Shelagh Jane Carter (best known as Shelagh Carter, and occasionally referred to as Shelagh Carter-Loewen) is a Canadian director, producer, screenwriter, actress and retired theatre and film professor at the

University of Winnipeg The University of Winnipeg (UWinnipeg, UW) is a public research university in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, that offers undergraduate faculties of art, business and economics, education, science and kinesiology and applied health as well as gr ...

, known initially for her short films ''Night Travellers'', ''Canoe'', and ''Rifting/Blue'', and her feature films ''

Passionflower ''Passiflora'', known also as the passion flowers or passion vines, is a genus of about 550 species of flowering plants, the type genus of the family (biology), family Passifloraceae. They are mostly tendril, tendril-bearing vines, with some b ...

'', '' Before Anything You Say'' and ''

Into Invisible Light ''Into Invisible Light'' is a 2018 Canadian romantic drama film directed and co-written by Shelagh Carter and starring co-writer Jennifer Dale. Carter's third feature is an independent film loosely based on characters from Chekhov's ''Uncle Vany ...

''. A Lifetime Member of the

Actors Studio The Actors Studio is a membership organization for professional actors, theatre directors and playwrights at 432 West 44th Street between Ninth and Tenth avenues in the Hell's Kitchen neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. It was founde ...

and a graduate of the

Canadian Film Centre The Canadian Film Centre (CFC) is a charitable organization founded by filmmaker Norman Jewison in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, in 1988. Originally launched as film school, today it provides training, development and advancement opportunities for pr ...

's Directors Lab in

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most pop ...

, she is also a recipient of the award, Women in the Director's Chair Career Advancement Module 2010, in collaboration with Women in Film Festival

Vancouver Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the city, up from 631,486 in 2016. Th ...

, among many other honours. She is a member of the Winnipeg Film Group and chair of their Board.

Early life

Growing up in

Winnipeg Winnipeg () is the capital and largest city of the province of Manitoba in Canada. It is centred on the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine rivers, near the longitudinal centre of North America. , Winnipeg had a city population of 749 ...

in the 1950s and 1960s, Shelagh Carter had a troubled relationship with her mother Barbara (Babs) Carter, which many years later served as the basis of her first feature film ''

''. There is a family history of mental illness going back to Carter's grandmother. In interviews, Carter asserted that ''Passionflower'' was her own story, that her experience of her mother is "85 to 95 percent" of what is seen on the screen:

A lot of women at the time, an era of being perfect, staying in the home, repressed their anger from not being able to express themselves. The mental health industry at the time made women the problem and treated them with electroshock therapy.

It is not clear what form of mental illness Barbara Carter had: "Terms were thrown around, schizophrenic, manic-depressive. People today would say bipolar, but I don't even know if that was my mother." Carter recalled the first time she saw how her mother "broke down", "pounding on the floor", the nine-year-old Carter in her pyjamas. Shelagh Carter's father, Dennis H. Carter, "was a product of the notably progressive faculty of architecture" at the

University of Manitoba The University of Manitoba (U of M, UManitoba, or UM) is a Canadian public research university in the province of Manitoba. As Winnipeg built with design meant to reflect the times, Dennis Carter was behind the lens of his

8mm 8 mm or 8mm may refer to: ;Film technology *8 mm film, a photographic cine film format principally intended for domestic use. The term may also refer to later variants: ** Super 8 mm film ** Single-8 film ** 8 mm video format, a type of video record ...

camera, shooting reels and reels of film: "I have very fond memories of sitting at a dining room table with him when I was a very little girl with him editing the Super 8." Her father, however, was often at a loss when it came to her mother's moods, not knowing what to do; the young Carter became a "daddy's girl": "He thought he was being a great dad, but it set up this competition. What would happen is everything my mum would attempt would never get finished. But I was drawing and winning these prizes at school but it seemed if I showed her something, she would dismiss it." When Carter was eighteen years old, when she was "really struggling" with her mother, a teacher pulled her out of class one day and took her to see a film, which happened to be

John Cassavetes John Nicholas Cassavetes ( ; December 9, 1929 – February 3, 1989) was an American actor, film director, and screenwriter. First known as a television and film actor, Cassavetes also helped pioneer American independent cinema, writing and direc ...

' ''

A Woman Under the Influence ''A Woman Under the Influence'' is a 1974 American drama film written and directed by John Cassavetes. The story follows a woman (Gena Rowlands) whose unusual behavior leads to conflict with her blue-collar husband (Peter Falk) and family. It rec ...

