Shelagh Carter

Last updated

Shelagh Carter
Born1954? (58 years old in 2012) [1]
Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
Nationality Canadian
Education M.F.A. (The New School)
Alma mater University of Manitoba
Occupation(s) Theatre and film director, professor, film producer, screenwriter, actor
Years active(as film director): 2002–
Employer University of Winnipeg (1998–2019)
Notable work
SpouseBrad Loewen
ChildrenErik Friesen (stepson)
Parents
Relatives
  • Richard Carter (brother) [2]
  • George Carter (grandfather) [2]
  • Edith Carter (grandmother) [2]
  • Leslie R. Carter (uncle) [2]
  • Lisa Lewis (cousin) [2]
Website http://www.darklingpictures.com/home.html

Shelagh Jane Carter (best known as Shelagh Carter, and occasionally referred to as Shelagh Carter-Loewen) [3] is a Canadian director, producer, screenwriter, actress and retired theatre and film professor at the University of Winnipeg, [4] known initially for her short films Night Travellers, Canoe, and Rifting/Blue, [5] and her feature films Passionflower , Before Anything You Say and Into Invisible Light . A Lifetime Member of the Actors Studio [6] and a graduate of the Canadian Film Centre's Directors Lab in Toronto, she is also a recipient of the award, Women in the Director's Chair Career Advancement Module 2010, in collaboration with Women in Film Festival Vancouver, [7] among many other honours. She is a member of the Winnipeg Film Group and chair of their Board. [4]

Contents

Early life

Growing up in Winnipeg in the 1950s and 1960s, Shelagh Carter had a troubled relationship with her mother Barbara (Babs) Carter, [2] which many years later served as the basis of her first feature film Passionflower . [1] There is a family history of mental illness going back to Carter's grandmother. [8] In interviews, Carter asserted that Passionflower was her own story, that her experience of her mother is "85 to 95 percent" of what is seen on the screen: [8] [9]

A lot of women at the time, an era of being perfect, staying in the home, repressed their anger from not being able to express themselves. The mental health industry at the time made women the problem and treated them with electroshock therapy. [8]

It is not clear what form of mental illness Barbara Carter had: "Terms were thrown around, schizophrenic, manic-depressive. People today would say bipolar, but I don't even know if that was my mother." [10] Carter recalled the first time she saw how her mother "broke down", "pounding on the floor", the nine-year-old Carter in her pyjamas. [10]

Shelagh Carter's father, Dennis H. Carter, "was a product of the notably progressive faculty of architecture" at the University of Manitoba, where he "thrived", and, in 1967, co-founded the architectural firm of Smith Carter Katelnikoff, a firm "at the centre of Winnipeg's architectural renewal". [11] As Winnipeg built with design meant to reflect the times, Dennis Carter was behind the lens of his 8mm camera, shooting reels and reels of film: "I have very fond memories of sitting at a dining room table with him when I was a very little girl with him editing the Super 8." [11] Her father, however, was often at a loss when it came to her mother's moods, not knowing what to do; the young Carter became a "daddy's girl": "He thought he was being a great dad, but it set up this competition. What would happen is everything my mum would attempt would never get finished. But I was drawing and winning these prizes at school but it seemed if I showed her something, she would dismiss it." [10]

When Carter was eighteen years old, when she was "really struggling" with her mother, a teacher pulled her out of class one day and took her to see a film, which happened to be John Cassavetes' A Woman Under the Influence :

And I'm looking up at the screen ... and I think, "My God, that's my mother." And people started to laugh behind me, they began to laugh at her. And ... I swear to God, I was up over those seats, I was gonna deck them, I was so mad. My teacher was pulling me off of them. And it was at that moment, at 18, that I realized that I loved my mother. [10]

Later, she elaborated: "That's when I knew I really loved my mother and I was beginning to see that it was an illness and it wasn't her." [9]

Education

Carter moved to New York City after graduating with a degree in interior design from the University of Manitoba in 1976. [11] [12] [13]

