Patricia Rozema

Director, producer, writer. Born in Kingston, Ontario 1958. Raised in Sarnia, Ontario by Dutch Calvinist parents, Patricia Rozema is one of Canada’s most accomplished and internationally recognized filmmakers. Throughout her narrative feature film work she has maintained an elegant female consciousness while drawing male characters with compassion. Most notably, Rozema has established herself as an exceptional and distinctly sensual visual artist. Her films are characterized by self-referential narration, idiosyncratic protagonists who are often struggling artists, formal adventurousness, and the use of fairy tales, mythology and poetry as structuring notions. Rozema’s debut feature is one of Canada’s most celebrated and circulated success stories. “I’ve Heard the Mermaids Singing,” a serious comedy about a socially inept Girl Friday (with a standout performance by Sheila McCarthy), was made for a mere $350,000 and was remarkably successful not only critically, but also commercially. The film went on to win the coveted Prix de la Jeunesse at Cannes in 1987 and was recently voted as one of the top ten Canadian films of the century. Rozema followed up this success with “White Room,” an ambitious and dark contemporary tale of fame. With the semi-autobiographical “When Night Is Falling,” Rozema crafted a lyrical lesbian love story involving a Christian professor and a circus performer. Her subsequent project, the richly textured “Six Gestures,” part of the “Yo-Yo Ma: Inspired by Bach” series, was awarded a Prime Time Emmy. Rozema’s next two films, however, would exit from Canadian production. “Mansfield Park” (U.K.) is a sophisticated revisionist adaptation of Jane Austen’s novel, and “Happy Days,” an Irish production, is a filmed version of Samuel Beckett’s absurdly despairing play in which a woman lives partially buried in a mound. Rozema is currently developing another project with Miramax.