'':

And I'm looking up at the screen ... and I think, "My God, that's my mother." And people started to ''laugh'' behind me, they began to ''laugh'' at her. And ... I swear to God, I was up over those seats, I was gonna deck them, I was so mad. My teacher was pulling me off of them. And it was at that moment, at 18, that I realized that I loved my mother.

Later, she elaborated: "That's when I knew I really loved my mother and I was beginning to see that it was an illness and it wasn't her."

Education

Carter moved to New York City after graduating with a degree in interior design from the

University of Manitoba The University of Manitoba (U of M, UManitoba, or UM) is a Canadian public research university in the province of Manitoba. At some point, Carter's interests realigned towards the stage, and she studied acting in Los Angeles and New York. In 1995, Carter attended the

's School of Drama (

The New School The New School is a private research university in New York City. It was founded in 1919 as The New School for Social Research with an original mission dedicated to academic freedom and intellectual inquiry and a home for progressive thinkers. ...

), which had begun offering a

Master of Fine Arts A Master of Fine Arts (MFA or M.F.A.) is a terminal degree in fine arts, including visual arts, creative writing, graphic design, photography, filmmaking, dance, theatre, other performing arts and in some cases, theatre management or arts a ...

degree a year earlier. Carter graduated with an MFA in Directing in 1998, a member of the second graduating class.

Career in theatre and film

On her return to Canada in 1998, Carter founded Casting in Stone Inc., to provide

casting director In the performing arts industry such as theatre, film, or television, casting, or a casting call, is a pre-production process for selecting a certain type of actor, dancer, singer, or extra for a particular role or part in a script, screenplay, ...

services in film and television. The same year, Carter began an academic career at the

in the Theatre and Film Department. She has said it was not planned; it just "happened" to her.

Short film director

The first of Carter's own

short films A short film is any motion picture that is short enough in running time not to be considered a feature film. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences defines a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of 40 minutes ...

was ''The Darkling Plain'' (2002), which was recognized and honoured in cities across Canada, followed by the

experimental An experiment is a procedure carried out to support or refute a hypothesis, or determine the efficacy or likelihood of something previously untried. Experiments provide insight into cause-and-effect by demonstrating what outcome occurs when ...

narrative film ''Rifting/Blue'' (2005), the first of several collaborations with writer and University of Winnipeg colleague Deborah Schnitzer, and which won world festival recognition. Her third short, ''Night Travellers'' (2007), was a

National Screen Institute The National Screen Institute - Canada (NSI; originally Canadian Screen Institute, CSI) is a non-profit organization headquartered in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. The organization describes itself as "Serving content creators across Canada to te ...

Drama Prize winner in 2007. In 2008, The

in Toronto invited Carter to participate in an exclusive workshop intensive (the Directors Lab, Short Dramatic Film programme) to develop film projects along with a handful of other Canadian professionals; her project was chosen for development by the Centre with $250,000 in production support. With the support of the University of Winnipeg, Carter directed and completed her award-winning

35mm 35 mm may refer to: * 135 film, a type of still photography format commonly referred to as 35 mm film * 35 mm movie film 35 mm film is a film gauge used in filmmaking, and the film standard. In motion pictures that record on fi ...

short '' One Night'' in the summer of 2009; it screened at several international film festivals. This was followed swiftly by two more collaborations with Deborah Schnitzer: ''Resolve'' (2009), a

dance film A dance film (also known as screen dance) is a film in which dance is used to reveal the central themes of the film, whether these themes be connected to narrative or story, states of being, or more experimental and formal concerns. In such film ...

, and ''Canoe'' (2010), based on Schnitzer's novel ''Jane Dying Again'', an experimental narrative film which won world festival recognition. The same year, Carter was selected to attend the Women in the Director's Chair Career Advancement Module presented in collaboration with the Vancouver International Women in Film Festival.

Feature film director

Carter's first feature film originated during her time at the CFC, the autobiographical ''

'' (2011), and won film festival attention and honours. The film solidified her position as one of Canada's leading practitioners of

psychological Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries betw ...

melodrama.

