Patricia Rozema
Encyclopedia
Patricia Rozema is a Canadian film director
and screenwriter
.
and raised in Sarnia, Ontario
. Her parents, Jacoba Berandina (née Vos) and Jan Rozema, were Dutch
Calvinist
s. Television was severely restricted and she didn’t go to a movie theatre until she was 16 years old. Rozema studied philosophy and English literature at Calvin College
in Michigan
. After a brief stint as a print and then television journalist (CBC Television
’s The Journal
), she directed her first feature, I've Heard the Mermaids Singing
, a serious comedy about a socially inept Girl Friday (Sheila McCarthy as Polly), which made one of the most outstanding feature debuts in the history of Canadian cinema. At the 1987 Cannes Film Festival, I’ve Heard the Mermaids Singing won the Prix de la Jeunesse. That same year, it was voted one of Canada’s ten best films ever as polled by 100 international critics.
Rozema also directed the Six Gestures (part of the Yo-Yo Ma
Inspired by Bach
television series), which combined images of Yo-Yo Ma performing with skating sequences by Jane Torvill and Christopher Dean
, interwoven with J.S. Bach's first-person narrative. Six Gestures was nominated for a Grammy and was awarded a Prime Time Emmy, the top award in North American television, for Outstanding Classical Music-Dance Program, as well as a Golden Rose
, the top television award in Europe (1998).
Rozema’s next two films were made outside Canada. Mansfield Park
(1999, U.K., Miramax) is a revisionist adaptation of Jane Austen
’s novel of that name
. Mansfield Park opened the 1999 World Film Festival in Montreal, the Chicago Film Festival, the Mill Valley Film Festival in San Francisco and was featured as a special presentation at the Toronto International Film Festival.
Happy Days (2000), an Irish production, is a film version of Samuel Beckett
’s humorously despairing play
in which a woman lives partially buried in a mound of sand. Happy Days is part of The Beckett Film Project (a project aimed at filming all of Beckett's plays), which includes work by directors David Mamet
, Neil Jordan
, Anthony Minghella
and Atom Egoyan
.
Throughout her career Rozema has written, directed, edited and produced a number of short films, including Passion: A Letter in 16mm (1985); Urban Menace (1986); Desperanto (1991) as part of Montreal Vu Par; This Might Be Good (2000) for the Toronto International Film Festival; and Suspect (2005) which was reproduced in the journal Alphabet City 10 – Suspect (MIT Press).
Her film credits also include White Room
(1990) and When Night is Falling
(1995), which debuted in competition at the Berlin International Film Festival and won festival audience prizes around the world. It was voted one of the top 200 films of the 20th century “Top 200 of 2000” by the Chlotrudus Society of Independent Film. Also, Kit Kittredge: An American Girl
(2008), which she directed and ghost wrote, was based on the phenomenally successful American Girl book series. The film earned Rozema a Director’s Guild of Canada Award nomination for Best Director and New York Times critic A. O. Scott
hailed Abigail Breslin for turning in one of the top five female performances of the year.
Rozema’s television credits include the pilot and two subsequent episodes of HBO’s groundbreaking dramatic series Tell Me You Love Me
(2008), an episode of the critically acclaimed HBO series In Treatment
(2010), and episodes of the Canadian television sitcom Michael, Tuesdays and Thursdays, scheduled to debut on CBC Television
in fall 2011.
Rozema and co-writer Michael Suscy received an Emmy nomination (Outstanding Writing for a Miniseries, Movie or a Dramatic Special), a Writers Guild of America Award nomination (Long Form – Original) and a PEN USA Award nomination in Screenplay for the HBO movie Grey Gardens (2009).
Film director
A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...
and screenwriter
Screenwriter
Screenwriters or scriptwriters or scenario writers are people who write/create the short or feature-length screenplays from which mass media such as films, television programs, Comics or video games are based.-Profession:...
.
