Playback proudly presents its annual report on Canadian talent. As in the past, our editorial staff has selected three candidates from each discipline of writing, directing and acting. Despite varying levels of experience, these promising artists are for the most part not yet in the public’s consciousness – and maybe not even the industry’s. But we have put our ears to the ground and come up with a list of nine individuals whom we believe are on the verge of major breakthroughs, as expressed to us by producers, casting agents, talent agents, directors, critics and educators, in addition to our own keen observations.

Some of those chosen have recently landed film or television projects generating considerable buzz, and seem to be destined for stardom – witness actors Luke Kirby, star of Luck, and Benz Antoine, who won a lead role on season two of Blue Murder.

Some who made the list are not really novices, but they seem ripe to take their careers to the next phase. Audiences who saw director Keith Behrman’s short Ernest are not likely to forget it, and they are surely anticipating his soon-to-be-released feature debut Flower and Garnet. Wiebke von Carolsfeld has established herself as a film editor of high-profile Canadian features, and now she makes the jump into the director’s chair for the feature Marion Bridge, which Toronto coproducer Sienna Films (with Idlewild Productions) hopes will be an Atlantic-based success on par with New Waterford Girl. Marni Banack comes with some very high credentials, having won a gold medal at the 1999 Student Academy Awards with collaborator JB Sugar for their short film John. It’s an honor previously bestowed on Spike Lee, Trey Parker and Robert Zemeckis, and Banack is now ready to show the world what she can do in the long-form world.

Although many on the list have dabbled in the U.S. production world, or are trying to – such as screenwriter Tassie Cameron, who is attempting to get her feature Cake made with Heather Graham – they also express a collective desire to remain in Canada and help produce Canadian stories. This sentiment is what gives hope to the future growth and success of our indigenous industry.

So, without further ado…

WRITERS

Tassie Cameron

Age: 32

Residence: Toronto

Agency: Harrison Artist Management

Background: Graduate studies in film, Universite de la Sorbonne Nouvelle; MA cinema studies/film and television, New York University; professional screenwriting program and writer in residence at the Canadian Film Centre; screenwriting instructor at Humber School for writers

Career highlights: Feature: Tennyson’s Wake, story editor. Series: Tom Stone, Degrassi: The Next Generation, Paradise Falls.

Outlook: Cameron has a full plate of series, MOW and feature work in both the U.S. and Canada. She is one of eight writers on the Accent Entertainment MOW Hottest Night of the Year, currently in development for Citytv, and is cowriting the feature Joey Piccolo’s Opera, with development money from The Harold Greenberg Fund.

Cameron is also pushing hard to get a feature produced, and it may just happen with Cake, which actress Heather Graham has expressed an interest in coproducing and starring in. Cameron recently spent a week in L.A. hanging out with Graham, and says joining the popular actress for a party at Adam Sandler’s ‘was quite an experience for an awkward, shy girl from Canada.’

Jason Long

Age: 29

Residence: Calgary

Agency: Self-represented

Background: York University department of film and video; National Screen Institute; The National Theatre School of Canada’s playwright program; cofounder and current artistic director of Calgary’s Waiters on Stage Theatre Society

Career highlights: Feature: Turning Paige, cowritten with director Robert Cuffley. Short film: Soother, also cowritten with Cuffley.

Outlook: Long says leaving York University’s film program after two years was a serendipitous move, as it brought him back home to Calgary and put him in touch again with director Robert Cuffley, whom he knew as ‘the cool older brother of Kevin who liked Devo.’

Long and Cuffley subsequently collaborated on the short Soother and the feature Turning Paige, an edgy family drama boasting a cast including Nicholas Campbell, Katherine Isabel and Brendan Fletcher. The film drew raves and won awards on the film fest circuit, including The Rogers Video Western Canada Screenwriter’s Award at the Vancouver International Film Festival. Now the pair is developing Yearbook, a darkly comic follow-up. Long is also working on spec scripts for a TV pilot called Wayside and the feature Baby Men.

Michael Melski

Age: 33

Residence: Halifax/Toronto

Agency: Harrison Artist Management

Background: Residency at the Canadian Film Centre; Playwright in residence at the Shaw Festival; Miles from Home, performed at The Ship’s Company Theatre in Parrsboro, NS

Career highlights: Feature: Mile Zero. Series: Straight Up, Blue Murder.

Outlook: When Michael Melski created the prodco CinEast Screen in 1998, he was initially focused on writing, but has since donned the director’s hat as well. The first of his scripts that he directed was the short Seranade, which won best first-time director at the 2000 Atlantic Film Festival, and which was followed by the short Lift Off, currently in post.

Melski garnered very positive notices for his script for Mile Zero, which numerous respondents to an earlier Playback poll cited as the best Canadian feature of 2001. Directed by Andrew Currie, the drama tells the heart-wrenching story of a divorced father who, in desperation, kidnaps his young son.

Melski also supplied the script for the feature Touch and Go, directed by Scott Simpson, which recently wrapped in Halifax and which will be submitted to festivals this summer. Other film and TV projects in development include the feature Infiltration with Toronto’s Sienna Films and the series Machine Gun Love, set in a film school, with Halifax’s Collideascope Digital Pictures. Melski has also begun negotiations with Creative Atlantic to direct the movie version of his play Miles from Home.