3D film, move to Bangladesh, and ''Rana Plaza''

Carter directed another experimental short film, '' Is It My Turn'' (2012), a 3D black and white dance film, again winning festival recognition. Her feature projects were put on hiatus following the

Rana Plaza Collapse The Rana Plaza collapse (also referred to as the Savar building collapse or the collapse of Rana Plaza) was a structural failure that occurred on 24 April 2013 in the Savar Upazila of Dhaka District, Bangladesh, where an eight-storey commercia ...

on 24 April 2013, when Carter's husband, Brad Loewen, was given the responsibility of implementing the

Accord Accord may refer to: Businesses and products * Honda Accord, a car manufactured by the Honda Motor Company * Accord (cigarette), a brand of Rothmans, Benson & Hedges * Accord (company), a former public services provider in south England * Accord H ...

signed by Western clothing manufacturers upgrading the safety features of 1600 Bangladeshi garment factories; they both moved to

Dhaka Dhaka ( or ; bn, ঢাকা, Ḍhākā, ), formerly known as Dacca, is the capital and largest city of Bangladesh, as well as the world's largest Bengali-speaking city. It is the eighth largest and sixth most densely populated city ...

in December 2013 for an expected five-year term. This led to Carter producing a short documentary, ''Rana Plaza: Let Not the Hope Die'' (2014), commemorating the one-year anniversary of the tragedy, "to support his work". ''Is It My Turn'' was screened in Dhaka at the request of the

Canadian High Commission {{Unreferenced, date=June 2019, bot=noref (GreenC bot) Canadian High Commissions are Canadian diplomatic missions in Commonwealth states. They are the equivalent of embassies in non-Commonwealth states. * List of Canadian High Commissioners to Aus ...

in January 2015, with Carter in attendance. In August 2015, she was described as living there "part-time". As of July 2016, Loewen was still chief safety inspector for the project.

Return to feature films

Carter's second feature (and fourth collaboration with Schnitzer), '' Before Anything You Say'' (2017) is an experimental

domestic drama Domestic drama expresses and focuses on the realistic everyday lives of middle or lower classes in a certain society, generally referring to the post-Renaissance eras. According to the ''English Communications Syllabus'', domestic drama refers to ...

film about a couple struggling to maintain their love and marriage even as a life-altering decision threatens to tear them apart. The film is once more partly autobiographical, based on her feelings about her husband accepting the position which took him to Bangladesh: "he was gone and here I was, in the prairies, by myself, in the place he wanted to move to." The film toured mainly in Europe in 2017 and 2018, almost overlapping with the release of her third feature, and won a handful of awards ahead of its Canadian premiere at the

Gimli Film Festival The Gimli International Film Festival is a Canadian film festival, held annually in Gimli, Manitoba. It is Manitoba's largest film festival, showcasing a mix of narrative, documentary and experimental feature films and short films. History The ...

in 2018, where Carter was presented with an award by the

Directors Guild of Canada The Directors Guild of Canada (DGC) is a Canadian labour union representing more than 5,500 professionals from 48 different occupations in the Canadian film and television industry. Founded in 1962, the DGC represents directors, editors, assist ...

. Carter's third feature, ''

'' (2018) is loosely based on characters from

Chekhov Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (; 29 January 1860Old Style date 17 January. – 15 July 1904Old Style date 2 July.) was a Russian playwright and short-story writer who is considered to be one of the greatest writers of all time. His career a ...

's ''

Uncle Vanya ''Uncle Vanya'' ( rus, Дя́дя Ва́ня, r=Dyádya Ványa, p=ˈdʲædʲə ˈvanʲə) is a play by the Russian playwright Anton Chekhov. It was first published in 1898, and was first produced in 1899 by the Moscow Art Theatre under the dire ...

'', specifically Yelena and Dr. Astrov. The story is about a recent

widow A widow (female) or widower (male) is a person whose spouse has died. Terminology The state of having lost one's spouse to death is termed ''widowhood''. An archaic term for a widow is "relict," literally "someone left over". This word can ...

re-examining her life and her identity in the wake of her husband's death, unexpectedly crossing paths with an old flame from her past, inspired to take up writing years after having given it up. Carter's fourth feature film is the romantic comedy ''Love, Repeat'', which premiered in New York City on 17 December 2019.

Projects in development

Over the years, there have been reports of Carter working on various feature projects: a prairie noir film called ''The Shooting Party''; a psychological thriller called ''Skinner'', written by Rebecca Gibson, about a detective who works with child victims of Internet exploitation who begins to suspect abuse in her own family; a humanistic comedy called ''Dreaming of Tempests''; an allegory called ''La Jefa''; most recently, ''The Woman Who Swallowed West Hawk Lake'', a psychological thriller, is said to be in development.