At some point, Carter's interests realigned towards the stage, and she studied acting in Los Angeles and New York. [14] In 1995, [12] [13] Carter attended the Actors Studio's School of Drama (The New School), which had begun offering a Master of Fine Arts degree a year earlier. [15] Carter graduated with an MFA in Directing in 1998, [12] [13] a member of the second graduating class. [10]

Career in theatre and film

On her return to Canada in 1998, Carter founded Casting in Stone Inc., [10] to provide casting director services in film and television. [16] The same year, Carter began an academic career at the University of Winnipeg in the Theatre and Film Department. [13] She has said it was not planned; it just "happened" to her. [14]

Short film director

The first of Carter's own short films was The Darkling Plain (2002), [17] which was recognized and honoured in cities across Canada, followed by the experimental narrative film Rifting/Blue (2005), [18] the first of several collaborations with writer and University of Winnipeg colleague Deborah Schnitzer, [19] and which won world festival recognition. [6] [20] Her third short, Night Travellers (2007), was a National Screen Institute Drama Prize winner in 2007. [6]

In 2008, The Canadian Film Centre in Toronto invited Carter to participate in an exclusive workshop intensive (the Directors Lab, Short Dramatic Film programme) to develop film projects along with a handful of other Canadian professionals; her project was chosen for development by the Centre with $250,000 in production support. [6] [21] With the support of the University of Winnipeg, Carter directed and completed her award-winning 35mm short One Night in the summer of 2009; [21] it screened at several international film festivals. [6] This was followed swiftly by two more collaborations with Deborah Schnitzer: [22] Resolve (2009), a dance film, and Canoe (2010), based on Schnitzer's novel Jane Dying Again, an experimental narrative film which won world festival recognition. [20] The same year, Carter was selected to attend the Women in the Director's Chair Career Advancement Module presented in collaboration with the Vancouver International Women in Film Festival. [6] [20]

Feature film director

Carter's first feature film originated during her time at the CFC, [10] the autobiographical Passionflower (2011), and won film festival attention and honours. [6] The film solidified her position as one of Canada's leading practitioners of psychological melodrama. [23]

3D film, move to Bangladesh, and Rana Plaza

Carter directed another experimental short film, Is It My Turn (2012), a 3D black and white dance film, [6] again winning festival recognition. [20] Her feature projects were put on hiatus following the Rana Plaza Collapse on 24 April 2013, when Carter's husband, Brad Loewen, was given the responsibility of implementing the Accord signed by Western clothing manufacturers upgrading the safety features of 1600 Bangladeshi garment factories; they both moved to Dhaka in December 2013 [24] [25] for an expected five-year term. [26] This led to Carter producing a short documentary, Rana Plaza: Let Not the Hope Die (2014), commemorating the one-year anniversary of the tragedy, [27] "to support his work". [28] Is It My Turn was screened in Dhaka at the request of the Canadian High Commission in January 2015, with Carter in attendance. [29] In August 2015, she was described as living there "part-time". [28] As of July 2016, Loewen was still chief safety inspector for the project. [30]

Return to feature films

Carter's second feature (and fourth collaboration with Schnitzer), Before Anything You Say (2017) is an experimental domestic drama film about a couple struggling to maintain their love and marriage even as a life-altering decision threatens to tear them apart. The film is once more partly autobiographical, [31] based on her feelings about her husband accepting the position which took him to Bangladesh: "he was gone and here I was, in the prairies, by myself, in the place he wanted to move to." [32] The film toured mainly in Europe in 2017 and 2018, almost overlapping with the release of her third feature, and won a handful of awards ahead of its Canadian premiere at the Gimli Film Festival in 2018, where Carter was presented with an award by the Directors Guild of Canada. [33]

Carter's third feature, Into Invisible Light (2018) is loosely based on characters from Chekhov's Uncle Vanya , specifically Yelena [34] and Dr. Astrov. [35] The story is about a recent widow re-examining her life and her identity in the wake of her husband's death, unexpectedly crossing paths with an old flame from her past, inspired to take up writing years after having given it up. [34]

Carter's fourth feature film is the romantic comedy Love, Repeat, [7] which premiered in New York City on 17 December 2019.

