We sought out figures from Halifax’s independent film community to answer a few of our questions about the scene, and what it might look like in the future.

They are:

• Jeff Wheaton: Chair of the Atlantic Filmmakers Cooperative (AFCOOP) Board of Directors.
• Andrea Dorfman: Local film artist and founding member of the One-Minute Film Scholarship, which celebrates its tenth anniversary this year.
• Ilan Sandler: Visual artist and the executive director of the Center For Art Tapes.

1. What was the most important development for Halifax’s film community in the last 20 years?

Jeff Wheaton

Like it or hate it, the development of a film industry has probably had the biggest impact on Halifax’s indie film community. Increased skills from working next to experienced filmmakers from away allowed for a growth in the abilities of those who support our local directors, writers and producers. These skills were then shared and passed on throughout the rest of the community. This has made room for new voices to access education programs through Atlantic Filmmakers Cooperative, Centre for Art Tapes, The National Film Board, the Atlantic Film Festival and Nova Scotia Film. There will always be a difference of opinion on what films are more relevant, but there will always be a need for people who understand how the technical side of the medium works from first draft to first screening.

Andrea Dorfman

I think there were many things that really helped boost the film community here, but I am just going to focus on one of them. The biggest (in my mind) is that Halifax started to become a prime location for film production coming from other places (Los Angeles, New York City, Toronto, London, etc.). It gave filmmakers like myself the opportunity to make a living on a film crews so that I could not only support myself and my own filmmaking, but at the same time I was also exposed to an incredible learning opportunity - being exposed to state of the art filmmaking technology and experienced crew, directors, cinematographers. At the time, there wasn’t a film school in Halifax (there was AFCOOP, which was great but no formal training) so working on film crews from the mid to late nineties was my film school.

Ilan Sandler

Halifax’s independent media arts community has benefited from the accessibility to digital technology through production facilities that the Centre for Art Tapes and other post-secondary training programs have developed in the region over the past two decades. The community has also benefited from exposure to film and video through screenings, workshops, master classes, public presentations and exhibitions that have been made possible through substantial funding from the Canada Council for the Arts as well as from provincial funding.

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