Life and career
Rozema was born in Kingston, OntarioKingston, Ontario
Kingston, Ontario is a Canadian city located in Eastern Ontario where the St. Lawrence River flows out of Lake Ontario. Originally a First Nations settlement called "Katarowki," , growing European exploration in the 17th Century made it an important trading post...
and raised in Sarnia, Ontario
Sarnia, Ontario
Sarnia is a city in Southern Ontario, Canada . It is the largest city on Lake Huron and is located where the upper Great Lakes empty into the St. Clair River....
. Her parents, Jacoba Berandina (née Vos) and Jan Rozema, were Dutch
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
Calvinist
Calvinism
Calvinism is a Protestant theological system and an approach to the Christian life...
s. Television was severely restricted and she didn’t go to a movie theatre until she was 16 years old. Rozema studied philosophy and English literature at Calvin College
Calvin College
Calvin College is a comprehensive liberal arts college located in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Founded in 1876, Calvin College is an educational institution of the Christian Reformed Church and stands in the Reformed tradition of Protestantism...
in Michigan
Michigan
Michigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....
. After a brief stint as a print and then television journalist (CBC Television
CBC Television
CBC Television is a Canadian television network owned by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the national public broadcaster.Although the CBC is supported by public funding, the television network supplements this funding with commercial advertising revenue, in contrast to CBC Radio which are...
’s The Journal
The Journal
The Journal was a popular current affairs newsmagazine on CBC Television from 1982 to 1992. It aired weeknights at 10:22 pm, following The National at 10:00 pm, and expanding on stories presented on there with in-depth interviews, documentaries, and televised "town hall" meetings...
), she directed her first feature, I've Heard the Mermaids Singing
I've Heard the Mermaids Singing
I've Heard the Mermaids Singing is a 1987 theatrical-release feature film, directed by Patricia Rozema. The title is taken from The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T. S. Eliot.-Plot:...
, a serious comedy about a socially inept Girl Friday (Sheila McCarthy as Polly), which made one of the most outstanding feature debuts in the history of Canadian cinema. At the 1987 Cannes Film Festival, I’ve Heard the Mermaids Singing won the Prix de la Jeunesse. That same year, it was voted one of Canada’s ten best films ever as polled by 100 international critics.
Rozema also directed the Six Gestures (part of the Yo-Yo Ma
Yo-Yo Ma
Yo-Yo Ma is an American cellist, virtuoso, and orchestral composer. He has received multiple Grammy Awards, the National Medal of Arts in 2001 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2011...
Inspired by Bach
Inspired by Bach
Inspired by Bach, a Sony Classical and Rhombus Media production as part of Sony Classical celebrates Bach series, presents contemporary cellist Yo-Yo Ma performing the six Suites for Unaccompanied Cello by Johann Sebastian Bach in collaboration with artists from different disciplines, in a set of...
television series), which combined images of Yo-Yo Ma performing with skating sequences by Jane Torvill and Christopher Dean
Christopher Dean
Christopher Colin Dean, OBE is a famous British ice dancer who won a gold medal at the 1984 Winter Olympics with his skating partner Jayne Torvill...
, interwoven with J.S. Bach's first-person narrative. Six Gestures was nominated for a Grammy and was awarded a Prime Time Emmy, the top award in North American television, for Outstanding Classical Music-Dance Program, as well as a Golden Rose
Golden Rose
The Golden Rose is a gold ornament, which popes of the Catholic Church have traditionally blessed annually. It is occasionally conferred as a token of reverence or affection...
, the top television award in Europe (1998).
Rozema’s next two films were made outside Canada. Mansfield Park
Mansfield Park
Mansfield Park may mean:* Mansfield Park by Jane Austen* Mansfield Park , based on the novel, directed by Patricia Rozema, starring Frances O'Connor, Embeth Davidtz, and Sheila Gish in 1999...
