These indie filmmakers are changing the face of film in Halifax

Today, the film scene in Halifax feels lifted from a blockbuster: against a tumultuous background of government support that ebbs and flows like the Atlantic, a handful of independent filmmakers fight the tide and stay the course, making their dream projects a reality — regardless what way the wind (or the funding) blows. 

First-time feature directors Kevin Hartford, Tara Thorne and Koumbie (who uses a mononym professionally) all knew that making their debut movies in Halifax wouldn't be easy, but as Koumbie puts it, "I just don't think I could make movies anywhere else."

Along the way, the trio are paving a new path in local filmmaking, with sets that are micro-communities, heavy on both representation and inclusion — a change from the mostly white, straight, male movie sets of yesterday's Halifax.

When their films — Hartford's queer ensemble comedy Lemon Squeezy, Thorne's feminist thriller Compulsus and Koumbie's #MeToo drama Bystanders — debut at FIN Atlantic International Film Festival (the region's largest celebration of film), it means a new cohort of indie auteurs has arrived: new identities and a pluralism of voices and perspectives that leads to new stories. (All three films are available to screen anywhere in Atlantic Canada via FIN Festival's online portal, in addition to in-person screenings.)

The DIY spirit is alive in Nova Scotia

"People are more resourceful here," Hartford tells CBC Arts a few days before his film's September 22 big-screen premiere at Halifax's Cineplex Park Lane. "I do think that is very reflective of the East Coast… how many of my friends are just running around with cameras on weekends shooting things for no money, because they want to make stuff." 

Hartford's own film is a prime example of the "scrappiness" he says defines Nova Scotia filmmaking: after being rejected two years in a row for funding through Telefilm, the writer-director decided "to do the classic, Kevin Smith Clerks thing and just make my own film," he explains. Hartford shot Lemon Squeezy in parcels of spare time over six months, on a projected $3000 budget, relying on a roster of actor friends to flesh out a cast. 

"It's always kind of confounding that anyone shows up," Hartford says. "And I think it really speaks to the Halifax community of filmmaking that people are so eager and so excited and so welcoming, and so helpful: when you want to make something, everybody just shows up. And I've tried to pay that forward — to do that for other people."

He adds: "I think there's always a history of people… just throwing caution to the wind and making that first feature that cost no money. Seth Smith, who is a very accomplished filmmaker [in Halifax] — he did Tin Can and The Crescent — his first [feature] was called Low Life. He made it for about 10 grand. I just looked to those people where they're like, 'You know what, we don't want to wait. Let's just do it.' There was this immediate history and examples of people who just forged ahead anyways, and I could follow suit." 

Even though a Canada Council Grant arrived part way through filming, Hartford's blueprint insulated him against outside uncertainty — something especially poignant in today's Nova Scotia, which saw its film tax credit, the most generous in Canada, axed in 2015.

After the tax credit ended, many in the industry chased new opportunities in Toronto. The brain drain came to the point that, when Robert Eggers filmed his Oscar-nominated effort The Lighthouse in Yarmouth, NS, in 2018 — the biggest production the province had attracted in some years — new crew had to be trained to operate the set.

A new vision for Halifax filmmaking

But it's not just the funding that's changed. This new class of directors offer a fresh vision of what a set can feel like.

When filming Koumbie's Bystanders, each day's shoot began with a group huddle where a fact from local Indigenous history was shared, to connect to the land. The film centres on a group of childhood friends grappling with the realization that one of their own is an abuser.

"Because the piece is quite heavy, I knew that we were going to need as much support as possible — not just me, but also our actors, also our crew. We had an intimacy coordinator who talked about how to take care of ourselves. But I was like, 'It's not just self-care. It's also aftercare,'" the filmmaker explains. "Having a team that all understood that meant that we could hold each other accountable, like: 'Hey, how are you filling your cup right now?'" 

• On the secluded set of N.S. director Koumbie's first feature film about consent and friendship

The story — and therefore the cast's — diversity "was built in from the beginning," Koumbie adds. "Now we're kind of seeing it being a layer on top of the thing after it's done, where people have their script, or they have their projects, and they're like, 'And now we need to add diversity, and now we need to add Black people,' or, you know, whatever it is. Whereas for us, it was like, these characters were always two Black sisters." 

It feels like a lane-widening of the toe-path that earlier Halifax directors like Thom Fitzgerald (a gay man) and Andrea Dorfman first trailblazed in a province that has often focused on white, straight, cis male run-sets, which begot many movies focusing on white, straight, cis male stories.  

Then there's Tara Thorne's film Compulsus — which arrives at FIN after festivals like Montreal's Fantasia, Toronto's Inside Out and Miami's Popcorn Frights — and isn't interested in looking like anywhere else. The streets and trendy restaurants of Halifax's north end are where the film's main character sets out on a spree of vigilante justice against men who assault women.

The film asks, as Thorne said at its FIN screening on September 17, "What if women were as violent as men?" — and imagines the most extreme way women communities step up for each other when patriarchal society fails. And while the dramatic lighting and atmospheric terror of Thorne's flick marks it thoroughly as a thriller, behind the camera it was a space prioritizing care and equity, with everyone on the woman-led project wearing pronoun pins. 

Film production is here to stay

Earlier in 2022, when Bystanders was in pre-production, Lemon Squeezy was in post-production and Compulsus was prepping for festivals, Nova Scotia made a combined $23-million investment in the sector — not a direct replacement of the long-slain tax credit that saw many in the industry leave the province, but a move aiming to prove that film is big business here. International productions like the Hulu and Disney+ adaptation of Washington Black have come to Halifax this year, while a new, $20-million soundstage that'll allow the industry to switch from seasonal to year round has been announced for the city. 

"Everybody [in Halifax] is on the hustle making things happen. It's not a booming metropolis. It's actually just a really small town," Hartford says. "So you have all these people making these opportunities for themselves, which I've never witnessed in any other of the four provinces and one territory that I've lived in. And that's really inspiring."

"It just seems like in many ways the East Coast is a tough place to live, yet everybody always rises to that challenge of living here — and I guess that affects all the artists too."