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An Open Letter to the NDP members in Halifax Needham

June 17, 2016July 7, 2016 Paul Andrew Kimball 2 Comments Gary Burrill, Halifax Needham, NDP, Nova Scotia, politics

Hi folks,

Just taking a moment to answer all the questions I am getting at once about my possible candidacy for the NDP nomination in Halifax Needham.

I had agreed to put my name forward to stand for the NDP nomination here in Needham after having been encouraged to do so by local party members. It was not something I had ever thought of up until then,

I went through the vetting process at the local level, seemingly without issue. My name, along with a few others, was forwarded on to the central party office.

I was informed in a phone call yesterday that I was prohibited from standing by the party head office.

The reason I was given was that my candidacy could prove embarrassing to the party.

What was so embarrassing, you might ask? What was the deep, dark secret?

I said positive things about PC MLA Tim Houston, and I have a scientific and historical interest in the paranormal and the subculture of people who study it.

And that’s it, as far as I was told.

I didn’t think it was possible for a political party in this province to make me feel more unwelcome than the Liberals, but it turns out I was wrong.

Featured Film News Politics

Marc Almon – The Happy Warrior of #NSFilmJobs

May 19, 2016May 19, 2016 Paul Andrew Kimball 1 Comment #nsfilmjobs, Ann MacKenzie, Bruce MacDonald, Diana Whalen, Graham Steele, Lisa Bugden, Marc Almon, Nova Scotia, Nova Scotia film industry, NSBI, Screen Nova Scotia, Stephen McNeil

I first met Marc Almon back in 1998 when he was the proverbial bright-eyed and bushy-tailed president of the Kings College Independent Film Society and I was the Program Administrator for the Nova Scotia Film Development Corporation. Marc had applied for a small operating grant for the society, and while I was inclined to recommend it my boss was less enthusiastic. So I arranged a meeting in which I asked Marc to basically tell me how he wanted me to sell the proposal to my superiors. I left that meeting thinking this was a kid who was going to be a successful film producer someday if he pursued it as a career, because he was passionate and because he was a natural at making the best case for why he and his group deserved the money. Needless to say, they got their grant, and when I attended their annual screening of the short films they made with it some months later, I wasn’t surprised in the least that Marc and KIFS had managed to pack the Rebecca Cohn Auditorium.

As it turns out, Marc did indeed pursue a career in filmmaking, and by 2015 had emerged as one of the top up-and-coming young film producers in Canada. He produced the critically-acclaimed and award-winning feature film Blackbird by director Jason Buxton, and had a number of other projects in development.

And then all hell broke loose in April, 2015, when the Liberal government of Stephen McNeil released a budget that contained massive cuts to the Nova Scotia film industry, including the closing down of Film and Creative Industries Nova Scotia and the slashing of the film tax credit to levels that were simply unworkable for producers. As the chairperson of the fledgling industry association Screen Nova Scotia, Marc was thrust into the spotlight for all the wrong reasons, as he led the fight to save the film industry from complete disaster even as he tried to keep his business going and get his own productions financed in a world where the old financing model no longer existed.

It’s a testament to Marc’s ability as both a producer and a leader that he managed to succeed in both tasks. While the film industry in Nova Scotia isn’t what it was prior to the Liberal cuts, it also isn’t gone altogether, and that’s due to the efforts of Marc and his colleagues at Screen Nova Scotia. In terms of his own business, Marc managed to recover from the setback of last April and found a way to pull together the financing to get the feature film Nineteenseventysomething made, directed by Bruce McDonald and written by Daniel MacIvor (the film is currently in post-production, and Marc plans to debut it at this year’s Atlantic Film Festival).

Marc’s term as chairperson of Screen Nova Scotia came to an end last month, so I thought it would be a good time to sit down with him and reflect upon the hectic events of the past couple of years. Here is that conversation.

