Articles by Shannon Page
Quickening
A young woman is caught between the expectations of her Pakistani family and her growing independence in writer/director Haya Waseem’s haunting coming-of-age drama, Quickening.
As They Made Us
With a cast that boasts the likes of Dustin Hoffman, Candice Bergen, and Simon Helberg, As They Made Us is a surprisingly lacklustre start to Mayim Bialik’s directorial career.
Maybe Someday
Writer, director, producer, and actor Michelle Ehlen is probably best known for the lesbian comedy trilogy Butch Jamie (2007), Heterosexual Jill (2013), and S&M Sally (2015). Though she still brings the laughs, Ehlen treads slightly more serious ground with Maybe Someday, a tender and mature exploration of grief, love, and memory.
Run Woman Run
Run Woman Run is a sweet and charming dramatic comedy about family, community, healing, and grief. Written and directed by Zoe Leigh Hopkins (Kayak to Klemtu), Run Woman Run stars Dakota Ray Hebert (In Her City) as Beck, a single mom who is forced to re-examine her lifestyle after she is diagnosed with diabetes. While her father (Lorne Cardinal of Corner Gas) and sister (The Exchange’s Jayli Wolf) beg Beck to start eating right and exercising,…
Streamline
Written and directed by Tyson Wade Johnston, Streamline is a polished yet forgettable sports drama that puts young athletes, and the pressures they face, front and centre.
Poly Styrene: I am a Cliché
In 1976, Marion Elliott-Said – a Somali-English teenager from London – formed a band. That band, called X-Ray Spex, would quickly become one of the most distinct groups to emerge from the fledgling punk scene. Marion, in her front-woman persona as Poly Styrene, broke into an industry that was overwhelmingly white and overwhelmingly male, paving the way for other female musicians and women of colour. Many credit her with laying the foundations for what would,…
Try Harder!
Lowell High School is the top-ranked public high school in San Francisco. In a world where everyone is a straight-A student, Lowell seniors are stressed out, scrambling to secure places in the country’s top universities and balancing overwhelming pressure from their families and communities.
The Scary of Sixty-First
Until recently, when she was cast in the third season of HBO’s hit series Succession, Dasha Nekrasova was one of those niche internet celebrities that enjoys considerable notoriety in select circles while remaining virtually unknown in the larger public consciousness. She is perhaps best known as the co-host of the popular left-leaning podcast, Red Scare. Much like her podcast, Nekrasova’s debut directorial feature is calculated to invite controversy. Brash and antagonistic, The Scary of Sixty-First…