Projects in development

Over the years, there have been reports of Carter working on various feature projects: a prairie noir film called The Shooting Party; [36] a psychological thriller called Skinner, written by Rebecca Gibson, about a detective who works with child victims of Internet exploitation who begins to suspect abuse in her own family; [37] a humanistic comedy called Dreaming of Tempests; an allegory called La Jefa; [38] most recently, The Woman Who Swallowed West Hawk Lake, a psychological thriller, is said to be in development. [39]

Directing style and aesthetics

Carter's experiences as an actress in New York and Los Angeles led her to want to become an actor herself and to develop her own method of directing:

I discovered a lot of directors didn't know how to talk to actors. They were much more technically minded and they would talk to an actor … and I knew from my training as an actor that doesn't help an actor. It's a process ... You have to be able to help them get into character and not tell them "cry here." [14]

Carter said in 2012 that she tries to achieve "truth on the screen": "I really want people to feel they are actually looking at a situation, it isn't cinema vérité, but I hope it's truthful. Therefore you don't 'see' any acting." [9] Carter says she has been told her style of filmmaking is more akin to European cinema, in that she is willing to let the film take its time and focus on older characters, and suggests that Europeans "value older people in their lives" more than North Americans, although she says "we are getting better at it", perhaps because the Baby Boomers are getting older. [40]

Personal life

In an interview, Carter described leaving home for New York City as having "escaped" her family, but there was an incident in New York: "I was walking in Greenwich Village, 8th Street, and there was a moment when my body cut off, and I was suddenly in a silent movie. I knew then that I had to deal with my feelings." She underwent psychoanalysis. [10] In her thirties, having returned from New York, she tried talking to her mother, who was "having a bad time again." She asked her mother if she loved her and her mother said: "Dear, it's so hard for me to talk about these things." Carter knew her mother did love her "ultimately", but, she said, "boy, we missed each other on some level." [10] By the time of the release of Passionflower, however, over the previous ten to fifteen years, her mother's mental health had become "much better" and Carter's parents "had some good time together." [10] Looking back at her filmmaking career after the release of Before Anything You Say, Carter said she realized that her films were all "in some way" about betrayal and abandonment, and that this was "something really deep in me from my own childhood, coming up in different forms." [32]

Carter's husband Brad Loewen and stepson Erik Friesen appear in a few of her films as a main cast member (Rifting/Blue) [18] or an extra (Passionflower). [36] Sheila O'Malley has been friends with Carter since their time together as students at The New School. [10] [32]

Carter has tended to work with many of the same collaborators and crew over several films, developing close bonds. For example, she has been collaborating with Deborah Schnitzer since Rifting/Blue (2005). [19] She thinks of cinematographer Ousama Rawi, who first worked with Carter on One Night, [40] as "a great mentor". [32]

Carter resides in West St Paul, Manitoba, [20] north of Winnipeg. She took an early retirement from her position at the University of Winnipeg "to concentrate all her energies on filmmaking" in May 2019. [4] [41]

Filmography

Short film director, 2002–2010

Feature film director, 2011–

Notes

    Related Research Articles

    <span class="mw-page-title-main">Anna Paquin</span> New Zealand actress (born 1982)

    Anna Hélène Paquin is a New Zealand actress. Born in Winnipeg and raised in Wellington, Paquin made her acting debut portraying Flora McGrath in the romantic drama film The Piano (1993), for which she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress at age 11, making her the second-youngest winner in Oscar history. As a child actress, she received multiple Young Artist Award nominations for her roles in Fly Away Home (1996), The Member of the Wedding (1997), and A Walk on the Moon (1999), and a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination for appearing in Cameron Crowe's comedy-drama film Almost Famous (2000). She also appeared in the films Jane Eyre (1996) and Amistad (1997).