Community Editorial Featured Film News Politics

Why The Film Industry Controversy Matters To All Nova Scotians

April 8, 2016April 8, 2016 Paul Andrew Kimball 6 Comments crony capitalism, good governance, Nova Scotia, Nova Scotia film industry, Stephen McNeil

Much has been said and written over the past year about the Liberal government’s decision in April 2015 to do away with the government funding structure for the film and television industry that had existed in Nova Scotia for twenty years. Financing structures for the industry are a bit of an arcane art to begin with (as they are with most industries), and it has been made even more difficult for the average Nova Scotian to follow given the fact that there have been different numbers and statistics put forward by both the government and the industry to attempt to justify their respective positions – the industry has largely relied on numbers provided by the former government film agency in previous years along with industry sources such as the Canadian Media Producers Association, while the government has primarily relied on figures provided by the Department of Finance. The issues involved in terms of the actual mechanics of the production and financing system of the Nova Scotian film and television sector, which after all is but a very small part of a much larger globalized multimedia industry, are complex and difficult to distill into media-friendly soundbites. Nova Scotians could be forgiven if they threw up their hands in frustration and said, “we don’t know who is right, and really… why should we care?”

The answer is simple: The film industry controversy centers on two issues of fundamental importance to all Nova Scotians:

(1) Our ability as citizens to trust our government (and our concomitant ability to believe that it is dealing with us in good faith); and

(2) The way that government does business with the private sector.

When we examine how the Liberal government has dealt with the film industry, serious problems are evident on both counts.

Community Featured Film Music News Politics

Gregor Ash… Unplugged

March 3, 2016March 4, 2016 Paul Andrew Kimball 0 Comment arts, Arts Nova Scotia, Atlantic Canada, Atlantic Film Festival, Canadian film, Cinnamon Toast Records, culture, film distribution, Geoff Regan, government, Gregor Ash, Halifax Pop Explosion, Nova Scotia, Nova Scotia NDP, Telefilm

If you had to compile a list of the twenty most important and / or influential people in the arts and culture scene in Nova Scotia over the past fifteen years, it would probably include Gregor Ash. Starting from his first arts gig as sales and promotion manager at CKDU radio in 1991 – 1992 through his various key roles in the music industry at the height of the Halifax Pop Explosion to his tenure at the Atlantic Film Festival, first as Operations Manager from 1996 until 2000 and then as the very forward-looking Executive Director of the Festival from 2000 until 2012, Gregor was on the front lines of what was a true Renaissance period for film and music in the province. He has also served as a member of the Nova Scotia Arts & Culture Partnership Council in 2010 – 2011, and as the Director of the Institute of Applied Creativity at NSCAD University from 2012 until 2014. A two time candidate for elected office as a New Democrat (federally in 2011 and provincially in 2013), Gregor currently runs his own independent consultancy firm. I’ve known him since he was at the Film Festival and I was the Program Administrator at the Nova Scotia Film Development Corporation, and I’ve always had a great deal of respect for his commitment to the arts specifically, and public policy in general. He describes himself on Twitter as “a passionate servant of the Arts, a political junkie, a food lover and proud Newfoundlander, living a content life in the wonderful city of Halifax, Nova Scotia,” and I think that pegs him pretty much spot on. In an industry full of poseurs and provocateurs (and that applies to both the arts and politics), Gregor is genuine,passionate, and hard-working.

I asked him a couple of weeks ago if he would be willing to sit down and discuss his career in the arts and politics to date, and he readily agreed. We finally managed to sync our schedules for Friday afternoon, the 26th of February, and we got together at the Second Cup in the Killam Library at Dalhousie for a wide-ranging conversation about arts, culture, the creative economy, and politics. We had actually been chatting for about twenty minutes – and both of us had been airing our opinions freely – when I finally said to him that I was going to turn my tape recorder on and start the interview. He looked a bit surprised and said that he thought I had begun recording at the beginning. I replied that I would never record anyone without letting them know, and that I thought perhaps what we were talking about might be things that he wouldn’t want on the record.

Gregor laughed. “Screw it,” he said. “Roll the tape!”

So I did.

Here is the conversation that followed – Gregor Ash… unplugged.

Community Featured Film Music News Politics

Nova Scotia PC Leader Jamie Baillie on Arts, Culture and the Creative Economy

February 29, 2016February 29, 2016 Paul Andrew Kimball 0 Comment arts, creative economy, culture, education, film tax credits, Jamie Baillie, Maureen MacDonald, Nova Scotia, NS PC Party, sound recording tax credits, Stephen McNeil, Tim Houston

In early February I sent all three candidates for the Nova Scotia NDP leadership an e-mail asking them to respond to five questions concerning their policies with respect to arts, culture and the creative economy in the province.

