films The Grand Seduction and Maudie – all of which played at SJIWFF.

Jenn Brown, SJIWFF executive director: “We knew producers and broadcasters were never going to fund our work or take us seriously unless we got them here. Once we get you here, we’ve got you. So you get Jason Momoa here shooting Frontier, hanging out at the local pub, getting the bartender to knit his nan mittens. Any film or series here in the last 30 years, that connection probably started at our festival.”

Foley: “In Newfoundland we always joked about the $1,500 cup of coffee – what it would cost you to go to Toronto for a meeting. With the festival forum, suddenly you were able to have face time right here.”

Barbara Doran, a revered elder at SJIWFF and in Newfoundland filmmaking, produced both Random Passage and The Grand Seduction.

Barbara Doran, producer: “Random Passage was at its time the most expensive production ever done here, $12-million was a lot of money. A lot of money. It was before Picture NL – I had to talk to the Department of Business and Trade. The man waiting beside me was looking for funding to start a chicken farm. The woman in charge, she was struggling to understand: ‘You don’t know how much money will result from this series?’ It was a new concept, investing and not knowing if you’d profit.”

Ireland’s Aisling Walsh’s film Maudie (2016) shot in Newfoundland, won seven Canadian screen awards and screened at SJIWFF. She’s on a panel of feature directors at this year’s edition.

Aisling Walsh, director: “I’ve made films in rural parts of the world, so I knew what I was buying into. Our wonderful local producer, Mary Sexton, set us up in a school; people would turn up, and bit by bit we hired a crew. We were like a family. We’d have dinner together every Friday night. Great people. Crazy journeys. Newfoundland is like Ireland – 30 years ago you only had crew for one film at a time, and now it has a successful industry and experienced crews. An Irish friend who worked on Random Passage said, ‘A part of that place will get into your soul, and you’ll want to go back.’ I said, ‘I’m not sure about that.’ But he was absolutely right.”

Brown: “We were the first province to open for production after the COVID shutdown. Producers from all over the world were looking for a place to shoot. That really put us on a different map. Allison White brought Disney+ here for Peter Pan & Wendy. That led to Apple and Amazon coming, and they haven’t left.”

Allison White, film and TV director and producer: “For Peter Pan & Wendy, we had a crew of over 250 and the biggest toys you can imagine, so it was a great experience for our local crew members. Newfoundland as Neverland, that seemed perfect to me.

“We’re an island, a unique topography; not everything can be shot here. So I don’t think we have to worry about service productions destroying creative storytelling here. Also, a growing film industry means young people can stay here and work, people can buy houses. And the communities love it, because it’s fun to be part of. Does the Atlantic region get the federal film funding it deserves? I mean, no. But that never discourages me – I just have to keep hustling.”

Sherry White, producer/director: “When we shot Crackie in 2008, we had all the top crew, because nothing else was shooting. For the film I just finished, Blueberry Grunt, the competition for crew was huge! A lot of my key people had not been keys before. 63 per cent of the crew was women. That’s rare, even for Newfoundland.”

Because SJIWFF is the most influential film festival in the province, filmmakers want to screen there. That leads to more women being hired as writers and/or directors than the industry average. But it’s not all good news.

Doran: “For the national funders, the Atlantic region is still the armpit of Canada. We’re expected to make films on a shoestring: ‘Oh, that crowd, they can do it for less.’ Especially since so many of our filmmakers are women, our budgets are $1-million or $2-million. Do you know what you can do with $2-million? Shag all. You can’t get a name star, which means you don’t have a hope in hell of distribution outside Newfoundland. And if we don’t get box office, we won’t get more funding. Those funding numbers need to go up.”

Foley: “Sure, it’s great that we have regional funding for budgets under $2.5-million, but I shouldn’t have to live in Toronto to access national funding. I’d love to make another feature, but I’ve already made four for under $2.5. I’m at a stage where I can level up. So it’s great that SJIWFF has led to more women-identifying filmmakers, but budgets are our next fight.”

Brown: Cis men are always knocking at the festival’s door wanting in, and there are questions about whether it’s time to let go of the ‘women’s’ festival. But there’s so much more work to be done. We had a goal for gender parity for directors, 50/50 by 2020. We haven’t hit that. And yes, on paper, more projects directed by women are getting funded – but they’re the ones with the lowest budgets. Research shows that at the current rate, for Canada to get gender equity in the film business it will take over 100 years. Newfoundland didn’t get as far as we have without the Women’s Film Festival, and we’re going to stay the Women’s Film Festival until we don’t need to anymore.”

These interviews have been edited and condensed.

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