A recent graduate of the College of the North Atlantic’s film and video production program will have one of his movies screened at the 2011 Nickel Film Festival in June.
Stephenville Resident Ryan J. Smith spent a year working on the film – “The Gagalon” – which was made from several different mediums, including acrylic prints and paper maches.
Mr. Smith is originally from Triton, where he lived until the age of three years. His family then moved to Mt. Pearl; however, his high school years were spent at Herdman High in Corner Brook before moving to Stephenville in 2002.
He graduated from the film and video production program this spring and is currently a summer intern at the college for student intersession, where he is working on a short film.
While he’s the first college student to have an independent film in the Nickel, class projects from College of the North Atlantic’s programs have been featured in this film festival, as well.
Last year an entry from the film and video production program called “Weather People” was in the festival. There was also a film called “Nan versus Nature” by the digital animation group featured; and this year the film and video production’s intersession project from last year, entitled “The Auditions,” is to be featured in addition to the digital animation project from last year.
“So College of the North Atlantic is starting to make a presence with acceptances into the festival lineup,” Mr. Smith said.
In April there was another film festival in St. John’s entitled “Sci-Fi on the Rock,” which had it’s first showing featuring Newfoundland films and Mr. Smith was pleased to have a short documentary entitled “The Art of Craft” in it.
His final film project before graduation from the program was “Off the Hook,” which featured puppets and scenes made entirely from scratch. That one took from Christmas until year-end and he plans on submitting that one to next year’s Nickel Film Festival.
Currently he’s shopping resumes out around St. John’s as he’s hoping to get some work in the industry as he feels this is what he wants to do with his life.
He’s spent the last 10 years of his life doing everything he could with the arts, from musician playing right across the province, spending his high school years with Theatre Newfoundland and Labrador, to being assistant set designer and lead painter with the Stephenville Theatre Festival last year.
Receiving the honour of having some of his work featured in film festivals is encouraging to him as an independent artist as it gets the word “out there” about his work and gives a certain degree of credibility to what he does.
Founded in 2001 in St. John’s, Newfoundland, the 11th Annual Nickel Independent Film Festival will screen films from Canada and around the world including Ireland, France, United Kingdom, Sweden, Spain, South Korea, Australia and the United States as well as 21 homegrown productions from Newfoundland.
With a reputation for presenting quality films from established and emerging artists, this young and energetic festival is leading the charge in the development of our indigenous film industry.
