WARNER BROS x CANADIAN ACADEMY DIRECTORS COHORT

Honoured to be part of this cohort!

https://www.academy.ca/WMAccess_Directors/cohort

Dark Nature Reviews

But Why Tho Podcast

The first horror feature for Berkley Brady, Dark Nature feels like standing in a pool with your toes barely touching the bottom, knowing that you can’t swim. I can’t find a better way to explain this raw and dark exploration of trauma and violence, a horror in more ways than one…Dark Nature is a visceral experience in the best and worst ways. A labor to get through if you’ve experienced trauma in a similar way, the way that Berkley Brady has written and captured episodes of PTSD on screen, and how the actresses perform them feels too real. It’s raw and unsettling, with a shifting perspective of reality that adds chaos to the trauma. If there is a movie this year that has made me want to crawl out of my skin, it’s this one. A true testament to Brady’s understanding that horror is sometimes a real experience, and fruitful ground for cultivating a larger narrative. Not to mention a twisting final act that is better left unspoiled.

Film School Rejects

Trauma is a starting point for numerous horror films for a few reasons, and highest among them is that it creates stakes with a survivor who’s about to face some new nightmare. The best use it as more than just a jumping off point and instead integrate the experience into the fight for survival that’s yet to come. Dark Nature succeeds on that front and more, and while it hits a few snags the end result is still an engrossing and exciting horror film.

Variety

Admitting that one of “Dark Nature’s” genres is melodrama, Brady also wanted to explore the complexities of a friendship on the verge of a breakdown.

“I know that people sometimes perceive melodrama as a dirty word, but I love Douglas Sirk, ‘Beaches.’ I love to be moved,” she says.

“Thinking of my own experiences and traumas, which are woven into this too. I was such a bad friend [when I was dealing with them]. But my friends still got me through it.”

“What a paradox – you become this drag and a bummer, and they still put up with you, even though it hurts everybody. Care can also drag you down, but these women choose each other. I love that.”

Dark Nature Going to Cannes!

Cannes Marché du Film

WE DID IT

Cannes Marché du Film WE DID IT

Link to CBC article: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/calgary-horror-film-cannes-festival-1.6436476

https://www.marchedufilm.com/programs/fantastic-7/projects/?fbclid=IwAR0Ys4bi5DcPCMLJFdZiJJjYzizTypzmNTY_U-WVLI3G0Xqs8exi6lWthqc

That's a wrap on DARK WOODS!

30 days, nearly a dozen remote locations and we have completed production on Dark Woods!

Project going into post-production as we speak. Stay tuned…

Nomination for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Dramatic Series!

Like Ice Cube said it, it was a good day.

The DGC has nominated me for "Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Dramatic Series” for my work on Secret History of the Wild West, episode 6 of Season 1, “The Chosen One.”

This was about Louis Riel and the Metis/Michif struggle in this country. So a topic close to my heart. What an honour to be involved, let alone nominated.

Dark Woods Part of Frontiers this Year

We are so happy that Dark Woods is one of 5 selected projects for #FODS2021 !

THE APARTMENT Sarah Gignac

DARK WOODS Berkley Brady

MID LIFE Alyson Richards

RED WINGS Dana Hammer

TRANSVENGEANCE Kaye Adelaide

Projects will participate in development sessions during next month's Vancouver International Women in Film Festival - VIWFF, and leading up to the next Frontières International Co-Production Market where they will pitch in August!

DARK WOODS FUNDED BY TELEFILM!!!

Some good news - the feature I wrote, DARK WOODS, just received funding from Telefilm Canada.

We’re putting together the rest of the financing now, and I hope to begin directing in June, 2021.

Joy Higgins—a survivor of domestic abuse—invites her friend Carmen Bazzoli on an Indigenous-led women’s weekend retreat in the Canadian wilderness, led by Joy’s group-therapist, Dr. Rachel Dunnley.   

Dr. Dunnley’s method of therapy—a mixture of land-based ways of being/knowing and Western psychology—is her own, and it’s experimental.

As the weekend progresses, the border between reality and delusion shatters when Joy suspects they are being stalked by her abuser; in truth, all six women will be forced to confront a threat even more terrifying than the demons of their past.

Keep Watching

Over the next three years I take the inexorable baby steps and gather the allies and guardian angels that sum-total a film.

This beautiful article by one of my favourite professors perfectly captures her thinking, and these times.

Love you Hilary Brougher!

TBT - Interview w/Director Christina Choe

What a difference a day makes. Or a year…which is how long ago Christina and I did this interview at her place in LA. Since then she’s gone on to direct episodes for Ava DuVernay’s Queen Sugar and Jordan Peele’s new take on The Twilight Zone. Can’t wait to see what she does next; we love you CC!

Nancy, directed by Christina Choe (2018). Still by Cinematographer Zoe White.

https://lumaquarterly.com/issues/volume-three/012-spring/maybe-we-should-have-made-that-doc/

DOG SPIRIT

HALIE FINNEY!!! We are over-the-moon about the logo and artwork created by Metis artist Halie Finney (Thanks to @sadbirthdays for pointing her out to us!)

Check out her recent work, which was featured across buses and trains in Edmonton.

Nika Was a Good Dog

Who was Nika? She was a dog. A backwoods beauty who could climb ladders on command. There isn’t a picture of me as a baby without her - she was always by my side, watching. Keeping me safe.

She made life easy. She made life fun. She was chill as can be and she knew her purpose in life. In short, she was a bad a$$ bitch.

It’s her spirit of excellence, loyalty and focus that inspires us here at Nika Productions Inc.

And speaking of inspiration, if you love animals and want to help them, check out AARCS. They pair dogs with foster-hosts, so those sweet little pups don’t have to wait in a crowded shelter while they wait to be adopted.

Become a foster, donate, or adopt and there you go; you’ll have a new best friend <3