    <span class="mw-page-title-main">Guy Maddin</span> Canadian director, screenwriter and author

    Guy Maddin is a Canadian screenwriter, director, author, cinematographer, and film editor of both features and short films, as well as an installation artist, from Winnipeg, Manitoba. Since completing his first film in 1985, Maddin has become one of Canada's most well-known and celebrated filmmakers.

    John Loewen is a businessman and politician in Manitoba, Canada. He served in the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba from 1999 to 2005 as a member of the Progressive Conservative Party, and campaigned for the House of Commons of Canada in 2006 and 2008 as a Liberal. He is the nephew of Bill and Shirley Loewen, prominent entrepreneurs and philanthropists in Winnipeg.

    <span class="mw-page-title-main">Rod Bruinooge</span> Canadian politician

    Rod E. Bruinooge is a Canadian politician, businessman, and filmmaker. He was elected as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Winnipeg South in the 2006 federal election, and was the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development and the Federal Interlocutor for Métis and Non-Status Indians from 2006 until the fall of 2008.

    <span class="mw-page-title-main">Miriam Toews</span> Canadian writer (born 1964)

    Miriam Toews is a Canadian writer and author of nine books, including A Complicated Kindness (2004), All My Puny Sorrows (2014), and Women Talking (2018). She has won a number of literary prizes including the Governor General's Award for Fiction and the Writers' Trust Engel/Findley Award for her body of work. Toews is also a three-time finalist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and a two-time winner of the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize.

    <span class="mw-page-title-main">Columpa Bobb</span> Canadian actress

    Columpa C. Bobb is a Canadian photographer, actress, playwright, poet and teacher of Coastal Salish descent. She has been performing, writing plays, and teaching for 20 years.

    Catherine Anne Wreford is a Canadian actress, dancer and singer.

    The Winnipeg Film Group (WFG) is an artist-run film education, production, distribution, and exhibition centre in Winnipeg, Manitoba, committed to promoting the art of Canadian cinema, especially independent cinema.

    <span class="mw-page-title-main">Nadia Litz</span> Canadian actress and director (born 1976)

    Nadia Litz is a Canadian actress and director.

    'Shelagh McLeod, sometimes credited as Shelagh MacLeod or Sheleigh McCleod, is a British-based Canadian film and television actress.

    <span class="mw-page-title-main">Adam Smoluk</span> Canadian actor, film director (b. 1980)

    Adam Smoluk is a Canadian screenwriter, director, actor, community leader, and executive. His work in media productions often explores themes of alienation and isolation.

    <span class="mw-page-title-main">National Screen Institute</span> Non-profit organization headquartered in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

    The National Screen Institute - Canada is a non-profit organization headquartered in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. The organization describes itself as "Serving content creators across Canada to tell unforgettable stories through industry-informed training and mentoring."

    We Were Children is a 2012 Canadian documentary film about the experiences of First Nations children in the Canadian Indian residential school system.

    <span class="mw-page-title-main">Danishka Esterhazy</span> Canadian screenwriter and film director

    Danishka Esterhazy is a Canadian screenwriter and film director. She is best known for her thriller and horror movies, such as Black Field (2009), Level 16 (2018), The Banana Splits Movie (2019), and the Slumber Party Massacre (2021) remake.

    <i>Passionflower</i> (2011 film) 2011 Canadian film

    Passionflower is a 2011 Canadian coming of age film written and directed by Shelagh Carter and starring Kassidy Love Brown, Kristen Harris and Darcy Fehr.

    <i>Into Invisible Light</i> 2018 Canadian film

    Into Invisible Light is a 2018 Canadian romantic drama film directed and co-written by Shelagh Carter and starring co-writer Jennifer Dale. Carter's third feature is an independent film loosely based on characters from Chekhov's Uncle Vanya, Dale's character being based on Yelena, and Keleghan's on Dr. Astrov. The film features an original score by Shawn Pierce.

