THE JOY AWARDS 2015
CONTENTS:
The Awards for 2015
The Joy Award
The 902 Post Joy Award
The Newfoundland Joy Award
The Helen Hill Animated Joy Award
(Previously announced at Silver Wave Film Festival in November: the New Brunswick Joy Award)
About the Joy Awards and the Linda Joy Media Arts Society
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The Linda Joy Media Arts Society is pleased to announce the winners of the 2015 Joy Awards. Every year the jury must consider a number of excellent submissions before making a final selection. This year, the 30th year of the Joy Awards, we are pleased to be able to recognize and support these four filmmakers and their projects.
The Board and staff of the Linda Joy Media Arts Society extend their heartfelt congratulations.
The Awards for 2015
(note: Award partner benefits may be cash or services)
The Joy Award:
Winner: Bretten Hannam
For: Young Monsters
Award partners: The Atlantic Filmmakers’ Coop, 45 North.
YOUNG MONSTERS is a modern day fable about embracing what makes you different, and standing up in the face of ridicule and adversity.
As a filmmaker, I deal with themes of identity and outsider experience in the stories I tell. I have created films that deal with racial identity, sexual identity, and community identity. It is a topic I continually explore from multiple angles. In this instance, YOUNG MONSTERS contains some of the same thematic elements, but approaches them in a subdued way.
Bretten Hannam is a metis (Mi’kmaw) writer-director of based in Nova Scotia, Canada. His films focus primarily on outcasts and outsiders, dealing with themes of identity, tradition, and community. His short film, DEEP END was shown at film festivals across the world, including Frameline, BFI Flare, and the Iris Prize in Cardiff. He co-wrote the short CHAMPAGNE which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, and directed the two-spirit, First Nations, feature-length thriller, NORTH MOUNTAIN. An avid writer, Hannam is a Fellow of the Praxis Centre for Screenwriters, Outfest Screenwriting Lab, as well as an alumnus of the Canadian Film Centre’s Screenwriting Lab.
The 902 Post Joy Award:
Winner: Eryn Foster
For: Portrait of a Bearded Lady
Award partner: 902 Post Inc.
The feature-length documentary Portrait of a Bearded Lady focuses on the life and work of seventy year old gay activist and media artist James (Jim) MacSwain. Part road movie, part mystery, part biopic and part history, this film examines MacSwain’s role in both the Atlantic art and queer scenes, as well as his development as an artist and homosexual male in a distinctly Maritime version of the Radical Faerie movement.
Eryn Foster (Director/Producer) is an interdisciplinary artist, curator and emerging filmmaker who lives in Dartmouth, NS. Foster received her BFA from Concordia University and her MFA from the University of Guelph. For the past 15 years she has exhibited her art work and presented numerous projects across Canada, the US and internationally. Most recently she was awarded the Paris Studio Residency Grant through the Canada Council for the Arts. Foster has also received numerous other awards for her work including grants from the Canada Council for the Arts, the NS Arts Council and the Ontario Arts Council. Foster’s most recent film projects include Here Kitty Kitty!, a feature length dramatic comedy she produced and acted in with director Santiago Giralt.
The Newfoundland Joy Award:
Winner: Joshua Jamieson
For: Waiting Outside…
Award partners: Atlantic Studio Cooperative, Newfoundland Independent Filmmakers Coop, John Doyle.
In the short dramatic film WAITING OUTSIDE… a single father strives to give his son a perfect life full of happy memories, while a stranger’s observations reveal the challenges that face him. The film encompass three days in the man’s life as he carefully builds every important moment with his son into a jewel-like memory, with an urgency whose cause becomes apparent on the third day.
Joshua Jamieson is the Artistic Director of a theatre and film production company, m0xY Productions, which he founded. With two professional stage productions to its credit (Poor Super Man and Rope) as well as a few short films, the company focused on a feature length documentary project – Just Himself: the story of Don Jamieson – in association with Odd Sock FIlms, in August 2008 through to 2011. That documentary was picked up by national distributors VisualEd, was broadcast on NTV in 2012, and was an official selection of the St. John’s International Women’s Film Festival.
Joshua gained media experience in radio and television before moving to print. Initially, at CBC Radio (NL), Joshua worked with youth on a show called New Voices, before hosting a National CBC special called First Call. That was followed by CBC-TV, before he jumped to Fresh Focus on Radio Newfoundland (CJYQ, 930am). He was also the operations producer for the HitsFM (CKIX, 99.1FM) live broadcast from Benders on George every Saturday night.
Joshua enjoys a number of roles that engage him with the community including his work with non-profit groups, helping them with traditional and digital marketing. He is particularly proud of the work he’s done for Choices for Youth, the Newfoundland and Labrador Housing and Homelessness Network, and his current work as Communications Officer for the Newfoundland and Labrador Arts Council.
