02 Jul Two N-Dub* filmmakers need your help today

Director Ashey McKenzie confers with cast member

A few years ago, two Dal SMU students from New Waterford showed up at one of my movies and offered to help. Within a few weeks, they were organizing film selections for the following season, and doing a better job of it than I ever had. In their spare time, Ashley McKenzie and Nelson MacDonald organized the Coastal Arts Initiative which borrowed a basement room in former convent, transformed it into a cool exhibition space, and put on a series of innovative shows by a bunch of young New Waterford artists.

You read that right. Young. New Waterford. Artists. A bunch of them. In the space of a year, they showed more leadership than the two generations that preceded them.

Last Fall, Ashley and Nelson released the short film Rhonda’s Party, featuring the wonderful Glace Bay actor Marguerite McNeil (no relation). It recounts an unexpected and touching incident in the lives of two nursing home residents. The film debuted at the Atlantic Film Festival, won Best Canadian Short at the Montreal-based Young Cuts Festival, and went on to feature at the Worldwide Short Film Festival in Toronto, the St. John’s Women’s International Film Festival, Vancouver’s Women in Film Festival, and of course, the Cape Breton Island Film Series.

Glace Bay's Marguerite McNeil stars in Rhonda's Party

Rhonda’s Party is now one of three finalists in CBC’s Short Film Faceoff. If it wins, director Ashley and producer Nelson will get $50,000 in cash and equipment toward their next movie. They already have a script. It’s called Stray, and it’s set in… New Waterford!

Voting between now at 9 p.m. tonight Atlantic time will determine the winner, and your votes could put Nelson and Ashley over the top. You can call in your vote to 1-877-876-3636 or vote vote directly at the CBC Short Film Faceoff website. Each phone and each household is allowed five votes, but it’s not clear the scrutineers have any way of counting whether you vote too often.

These are two fantastic young Nova Scotians. Please take a few minutes to give them a few richly deserved votes.

* What’s N-Dub, you ask? Why, New Waterford, of course, as in N-double u. I’m sure you knew that.