Sun, Mar 22 / 2 pm
Free Admission
With David Bergen, George Toles, Alison Gillmor and Shelagh Carter
Moderated by Liz Janzen
As a part of the Cinematheque and Manitoba Writer’s Guild’s ongoing Novel to Screen: The Writer’s Imagination series several excellent Winnipeg based writers will discuss the challenges of adapting the written word for the screen and how literature and film each have their own creative structure. Moderator Liz Janzen will pose some questions for the panelists based on their own experiences.
Panelists:
Alison Gillmor is the pop culture columnist for the Winnipeg Free Press. She received a B.A. in English from the University of Winnipeg and an MA in Art History from York University. As a freelance journalist, she has has written on film, books, visual art and design for Border Crossings, The Walrus, CBC.ca, Canada’s History, The Winnipeg Review and more. She has reviewed films for both the CBC and the Winnipeg Free Press.
David Bergen is an acclaimed Canadian short story writer and novelist. His 2005 novel The Time in Between won the Scotiabank Giller Prize. He has published several novels and a collection of short stories since 1993. He finds writing novels to be much easier than writing screen plays. Raised in the Mennonite faith, Bergen raises questions in his fiction about loss, guilt, familial estrangement, and the individual quest for redemption and salvation. He says, “If you can’t ask certain questions in church, maybe you can ask them in fiction.” David Bergen thinks very critically about the written word.
George Toles is a distinguished teacher of film at the University of Manitoba and writer (House Made of Light: Essays on the Art of Film). He has been involved with the screenplays for some of Guy Maddin’s key works – My Winnipeg, Archangel, Careful, and The Saddest Music in The World. He wrote the original story and screenplay for Canada’s first stop–motion animation feature Edison and Leo. He has spent a great deal of time reading literature and thinking about the meaning of words and frequently posts short stories on Facebook.
Shelagh Carter is a Lifetime Member of The Actors Studio as an Actress and Director, a Professor of Theatre and Film at the University of Winnipeg and a graduate of the Canadian Film Centre’s Directors Lab in Toronto. As a director, Shelagh has created work for ten years. Shelagh’s first feature film Passionflower, the story of Sarah, an 11-year-old girl, forcing her family to come to terms with her mother’s increasing mental instability, is presently winning film festival attention and honors.
Moderator Liz Janzen is a writer who has tackled two book-to-film adaptations. She has a B.A. in English literature from the University of Saskatchewan and an M.A. in English with a concentration in film from the University of Manitoba. As a reader, she has a particular interest in the lives of writers.
Generously sponsored by Manitoba Writer’s Guild and McNally Robinson Books