(1999, U.K., Miramax) is a revisionist adaptation of Jane Austen
Jane Austen
Jane Austen was an English novelist whose works of romantic fiction, set among the landed gentry, earned her a place as one of the most widely read writers in English literature, her realism and biting social commentary cementing her historical importance among scholars and critics.Austen lived...
’s novel of that name
Mansfield Park
Mansfield Park may mean:* Mansfield Park by Jane Austen* Mansfield Park , based on the novel, directed by Patricia Rozema, starring Frances O'Connor, Embeth Davidtz, and Sheila Gish in 1999...
. Mansfield Park opened the 1999 World Film Festival in Montreal, the Chicago Film Festival, the Mill Valley Film Festival in San Francisco and was featured as a special presentation at the Toronto International Film Festival.
Happy Days (2000), an Irish production, is a film version of Samuel Beckett
Samuel Beckett
Samuel Barclay Beckett was an Irish avant-garde novelist, playwright, theatre director, and poet. He wrote both in English and French. His work offers a bleak, tragicomic outlook on human nature, often coupled with black comedy and gallows humour.Beckett is widely regarded as among the most...
’s humorously despairing play
Happy Days (play)
Happy Days is a play in two acts, written in English, by Samuel Beckett. He began the play on 8 October 1960 and it was completed on 14 May 1961. Beckett finished the translation into French by November 1962 but amended the title...
in which a woman lives partially buried in a mound of sand. Happy Days is part of The Beckett Film Project (a project aimed at filming all of Beckett's plays), which includes work by directors David Mamet
David Mamet
David Alan Mamet is an American playwright, essayist, screenwriter and film director.Best known as a playwright, Mamet won a Pulitzer Prize and received a Tony nomination for Glengarry Glen Ross . He also received a Tony nomination for Speed-the-Plow . As a screenwriter, he received Oscar...
, Neil Jordan
Neil Jordan
Neil Patrick Jordan is an Irish filmmaker and novelist. He won an Academy Award for The Crying Game.- Early life :...
, Anthony Minghella
Anthony Minghella
Anthony Minghella, CBE was an English film director, playwright and screenwriter. He was Chairman of the Board of Governors at the British Film Institute between 2003 and 2007....
and Atom Egoyan
Atom Egoyan
Atom Egoyan, OC is a critically acclaimed Armenian-Canadian stage director and film director. Egoyan made his career breakthrough with Exotica...
.
Throughout her career Rozema has written, directed, edited and produced a number of short films, including Passion: A Letter in 16mm (1985); Urban Menace (1986); Desperanto (1991) as part of Montreal Vu Par; This Might Be Good (2000) for the Toronto International Film Festival; and Suspect (2005) which was reproduced in the journal Alphabet City 10 – Suspect (MIT Press).
Her film credits also include White Room
White Room (film)
White Room is a Canadian drama film, released in 1990.The film, written and directed by Patricia Rozema, stars Maurice Godin, Kate Nelligan and Sheila McCarthy. Godin plays Norm, a confused young man who is drawn into events after witnessing the murder of rock star Madeleine X...
(1990) and When Night is Falling
When Night is Falling
When Night is Falling is a 1995 Canadian drama film directed by Patricia Rozema.-Plot:The film stars Pascale Bussières as Camille Baker, a university literature professor at a religious college struggling with both her tenure-track career and her troubled relationship with fellow professor Martin...
(1995), which debuted in competition at the Berlin International Film Festival and won festival audience prizes around the world. It was voted one of the top 200 films of the 20th century “Top 200 of 2000” by the Chlotrudus Society of Independent Film. Also, Kit Kittredge: An American Girl
Kit Kittredge: An American Girl
Kit Kittredge: An American Girl is a 2008 American comedy-drama film directed by Patricia Rozema. The screenplay by Ann Peacock focuses on the American Girl character Kit Kittredge, who lives in Cincinnati, Ohio during the Great Depression...
