Patricia Rozema

Location: Ontario| Profession: Filmmaker

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Patricia Rozema

Patricia Rozema’s debut feature film, I’ve Heard the Mermaids Singing, won the coveted Priz de la Jeunesse at Cannes in 1987. It went on to be released in 37 countries. Subsequent films such as White Room, When Night is Falling and Mansfield Park have won international acclaim and a slew of awards. Rozema is currently developing a television show called Tell Me You Love Me.

Patricia Rozema

What They Said

“I always had a sense of where I wanted to go, but it changed.

I was an achievement-oriented kind of kid. When I acted in College and I didn’t succeed, I was devastated. ‘What can I do?’ I thought. ‘If I can’t succeed here, at a small school with 3,000 people that isn’t known for it’s theatre, then I need something else.’ So I became a journalism student. I thought, ‘I can make money doing that. That’ll be my marketable skill.’ That led me to WMAQ-TV in Chicago and then an internship at WNBC-TV in New York. Finally, in 1981, I ended up as an associated producer at The Journal on the CBC. I was a researcher really. They would give me all kinds of tasks. They’d say “Ok, the US is testing cruise missiles over Alberta. Do a piece on cruise missiles.” I remember I did a pre-interview with Abbie Hoffman once. It was great. But, at the same time, I was frustrated. I didn’t want to interview other people about what they were doing. I wanted to be the one that was actually doing something. I knew that I wanted to make something.

I was insecure in journalism. I’m not a born journalist. You need to have an encyclopedic mind. You have to be able to verify every fact and quote. I can be obsessive, but not about every thing on each new story every day. I was sort of sloppy. I thought that, if I could just change things a little bit, it would be a better story. If I could just muck with it, you know? I had that fictive impulse.

One time, when I three weeks off, I tried to make a film. I think it was gonna be a satire of a self-help video. It was going to be about mannequins learning how to lean and say their names and make friends. I tried to raise the money and I couldn’t. I didn’t realise that you couldn’t raise money, shoot a film, edit it and finish it off in three weeks. I had no idea.

Not too long after that, they fired me. There were budget cuts and I was low on the totem pole, so I had to be let go. But I was bugging people anyway. I was a bit too arty for them. Barbara Frum stuck up for me, but there was a pretty strong move to get rid of me.

For an overachiever like myself, to be fired was way too much to handle. I had no idea what to do.

So I went on unemployment insurance and sat my desk everyday and wrote. I think a lot of it was dreck, but I kept going and keep writing grant applications and being rejected until something finally came through.”