Director's Johanna Mercer Statement
In 2003, CBC Television called for short scripts utilizing the theme
"Fifty". Their intention was to celebrate the 50th anniversary
of the network. My only association with "Fifty" was the then
50 missing women. It was the trigger.
Femke van Delft's guerrilla installation concept sparked my imagination and provided me with the action. My work with myth and archetype suggested the persona of Artemis or Diana as a leading character.
I was also moved by the websites created by friends of the women. I was
aware of Officer Rossmo1s computer tracking program - good work that resulted
in his dismissal from the Vancouver Police Department. When City Hall
offered a $100,000.00 reward for information leading to an arsonist who
was creating havoc in the car garages of West Side residents but offered
nothing for information leading to these women, I knew I was angry. By
the time I wrote the script, forensic scientists were sifting through
the ten-year buildup of earth on Pickton1s farm searching for DNA evidence
of the remaining women. The individual horror of that was and is shocking.
The political apathy and silence surrounding these women is equally shocking
to me.
The story gestated for ten years. The script hit the page in one day.
CBC didn't produce it.
Biography/Filmography of Director Johanna
Mercer
Johanna Mercer (director) is a graduate of the Canadian Film Centre Directing
Program (99) and has been awarded a Canada Council Creative Development
Grant and a B.C. Film Screenwriting Internship to write her feature "The
Compass Rose" with Story Editor Michael MacLennan, co-Producer of
"Queer As Folk" and "Godiva".
She produced and directed a short film "Wedding Knives" (98) with writer Michael MacLennan and DOP Greg Middleton (Between Strangers, Punch, Five Senses, Kissed), which travelled to the Toronto International Film Festival, Tampere, Uppsala, Barcelona, Vancouver International and Local Heroes Festivals, as well as the Moving Pictures tour. It sold to CBC, Showcase and Knowledge Networks.
Johanna is a twenty-year veteran theatre director with over fifty professional credits including the Shaw Festival1s mammoth, experimental production of Orwell1s "1984" and the Dora Award-winning production of "Cloud-9." She taught at the National Theatre School of Canada for several years and was founding director of the New Play Festival in Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia. She is an Artistic Associate of the Wooster Group in New York City.
In 1990, Johanna was a resident at the Banff Centre, where she made "Raw Goods", her spaghetti-western homage to Kurosawa, which premiered at the Montreal World Film Festival in 1991. In 1997, she earned an MFA in Film Directing from the University of British Columbia.
In 2001, Mercer completed a National Screen Institute Dramaprize entitled "Bagatelle" which premiered at Local Heroes and sold to CBC. In 2003, she received a Canada Council A Grant, a B.C. Arts Council Grant and an NFB FAP to produce and direct her own short script "A Jade1s Trick" which was shot on 35mm with DOP Greg Middleton and is currently in post-production. Mercer's filmic reaction to Femke van Delft's installation artwork, "The Diana Project" had its international premiere at Vienna's Ohne Kohle Film Festival. The Vancouver International Film Festival is the Canadian premiere.
Johanna Mercer lives in East Vancouver with her partner and new son.
Screenings
July, 2004 Vienna Austria Ohne Kohle International Festival (World Premiere)
Sept, 2004, Vancouver International Film Festival (Canadian Premiere)