(2008), which she directed and ghost wrote, was based on the phenomenally successful American Girl book series. The film earned Rozema a Director’s Guild of Canada Award nomination for Best Director and New York Times critic A. O. Scott
A. O. Scott
Anthony Oliver Scott, known as A. O. Scott , is an American journalist and critic. He is a chief film critic for The New York Times, along with Manohla Dargis.-Background and education:...
hailed Abigail Breslin for turning in one of the top five female performances of the year.
Rozema’s television credits include the pilot and two subsequent episodes of HBO’s groundbreaking dramatic series Tell Me You Love Me
Tell Me You Love Me
Tell Me You Love Me is an American cable television drama series that premiered on HBO and on The Movie Network on September 9, 2007.The series was created by Cynthia Mort and originally conceived as sexlife. The pilot episode was produced and directed by Patricia Rozema and shot in Winnipeg,...
(2008), an episode of the critically acclaimed HBO series In Treatment
In Treatment
In Treatment is an American HBO drama, produced and developed by Rodrigo Garcia, about a psychologist, 50-something Dr. Paul Weston, and his weekly sessions with patients, as well as those with his own therapist at the end of the week. The program, which stars Gabriel Byrne as Paul, debuted on...
(2010), and episodes of the Canadian television sitcom Michael, Tuesdays and Thursdays, scheduled to debut on CBC Television
CBC Television
CBC Television is a Canadian television network owned by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the national public broadcaster.Although the CBC is supported by public funding, the television network supplements this funding with commercial advertising revenue, in contrast to CBC Radio which are...
in fall 2011.
Rozema and co-writer Michael Suscy received an Emmy nomination (Outstanding Writing for a Miniseries, Movie or a Dramatic Special), a Writers Guild of America Award nomination (Long Form – Original) and a PEN USA Award nomination in Screenplay for the HBO movie Grey Gardens (2009).
Filmography
- Urban Menace (short), director (1984)
- Passion: A Letter in 16 mm (short) (1985)
- Head OfficeHead OfficeHead Office is a 1985 American comedy film, produced by HBO Pictures in association with Silver Screen Partners. It stars Judge Reinhold, Eddie Albert, Lori-Nan Engler, Jane Seymour, Richard Masur, Michael O'Donoghue, Ron Frazier, Merritt Butrick and was directed and written by Ken...
, Assistant Director (1985) - The FlyThe Fly (1986 film)The Fly is a 1986 science fiction horror film co-written and directed by David Cronenberg. Produced by 20th Century Fox, and Brooksfilms, the film stars Jeff Goldblum, Geena Davis and John Getz. It is a remake of the 1958 film of the same name, but retains only the basic premise of a scientist...
, 3rd Assistant Director (1986) - I've Heard the Mermaids SingingI've Heard the Mermaids SingingI've Heard the Mermaids Singing is a 1987 theatrical-release feature film, directed by Patricia Rozema. The title is taken from The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T. S. Eliot.-Plot:...
, director, writer, producer (1987) - White RoomWhite Room (film)White Room is a Canadian drama film, released in 1990.The film, written and directed by Patricia Rozema, stars Maurice Godin, Kate Nelligan and Sheila McCarthy. Godin plays Norm, a confused young man who is drawn into events after witnessing the murder of rock star Madeleine X...
, director, writer, co-producer - Desperanto (short), director, writer 1991.
- When Night is FallingWhen Night is FallingWhen Night is Falling is a 1995 Canadian drama film directed by Patricia Rozema.-Plot:The film stars Pascale Bussières as Camille Baker, a university literature professor at a religious college struggling with both her tenure-track career and her troubled relationship with fellow professor Martin...
, director, writer (1995) - Curtis's Charm, executive producer (1995)
- At My Back I Always Hear (tv episode) (1996)
- Six Gestures, from series "Yo-Yo Ma, Inspired by Bach" director, writer (1997)
- The Shape I Think (short) (1997)
- Mansfield ParkMansfield Park (film)Mansfield Park is a 1999 British romantic comedy-drama film loosely based on Jane Austen's novel of the same name, written and directed by Patricia Rozema. The film differs sharply from the original novel in many respects. For example, the life of Jane Austen is incorporated into the film and the...
