Crackie

Colour, 35 mm
Canada, 2008, 90 min
WP – World premiere
Section: Another View

Synopsis

Seventeen-year-old Mitsy lives with her grandmother Bride in a ramshackle house in a small Newfoundland town. By day Bride scavenges the dump for junk to sell, by night she services local village men. Mitsy studies hair design at the local college and dreams about leaving to find her mother in Alberta after she finishes school. Her mother has no idea of her plans. Because she feels lonely, Mitsy decides to get a dog, but shop assistant Duffy isn’t about to let it go for free. Bride hopes that her granddaughter’s life will be different from her own, but unfortunately it seems that Mitsy is making the same mistakes as her mother and grandmother. Approaching the authenticity of a Ken Loach film, Crackie is indebted to excellent acting performances. Despite the gloom and desperation of certain situations, the film is full of hope, humanity, and tragicomic moments. Meghan Greeley shines in the role of Mitsy, her film debut.

About the director

Sherry White lives in Newfoundland where she is an acclaimed actress, director, and screenwriter. The feature The Bread Maker, which she wrote and played the lead in, premiered at the Toronto IFF in 2003. She cowrote the script for Down to the Dirt, which screened at Toronto in 2008 and received the Atlantic Film Festival Award for Best Screenplay; she also appeared in the film. White has worked with the CBC on many TV films and series, including Rabittown, "Hatching, Matching, & Dispatching,” "MVP: the Secret Lives of Hockey Wives,” and "Sophie.” Two award-winning shorts, Bucket (2007) and Spoiled (2008), were screened at the festival in Toronto. Crackie, her feature directorial debut, is based on an award-winning script written by the director.