    <i>Before Anything You Say</i> 2017 Canadian film

    Before Anything You Say is a 2017 Canadian experimental domestic drama film directed and produced by Shelagh Carter and written by Deborah Schnitzer about a couple struggling to maintain their love and marriage even as a life-altering decision threatens to tear them apart. Carter's second indepdendent feature film is partly autobiographical, its "impulse" based on an event in Carter's own life and another experience in Schnitzer's. The film toured mainly in Europe, at Film Festival International-organized events in 2017 and 2018, winning a handful of awards ahead of its Canadian premiere at the Gimli Film Festival in 2018, where Shelagh Carter was presented with an award by the Directors Guild of Canada.

    One Night is a 2009 Canadian short domestic drama film directed by Shelagh Carter, as a result of her participation in a workshop at the Director's Lab at the Canadian Film Centre. Carter's fourth film stars Jonathan Ralston and Jennifer Dale, and was screened at many international film festivals, winning three awards.

    Is It My Turn is a 2012 Canadian experimental digital 3D black and white dance film directed by Shelagh Carter. The film features an original score by Keri Latimer, dance performances by CindyMarie Small, Natasha Torres-Garner, and Ali Robson, and is choreographed by the dancers taking an award-winning original poem by Deborah Schnitzer as inspiration.

    Madison Thomas is an independent film and television writer and director from Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. She is most noted for her 2022 documentary film Buffy Sainte-Marie: Carry It On.