Directing style and aesthetics

Carter's experiences as an actress in New York and Los Angeles led her to want to become an actor herself and to develop her own method of directing:

I discovered a lot of directors didn't know how to talk to actors. They were much more technically minded and they would talk to an actor … and I knew from my training as an actor that doesn't help an actor. It's a process ... You have to be able to help them get into character and not tell them "cry here."

Carter said in 2012 that she tries to achieve "truth on the screen": "I really want people to feel they are actually looking at a situation, it isn't ''cinema vérité'', but I hope it's truthful. Therefore you don't 'see' any acting." Carter says she has been told her style of filmmaking is more akin to

European cinema Cinema of Europe refers to the film industries and films produced in the continent of Europe. Europeans were the pioneers of the motion picture industry, with several innovative engineers and artists making an impact especially at the end of t ...

, in that she is willing to let the film take its time and focus on older characters, and suggests that Europeans "value older people in their lives" more than North Americans, although she says "we are getting better at it", perhaps because the

Baby Boomers Baby boomers, often shortened to boomers, are the Western demographic cohort following the Silent Generation and preceding Generation X. The generation is often defined as people born from 1946 to 1964, during the mid-20th century baby boom. ...

are getting older.

Personal life

In an interview, Carter described leaving home for New York City as having "escaped" her family, but there was an incident in New York: "I was walking in Greenwich Village, 8th Street, and there was a moment when my body cut off, and I was suddenly in a silent movie. I knew then that I had to deal with my feelings." She underwent

psychoanalysis PsychoanalysisFrom Greek: + . is a set of theories and therapeutic techniques"What is psychoanalysis? Of course, one is supposed to answer that it is many things — a theory, a research method, a therapy, a body of knowledge. In what might b ...

. In her thirties, having returned from New York, she tried talking to her mother, who was "having a bad time again." She asked her mother if she loved her and her mother said: "Dear, it's so hard for me to talk about these things." Carter knew her mother did love her "ultimately", but, she said, "boy, we missed each other on some level." By the time of the release of ''Passionflower'', however, over the previous ten to fifteen years, her mother's mental health had become "much better" and Carter's parents "had some good time together." Looking back at her filmmaking career after the release of ''Before Anything You Say'', Carter said she realized that her films were all "in some way" about

betrayal Betrayal is the breaking or violation of a presumptive contract, trust, or confidence that produces moral and psychological conflict within a relationship amongst individuals, between organizations or between individuals and organizations. O ...

and abandonment, and that this was "something really deep in me from my own childhood, coming up in different forms." Carter's husband Brad Loewen and stepson Erik Friesen appear in a few of her films as a main cast member (''Rifting/Blue'') or an

extra Extra or Xtra may refer to: Arts, entertainment and media Film * ''The Extra'' (1962 film), a Mexican film * ''The Extra'' (2005 film), an Australian film Literature * ''Extra'' (newspaper), a Brazilian newspaper * '' Extra!'', an American m ...

(''Passionflower''). Sheila O'Malley has been friends with Carter since their time together as students at

. Carter has tended to work with many of the same collaborators and crew over several films, developing close bonds. For example, she has been collaborating with Deborah Schnitzer since ''Rifting/Blue'' (2005). She thinks of cinematographer Ousama Rawi, who first worked with Carter on ''One Night'', as "a great mentor". Carter resides in West St Paul, Manitoba, north of

. She took an early retirement from her position at the University of Winnipeg "to concentrate all her energies on filmmaking" in May 2019.

Filmography

Short film director, 2002–2010

*''The Darkling Plain'' (2002) *''Rifting/Blue'' (2005) *''Night Travellers'' (2007) *'' One Night'' (2009) *''Resolve'' (2009) *''Canoe'' (2010)

Feature film director, 2011–

*''

'' (2011) *'' Is It My Turn'' (2012) • short dance film *''Rana Plaza: Let Not the Hope Die'' (2014) • short documentary *'' Before Anything You Say'' (2017) *''

'' (2018) *''Love, Repeat'' (2019)

Notes

References

External links

Shelagh Carter
on IMDb {{DEFAULTSORT:Carter, Shelagh Film directors from Manitoba Canadian women film directors Film producers from Manitoba Canadian women film producers Canadian film actresses Year of birth missing (living people) Living people