River Heights resident writing drama thriller

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This article was published 31/12/2021 (1555 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A River Heights resident is writing a limited drama thriller series as part of a program through the National Screen Institute –Canada’s series incubator program.

“I’ve always been writing, as is the background for most writers,” Jessica Landry, 35, said.

“I started writing prose, mainly short fiction, and mostly did horror because that’s my favourite genre. Over the past few years, I’ve segued into screenwriting.”

The NSI series incubator is an eight-month, four-phase program for producer and writer teams from under-represented communities.

The in-depth training program helps participants develop a scripted series with support and guidance from experienced industry professionals. The result is a series proof-of-concept film, including a stand-alone short film, a scene from the series or a promotional trailer.

Participants also receive up to $28,000 in cash and in-kind support to film a proof-of-concept for the series.

The limited series Landry will be writing is a drama thriller called Ghosts of Lakeland.

“It’s kind of in the vein of Sharp Objects and Big Littles Lies,” she said. “It’s about a mother and daughter living in a small Manitoba town and the daughter goes missing, and it’s up to the mother to figure out what happened.”

Landry, who has Métis heritage and is a member of the Manitoba Métis Federation, is no stranger to the world of filmmaking. Her original horror feature, My Only Sunshine, was accepted into Whistler Film Festival’s 2020 Screenwriters Lab and is in development with Eagle Vision. She’s written for a variety of television projects, including Strays (CBC), Heartland Homicide (Farpoint Films), 7th Gen (Eagle Vision/APTN) and several movies of the week.

Landry is currently adapting the best-selling novels April Raintree (Eagle Vision) and Leaving the Witness (Sir Harry Films) and was recently selected for the CFC/Netflix project development accelerator with her original horror/comedy series Catastrophe Queens.

Landry was looking for something to help her focus on properly telling a story when she came across the Series Incubator program online.

“There’s always new people to meet, and the industry is pretty big but pretty small at the same time, so it’s good to get your name out there,” she said.

“I wrangled my producer, Hannah Johnson, saying I think we should do this. Then we got the email, and it was like, ‘OK, we’re really doing it now.’”

Landry and Johnson had previously worked together at local production company Eagle Vision.

“I’m lucky to have her supporting me and us working together through this program to hopefully get it done,” Landry said.

More information on the National Screen Institute series incubator program can be found at www.nsi-canada.ca/courses/nsi-series-incubator/