    References

    1. 1 2 King, Randall (22 September 2012). "Director came full circle with family film". Winnipeg Free Press . Retrieved 24 February 2019.
    2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "DENNIS H. CARTER". Winnipeg Free Press . 30 June 2012. Retrieved 20 March 2019.
    3. ↑ "Long Service Awards". uwinnipeg.ca. University of Winnipeg . Retrieved 20 March 2019.
    4. 1 2 3 James, Lorraine (6 July 2019). "Into Invisible Light at Gimli Film Festival". Lorraine James Acting Career Updates. Retrieved 8 September 2019.
    5. ↑ "Shelagh Carter – Filmmaker [interview]" (video). getonsetmanitoba.ca. On Screen Manitoba. 17 May 2013. Retrieved 24 February 2019.
    6. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 "Shelagh Carter". cfccreates.com. Canadian Film Centre . Retrieved 24 February 2019.
    7. 1 2 "Shelagh Carter". onscreenmanitoba.com. On Screen Manitoba. Retrieved 24 February 2019.
    8. 1 2 3 "Reviews". IndieCan. Retrieved 24 February 2019.
    9. 1 2 3 Krause, David (1 October 2012). "Childhood experiences with mental illness". The Manitoban. University of Manitoba . Retrieved 5 May 2019.
    10. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 O'Malley, Sheila. ""This Project Has Set Me Free." – Shelagh Carter, Director of Passionflower". The Sheila Variations. Retrieved 25 February 2019.
    11. 1 2 3 Kowalchuk, Shirley (22 May 2017). "Amazing architectural archive comes alive". communitynewscommons.org. Retrieved 14 March 2019.
    12. 1 2 3 "Shelagh Carter". LinkedIn . Retrieved 20 March 2019.
    13. 1 2 3 4 Carter, Shelagh. "Curriculum Vitae". dgc.ca. Retrieved 13 March 2019.
    14. 1 2 3 Granger, Danelle (15 February 2018). "PROFile: Shelagh Carter". The Uniter. University of Winnipeg . Retrieved 22 February 2019.
    15. ↑ "Our History". newschool.edu. The New School . Retrieved 25 February 2019.
    16. ↑ "Workman Arts Announce Rendezvous With Madness Film Festival Visual Arts Program, November 9–17, 2012". jamaicans.com. 21 October 2012. Retrieved 25 February 2019.
    17. ↑ "The Darkling Plain". Winnipeg Film Group Film Catalogue. Winnipeg Film Group . Retrieved 24 February 2019.
    18. 1 2 "Rifting/Blue". Winnipeg Film Group Film Catalogue. Winnipeg Film Group . Retrieved 23 February 2019.
    19. 1 2 Schnitzer, Deborah. "Film works". /www.deborahschnitzer.com. Retrieved 23 February 2019.
    20. 1 2 3 4 5 "Shelagh Carter". widc.ca. Women in the Director's Chair. Retrieved 25 February 2019.
    21. 1 2 "RESEARCH ANNOUNCEMENT – SHELAGH CARTER". theatre.uwinnipeg.ca. Retrieved 13 March 2019.
    22. ↑ "DEBORAH SCHNITZER". Barbara Clark Agency. Retrieved 2 May 2019.
    23. ↑ Klymkiw, Greg. "Before Anything You Say". klymkiwfilmcorner.blogspot.com. Retrieved 22 February 2019.
    24. ↑ "Creating a safer world: Brad Loewen's new super-job gives him sweeping powers to protect garment workers in Bangladesh". The Marketplace. Mennonite Economic Development Associates: 8–9. March–April 2014. Retrieved 20 March 2019.
    25. ↑ Talaga, Tanya (22 October 2013). "Winnipegger Brad Loewen new chief inspector of 1,600 Bangladeshi factories". Toronto Star . Retrieved 20 March 2019.
    26. ↑ "Winnipeg man to help mend Bangladesh garment industry". CBC News. Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. 22 October 2013. Retrieved 4 July 2019.
    27. ↑ "Rana Plaza: Let Not The Hope Die". Winnipeg Film Group Catalogue. Winnipeg Film Group. Retrieved 13 March 2019.
    28. 1 2 "A Wide Array of Cabaret Artists". Sarasvati Productions. 19 August 2015. Retrieved 20 March 2019.
    29. ↑ "Professor Shelagh Carter – International exposure". The University of Winnipeg News Centre. 23 January 2015. Retrieved 20 March 2019.
    30. ↑ Zimmer, Reingard (2016). Corporate responsibility in the "Bangladesh Accord": Which regulations are transferable to other supply chains? (PDF). Berlin: Friederich Ebert Stiftung. p. 5. ISBN   9783958617322 . Retrieved 18 August 2019.
    31. ↑ King, Randall (23 June 2018). "Near equality for Gimli's movie lineup". Winnipeg Free Press . Retrieved 22 February 2019.
    32. 1 2 3 4 O'Malley, Sheila (interviewer). ""This isn't Paris." "I know." Interview with Shelagh Carter, director of Before Anything You Say (2017)". The Sheila Variations. Retrieved 22 February 2019.{{cite web}}: |first1= has generic name (help)
    33. ↑ "Before Anything You Say". Winnipeg Film Group . Retrieved 21 February 2019.
    34. 1 2 O'Malley, Sheila. "Review: Into Invisible Light (2019; directed by Shelagh Carter)". The Sheila Variations. Retrieved 17 February 2019.
    35. ↑ Beaudette, Teghan (27 October 2017). "Homegrown directors rack up 7 projects amid film boom in Manitoba". Canadian Broadcasting Corporation . Retrieved 19 February 2019.
    36. 1 2 "Cast & Crew". passionflowerfilm.com. Retrieved 20 March 2019.
    37. ↑ Hopewell, John (19 September 2014). "Canada Targets Spain, Latin America for Co-pros". Variety . Retrieved 14 March 2019.
    38. ↑ "Shelagh Carter takes top prize at Milan Film Festival". University of Winnipeg News Centre. 2 February 2018. Retrieved 13 March 2019.
    39. ↑ "Features". darklingcinema.com. Retrieved 29 June 2020.
    40. 1 2 Shrimpton, Becky (interviewer) (January 2019). "Into Invisible Light (2018) an interview with Jennifer Dale and Shelagh Carter" (podcast). Royal Canadian Movie Podcast. Retrieved 20 February 2019.{{cite web}}: |first1= has generic name (help)
    41. ↑ "2019 Retirees' Reception Photo Gallery". University of Winnipeg News Centre. 10 May 2019. Retrieved 4 July 2019.
    This page is based on this Wikipedia article
    Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
    Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.