, director, writer (1999) - Happy Days director (2000)
- This Might Be Good (short), director, writer (2000)
- A Wrinkle In TimeA Wrinkle in TimeA Wrinkle in Time is a science fantasy novel by Madeleine L'Engle, first published in 1962. The story revolves around a young girl whose father, a government scientist, has gone missing after working on a mysterious project called a tesseract. The book won a Newbery Medal, Sequoyah Book Award, and...
, executive producer (2003) - Tell Me You Love MeTell Me You Love MeTell Me You Love Me is an American cable television drama series that premiered on HBO and on The Movie Network on September 9, 2007.The series was created by Cynthia Mort and originally conceived as sexlife. The pilot episode was produced and directed by Patricia Rozema and shot in Winnipeg,...
, HBO pilot and two episodes, director (2008) - Kit Kittredge: An American GirlKit Kittredge: An American GirlKit Kittredge: An American Girl is a 2008 American comedy-drama film directed by Patricia Rozema. The screenplay by Ann Peacock focuses on the American Girl character Kit Kittredge, who lives in Cincinnati, Ohio during the Great Depression...
, director (2008) - Grey GardensGrey GardensGrey Gardens is a 1975 documentary film by Albert and David Maysles, with Susan Froemke, Ellen Hovde, and Muffie Meyer. The film depicts the everyday lives of two reclusive socialites, a mother and daughter both named Edith Beale, who lived at Grey Gardens, a decrepit mansion at 3 West End Road in...
, co-writer (2009) - In TreatmentIn TreatmentIn Treatment is an American HBO drama, produced and developed by Rodrigo Garcia, about a psychologist, 50-something Dr. Paul Weston, and his weekly sessions with patients, as well as those with his own therapist at the end of the week. The program, which stars Gabriel Byrne as Paul, debuted on...
, Episode: Frances – Week 3, director (2010)
Awards
- Second prize at the Chicago International Film Festival for her short Passion: A Letter in 16 mm.
- I've Heard the Mermaids SingingI've Heard the Mermaids SingingI've Heard the Mermaids Singing is a 1987 theatrical-release feature film, directed by Patricia Rozema. The title is taken from The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T. S. Eliot.-Plot:...
won the Prix de la Jeunesse at Director's Fortnight in Cannes and was nominated for Best Picture – with Rozema garnering nominations Best Director and Best Screenplay – at the 9th Genie Awards9th Genie AwardsThe 9th annual Genie Awards were held March 22, 1988 and honoured Canadian films released in 1987. The ceremony was held at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre and was co-hosted by Megan Follows and Gordon Pinsent...
in 1988. The film received 17 further awards. It is listed as one of the Best Canadian Films of All Time by the International Film Critics association.
- White RoomWhite Room (film)White Room is a Canadian drama film, released in 1990.The film, written and directed by Patricia Rozema, stars Maurice Godin, Kate Nelligan and Sheila McCarthy. Godin plays Norm, a confused young man who is drawn into events after witnessing the murder of rock star Madeleine X...
earned 4 prizes, and 3 Genie nominations.
- When Night is FallingWhen Night is FallingWhen Night is Falling is a 1995 Canadian drama film directed by Patricia Rozema.-Plot:The film stars Pascale Bussières as Camille Baker, a university literature professor at a religious college struggling with both her tenure-track career and her troubled relationship with fellow professor Martin...
premiered in competition in the Berlin Film Festival and went on to win over 30 awards from different countries and at various gay and lesbian film festivals.
- Yo-Yo Ma, Inspired by Bach"" Rozema's episode "Six Gestures" won a Prime Time Emmy Award and was nominated for a Grammy. (other contributors included Atom Egoyan)