DIRECTORS

Wiebke von Carolsfeld

Age: 37

Residence: Toronto

Agency: Self-represented

Background: BA in literature and art history, University of Cologne, Germany; worked in book publishing in Germany

Career highlights: Short films: Wrote and directed Spiral Bound and From Morning on I Waited Yesterday. Features/TV: Edited The Five Senses, directed by Jeremy Podeswa, Podeswa’s MOW Wild Geese and the forthcoming The Bay of Love and Sorrows.

Outlook: An editor by trade, von Carolsfeld has parlayed her credits helming two shorts to direct her first feature, the highly anticipated Marion Bridge, produced by Sienna Films and Idlewild Films. Shot in Halifax and currently in post, the drama is about a dying mother and family secrets, from Daniel MacIvor’s adaptation of his own play. Although von Carolsfeld expects to continue editing, she, along with many who know her, believes her future is in directing. She admits to learning on the job; of her intense experience directing Marion Bridge, she says ‘I thought I knew everything about film – I didn’t.’

Keith Behrman

Age: 40

Residence: Vancouver

Agency: The Characters

Background: Film and video production at Simon Fraser University; National Screen Institute; residency at the Canadian Film Centre

Career highlights: Short films: Thomas (winner of the NSI Drama Prize), Ernest, White Cloud Blue Mountain. Series: The Unprofessionals.

Outlook: Behrman’s critically acclaimed short film Ernest, about a dysfunctional family, won audiences over with its dry, quirky humor and received an honorable mention at the 2000 Toronto International Film Festival. One of the director’s collaborators spoke of Behrman’s ‘minimalist approach to filmmaking that is confident and doesn’t waste any energy stylistically.’ Another spoke highly of Behrman’s handling of actors.

Behrman has recently completed his feature debut, Flower and Garnet, which he wrote and directed. The coming-of-age story stars Callum Keith Rennie and is produced by Trish Dolman at Screen Siren Pictures. Distributed by Odeon Films, its makers hope to place it at this year’s TIFF. In July, Behrman will head west to direct an episode of Da Vinci’s Inquest.

Marni Banack

Age: 28ish

Residence: Toronto/Los Angeles

Agency: Great North Artists Management

Background: MA in fine arts and directing from the American Film Institute; BA from York University

Career highlights: Series: So Weird. Short films: Cornerboys, a short she wrote and directed at York, which received TVOntario’s Jay Scott Award; John, a short she directed at the AFI, which won the 1999 Student Academy Award and the Director’s Guild of America Award.

Outlook: Although well connected in L.A. after making an award-winning impression at the AFI, Banack says she ‘wants to work within the Canadian system and tell Canadian stories.’ For now, Banack is straddling both sides of the 49th.

She has recently completed her feature debut, a romantic comedy for Hollywood’s Candlelight Pictures titled Sheer Bliss, which she hopes to place in festivals starting this summer. The film’s cast includes Eddie Kaye Thomas (American Pie), Milo Ventimiglia (Gilmore Girls) and Maggie Lawson (Party of Five). The busy Banack, also a commercial helmer, anticipates shooting the feature Ten Years in October, produced by Toronto’s Charlotte Bernard Entertainment and starring Jesse Bradford (Bring it On), in Toronto this fall.

ACTORS

Luke Kirby

Age: 24

Residence: Toronto

Agent: Gary Goddard and Associates

Background: National Theatre School of Canada; nominated for Dora Mavor Moore Award for best actor for Geometry In Venice; other stage appearances include The Good Life at the Tarragon Theatre, Habitat at CanStage and Troilus and Cressida at the Theatre for New Audiences in New York

Career highlights: Features: Halloween: Resurrection (to be released July 12), Lost and Delirious. Miniseries: Haven.

Outlook: Dividing his time between Toronto and New York, Kirby seems destined for heartthrob status. The young actor nabbed the lead role in the low-budget film Luck, directed by Peter Wellington. The drama about a group of down-and-out gambling men, set against the backdrop of the ’72 Summit Series, has generated a buzz since it started shooting recently in Toronto. There are also rumblings about Hollywood offers for Kirby.

Benz Antoine

Age: 29

Residence: Montreal

Agent: The Characters

Background: Theatre performance at Concordia University

Career highlights: Feature: Romeo Must Die. Series: Cold Squad, Leap Years, Blue Murder.

Outlook: Antoine recently starred in the ESPN cable movie A Season on the Brink, in which he played the assistant basketball coach to Brian Dennehy’s Bobby Knight. The utterly charming and deadly handsome performer will soon be relocating from Montreal to Toronto to play Sgt. Jim Weeks, a lead character in season two of the Barna-Alper/North Bend Film Company/Global cop series Blue Murder, shooting in July.

Jeannette Sousa

Age: 23

Residence: Toronto

Agency: Edna Talent Management

Background: American Academy of Dramatic Arts; performance, voice and movement at University of Toronto

Career highlights: MOW: Loves Music, Loves to Dance. Series: The Sausage Factory, Los Luchadores.

Outlook: A striking beauty and natural performer, Sousa epitomizes the girl next door. She can be seen opposite Nick Mancuso in The Messiah, part of the Bible Stories Anthology video series produced by Toronto’s Big Star Motion Pictures, and in a principal role on an episode of A&E’s Nero Wolfe, produced by Timothy Hutton and directed by John L’Ecuyer. The hard-working actor is getting ready for next year’s pilot season in L.A.