He holds a B.A. with a double major in English and Political Science, as well as a Diploma in Communications and Performance Media and a Certificate in Public Administrative Discipline from Memorial University. In 2012 he returned to complete a Certificate in Social Media Marketing.
The Helen Hill Animated Joy Award:
Winner: Lorna Kirk
For: Brian & Peg; 36 Hitchin Road
Award partner: The Atlantic Filmmakers’ Cooperative, The Centre for Art Tapes, The New Brunswick Filmmakers’ Co-operative.
A documentary on a life nearing its end and the accidental caregiver determined to see it through with dignity, tenderness, and a lot of smoke breaks.
36 Hitchin Road will bring a dying woman’s delusions and memories to life while capturing a son’s dichotomous relationship with his frail mother. Warmth, humour and pioneering visual storytelling weave this intimate material into a portrait of two ordinary people in an inevitable reversal of roles.
Brian is a 55-year-old British bloke who likes his pints, his ponies and his puffs. Peggy is his mother. 80 years old, bedridden, suffering from dementia and several strokes. She often talks and dreams of her past. She may be trapped in bed but her mind can go anywhere. Brian on the other hand, has full use of his faculties but is also trapped by duty – and love. Brian and Peggy are also Director Lorna Kirk’s Uncle and Grandmother.
In addition to documentary footage shot over a decade, re-enactments and a new experimental animation technique, 36 Hitchin Road will bring Peggy’s delusions and memories to life while capturing a son’s dichotomous relationship with his frail mother. Warmth, humour and pioneering visual storytelling weave this intimate material into a portrait of two ordinary people in an inevitable reversal of roles. 36 Hitchin Road is a funny, unblinking glimpse into the lives of extraordinary, ordinary people.
Lorna Kirk has worked as a Director in broadcast media for a decade, and previously in a number of roles in research, editing, and sound. Several of her pieces for CBC have won Gemini Awards. She was selected as an Emerging Filmmaker of 2000 at Cannes Film Festival. She has previously received a number of awards including the International Documentary Association Award, the Eastman Kodak Production Award, the Kodak Cannes Emerging Filmmakers Award, among others. Lorna and her family live in Halifax.
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About the Joy Awards and the Linda Joy Media Arts Society
The Joy Awards are announced annually and recognize outstanding talent in Atlantic media arts. This year, 2015, is the 30th year as a cornerstone organization in the Atlantic media arts scene. Joy Awards alumni include many filmmakers and artists who now represent some of the best known talent of the region, and many established, successful professionals in media arts fields. These Awards are the largest and most prestigious independent program of their kind in Eastern Canada.
Traditionally winning films and filmmakers are announced in two rounds, one at the Joy Awards Brunch during the Atlantic Film Festival and the second at the Silver Wave Film Festival. Due to the dramatic changes in the Nova Scotia film industry this year the Awards are taking place later, and it was not possible to hold the Brunch for the first time in 30 years.
The Joy Awards, in addition to being recognition of merit, support emerging media artists in developing their own creative vision without compromise. These projects help establish their reputation and credibility and provide important networking and contact opportunities, as they build ongoing careers in the field.
The Linda Joy Media Arts Society was established in memory of filmmaker and artist Linda Joy Busby, who passed away in 1984 after struggling with cancer. The Joy Awards have encouraged and supported the best emerging media arts talent of the Atlantic region for twenty-five years. These Awards provide material and funding to emerging filmmakers and media artists, and script writers
The Linda Joy Awards past winners include many award-winning and internationally recognized artists like Shandi Mitchell (Director, Disappeared, Tell Me, Baba’s House, etc), Mike Clattenberg (Director, Trailer Park Boys, etc), Justin Simms (Director Down To The Dirt, Punch-Up At A Wedding, etc.), Andrea Dorfman (Director, Love That Boy, Parsley Days, Flower In My Pedal, etc), Rosemary House (Director When Women Are Crazy, Ahead Of The Curve, etc ), Helen Hill (Director, Bohemian Town, Madame Winger Makes A Film, Mouseholes, etc), Rodrigue Jean (Director, Lost Song, Full Blast, etc), and many others.
For further information please contact Will Roberts at the LJMAS office,
info@lindajoy.com
The Joy Awards are presented with generous support from our partners:
The Nova Scotia Department of Tourism, Culture & Heritage; 902 Post Inc, The Atlantic Studios Cooperative; The Atlantic Filmmakers Cooperative; The New Brunswick Filmmakers Cooperative; The Newfoundland Independent Filmmakers Cooperative; 45 North; The Centre For Art Tapes; The Newfoundland Film Development Corporation; John Doyle; The Atlantic Film Festival; The Silver Wave Film Festival.
The Joy Awards Brunch 2014 was presented with generous support from our partners:
Propeller Breweries, Tideview Cider, J. Willy Krauch & Sons, the Atlantic Film Festival, and the Silver Wave Film Festival.