Lights! Camera! Cure! is a new project from Jennifer Mulligan, Emily Ramsay, and Jennifer Mielke, who hope to engage Ottawa filmgoers with two worthy causes for the price of one. I joined Mulligan and Ramsay earlier this month to chat about their latest project, and the pair shows ample passion that Lights! Camera! Cure! can cut through the noise and make a difference.
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| Emily Ramsay and Jennifer Mulligan at a recent Digi60 event. |
Mulligan says that the idea for the film festival fundraiser
arose after members of the festival team were touched by cancer. “Jennifer
[Mielke] went through breast cancer,” she says, “and I lost my mom in July [2013]
and Jennifer was diagnosed in August.” Mulligan, who also lost her father to
cancer in 1996, notes she was mulling the idea of creating a film festival when
Mielke voiced a desire to give back to institutions that treat and research
cancer. “Jennifer wanted to give back to the Ottawa Regional Cancer Foundation,
and I wanted to do the film festival, so decided to put the two together,” she
says.
All proceeds from the Lights! Camera! Cure! screening go
towards the Ottawa Regional Cancer Foundation. Ramsay adds that the ORCF has
been quite receptive to the film festival. “They’ve been very involved,” she
says. “There’s been someone at every meeting… making and soliciting phone calls
on our behalf.” Having a charity involved in a start-up arts organization is
invaluable, and often a requirement to access funds and resources, but Lights!
Camera! Cure! gives rather than takes. “Jennifer [Mielke] saw a bunch of
fundraising styles, like dinners, fashion shows,” Mulligan adds, “and we wanted
to do something different and reasonable, so that a $50 dollar ticket isn’t a $250
ticket, and all the proceeds go to the cancer foundation.”
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| We All Go the Same screens at Lights! Camera! Cure! |
Ottawa film fans looking to support the cause shouldn’t
expect a night of downers/or “cancer weepies” (my dismissive remark!) that
often go hand-in-hand with film and cancer. “We strayed from having anything
too heavy,” Ramsay explains on their line-up. “We have a few dramatic pieces,
but nothing too overwhelming.” The two-and-a-half hour line-up, which includes
sixteen short films, offers a wide range of escapism and good times ranging
from a documentary about a boarding house for cats to a fantastical
award-winning music video. The common thread, however, is the overall strong
presence of female filmmakers across the board. (See the full line-up here.)
Films directed by women or featuring women in key creative
roles are sparse in line-ups at festivals around the world. For example,
Cannes, the most prestigious film festival in the world, only featured two
female directors within the nineteen-film line-up of its 2015 Official
Competition. TIFF, on the other hand, scores better with six out of twenty
films in its high-profile Galas programme boasting female filmmakers. Still,
women remain a minority in the festival circuit by any measure.
“I think female filmmakers are underrepresented in the
industry in general, but also in Canada,” Ramsay explains when asked why
Lights! Camera! Cure! focuses on female artists. “We just came off of going to
a great film festival, the Lady Filmmakers Festival in LA [where Mulligan’s script Minerva’s War received a staged reading]
and coming off of that and seeing the work that women filmmakers were able to
do, I think it was inspirational for us. It’s great to see what women and their
allies can create together, and to give them a chance to highlight their work
is important, especially highlighting Canadian women.”
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| Outaouais filmmaker Caroline Monnet's Roberta screens Lights! Camera! Cure! |
The spirit of seeing women and their allies making films and
sharing them runs throughout the festival. Avid festivalgoers will note that
Lights! Camera! Cure! doesn’t favour the typical tradition of emphasizing only
the names of directors while promoting the films at the festival, which often
leads to widened perceptions of gender imbalance while diminishing the efforts
of other key collaborators. Instead, the Vixens credit and highlight female
filmmakers such as writers, editors, and producers in addition to directors. “When
I was looking at who was submitting and what roles they played,” Mulligan
explains, “I noticed a lot of women in a key creative capacity, so not just a
director but a writer, producer. One of the filmmakers who submitted sent a
note with her film saying, ‘It was really a collaboration between the three of
us, so I’d really like you to credit the other two filmmakers’ names as well.’
That inspired me, looking at her submission and seeing that there are women in
these above the line creative capacities who wouldn’t normally be recognized.”
Not only does the festival spotlight underrepresented talents, it also changes
the conversation on the auteur-driven festival circuit by emphasizing the
collaborative nature of filmmaking, rather than individual efforts.
This sense comes through Ramsay and Mulligan’s own
experience as filmmakers. “I also think that since we’re both screenwriters and
producers, and we’ve made various different films and worked on different
projects in different capacities, we know it’s not just one element that a
person’s involved in, especially in independent film in Canada, a person
usually does a few things on a film set,” notes Ramsay. Mulligan adds that
filmmakers, especially women in independent film, often take on the role of a
“slashie” by assuming various roles in production, like the writer/assistant
director or producer/grip, etc.
As filmmakers, the pair has some experience with the gender
divides and difficulties in the film industry. “There was one situation where
my film didn’t get in to a festival,” Ramsay explains, “and I found out that it
wasn’t even viewed. I looked into it and called them out, and it ended up
getting accepted into the festival.”
“There’s just an extra layer,” Mulligan says on gender in
the industry. “I’ve heard various things, like there are the ‘darlings’ [ie:
the Egoyans and the Dolans] who get everything. I think there’s always this
extra door women need to push through.” Being filmmakers themselves, as well as
the current showrunners of the longstanding Digi60 Film Festival and the minds
behind the online community Ottawa Film Scene, the pair brings a good sense of
the broader scope of the film community to the festival, and uses their
experience to foster dialogue and nurture talents.
When it comes to noting women in Canada who are pushing
through these doors and layers, the duo quickly lists several names with
enthusiasm. “Mina Shum,” Ramsay offers quickly. “I’ve been a fan of hers since
I was 10. She did a great short film in 2013. [I Saw You, which is available online here.] She’s great, but I think she, just like anyone else, has
enough challenges, besides the challenge that Canadian filmmakers face in
working to create and fund their art, I think women filmmakers have it even
harder.” [Read a review of Mina Shum’s latest film Ninth Floor, which recently premiered at TIFF.]
Ramsay adds Rhymes for Young Ghouls star Devery Jacobs as an inspiring up-and-comer. “She
successfully crowdfunded her short film and I think she’s finishing it up this
fall. I’ve been following her. She’s at my alma matter John Abbott, and to be a
young Indigenous women making film in Canada is amazing.”
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| Morgana McKenzie at the OIVAs |
“She could be the Richard Linklater of Ottawa,” Mulligan
adds. “She could be the person who builds the ground, who people look for.” In
a city with a growing film scene and a local festival circuit growing just as
strong, Lights! Camera! Cure! offers the future of Ottawa’s film community.
Like the cause at the heart of the festival, Lights! Camera! Cure! gives back
to the community that gives it life.
Lights! Camera! Cure!
screens in Ottawa on October 22 at
Algonquin Commons Theatre.
Tickets are on sale
and can be purchased online at www.algonquinsa.ticketfly.com or Algonquin’s ticket
box office, located at 1385 Woodroffe Ave. Tickets are $50.00 (+ surcharges)
and proceeds will go to the Ottawa Regional Cancer Foundation.
