Acclaimed filmmaker Latonia Hartery to help local youth create a documentary

May 30th, 2012, St. John’s — Rum running, sardines and Palaeo-Eskimo Plant Use: that list barely scrapes the surface of Latonia Hartery’s interests.

On the heels of the success of her latest documentary, Rum Running, the acclaimed Bay d’Espoir-born filmmaker has returned to her home province to complete her post-doctoral fellowship in Archaeology at Memorial University.

While she’s here, she’s going to help a group of lucky kids at For the Love of Learning make their own documentary.

For our next installment of the FRAMED Film Education Series, the St. John’s International Women’s Film Festival has partnered with For the Love of Learning for FRAMED Doc St. John’s, an intensive documentary filmmaking camp. From June 24th to June 29th, a team of 8 – 10 youth will workshop, prep, shoot and edit an entire documentary under the expert guidance of Latonia Hartery.

“It is such an incredible opportunity to have Latonia here to do this,” says Kelly Davis, executive director at the St. John’s International Women’s Film Festival. “To have someone of her calibre and enthusiasm mentoring FRAMED is such a great opportunity for all involved. I wish I could do a workshop with her!”

Now in its 11th year, the FRAMED Film Education Series offers free, high-quality filmmaking camps to youth in order to encourage, support and train them in the craft and business of filmmaking. Camps include FRAMED Doc, a camp for documentary filmmaking; FRAMED Drama, a camp for fictional film; and FRAMED Animation, a camp that creates an animated film. Past FRAMED Doc partners include The Brother T.I. Murphy Centre, Choices For Youth, and the Refugee and Immigrant Advisory Council.

Latonia Hartery has been working in film and television for 12 years. She has field-produced eight documentaries in cities around the world, as well as directed several of her own. Her various projects have been funded by APTN, the CBC, as well as the Canada Council for the Arts.

For more information or for an interview with Latonia, please contact:

Sarah Smellie
Communications and Publicity Manager
St. John’s International Women’s Film Festival
709-754-3141 (office) 709-689-0296 (cell)