I sent Progressive Conservative Party leader Jamie Baillie the same questions a week later. Like his fellow PC MLA Tim Houston and former interim-NDP leader Maureen MacDonald, among others, Baillie has been outspoken in his criticism of the McNeil government’s policies with respect to the creative economy, particularly after last April’s budget that dismantled Film and Creative Industries Nova Scotia, failed to implement a sound recording tax credit as the Liberals had promised, and did away with the film tax credit. For example, on April 15, 2015, Baillie rose in the House of Assembly and made the following statement:

“Mr. Speaker, the short-sighted action of the McNeil Liberals is putting in jeopardy 2,700 jobs and an entire young industry. The Premier and Minister of Finance and Treasury Board want to talk about their decision to wipe out the film industry only in terms of tax formulas. They should know there is a human cost to their actions. The industry told the Minister of Finance and Treasury Board yesterday that this plan is not workable. Today we will tell the stories of the producers, directors, caterers, costume designers, and makeup artists, who feel let down by a broken Liberal promise and abandoned by a government that doesn’t see the value of their work. These are real people who are angry and frustrated at the thought of leaving an industry they have built to find work in another province.”

I wanted to give Mr. Baillie the same opportunity as I had given the NDP leadership contenders to set out his views on these questions critical to so many Nova Scotians. Here is his reply.

BRENTWOOD, CA - FEBRUARY 24: Nate Sanders displays the collection of Oscar statuettes that his auction company will sell online to the highest bidder on February 24, 2012 in Brentwood, California. (Photo by Toby Canham/Getty Images)

Featured Film Film History

Nova Scotia and the Academy Awards

February 28, 2016February 28, 2016 Ron Foley Macdonald 0 Comment Academy Awards, Anna Leonowens, Ellen Page, Harold Russell, history, John Kahrs, Michael Donovan, Nova Scotia, Oscars, The King and I

Nova Scotia has a rich Oscar history. Three Bluenosers have actually been awarded the golden statuette – producer Michael Donovan for the documentary “Bowling For Columbine,” choreographer Onna White win for 1968’s “Oliver,” and actor Harold Russell in a rare double win for 1946’s “The Best Years Of Our Lives.” Others have been nominated – Ellen Page is the most recent example, for “Juno.” Just as interesting, however, are the many lesser known Nova Scotian Oscar connections sprinkled about cinema history, from French New Wave director Francois Truffaut’s “The Story of Adele H” to the various films based on the life of Anna Leonowens.

Featured Film Film History

The World In His Arms

February 17, 2016February 17, 2016 Ron Foley Macdonald 0 Comment Anthony Quinn, film, film history, Gregory Peck, Nova Scotia, The World in His Arms

Nova Scotia once ruled the waves in the world of sailing ships. So much so, in fact, that Hollywood came calling in the early 1950s for our help in the making of The World in His Arms, a swashbuckling classic starring Gregory Peck and Anthony Quinn, directed by the great action helmer Raoul Walsh and adapted from a Rex Beach novel.

Music Review Reviews

The Top 20 Albums by Nova Scotians

February 4, 2016February 15, 2016 Paul Andrew Kimball and Ron Foley Macdonald 26 Comments Anne Murray, April Wine, Ashley MacIsaac, Buck 65, Denise Djokic, Garrett Mason, Hank Snow, Holly Cole, Joel Plaskett, music, Nova Scotia, Pepper Tree, Rita McNeil, Sarah McLachlan, Sloan, The Guthries, The Heavy Blinkers, The Rankin Family, Top 20

Nova Scotia has always punched above our per capita weight when it comes to creative output, and nowhere has that been more pronounced than in our music. From folk to rock to pop to country to classical, some of the biggest stars in Canadian history have come from this small and sometimes overlooked region of the country, and if more than a few of them had to leave in order to make it big, well, that’s okay – consider them a fifth column sent out to remind our fellow Canadians (and the world at large) that we’re still here. In this list, former musicians and current filmmakers Ron Foley Macdonald and Paul Andrew Kimball take an in-depth look at what they consider to be the best albums ever made by Nova Scotians.