Film
Brittany Ollerenshaw on Harvesting Dreams By Peter Paylor
Ashley Slessor
W hen a group of
artists from the Brighton Arts Council were busy creating new works for a Vincent Van Gogh-inspired show for Belleville’s Parrott Art Gallery in the spring of 2014, Brittany Ollerenshaw decided to capture their progress on video. “The things they were saying about Van Gogh and about creativity… there were a lot of common themes,” she says. “I realized there was a bigger story to be told.” That story became the documentary film
Unravelling Vincent , which first screened at the 2014 Belleville Downtown DocFest and later at the Parrott Gallery as part of the show. A film buff from a young age, Ollerenshaw studied Film Theory at York University straight out of high school. “I fell out of love with film, writing essay after essay,” she says of the experience. She credits Unravelling Vincent, for igniting her new love for making documentary films. “It was a happy accident,” she says. “It was an accidental documentary.”
“If you put everything you have into your dream, you harvest your dream."
Melanie Harrington
Her next project turned out to be entirely intentional. After having been involved in the grueling six-month process of putting together a community theatre 10
musical production – she was in the Belleville Theatre Guild’s 2012 production of Anne of Green Gables – Ollerenshaw approached the Guild about making a behind the scenes film about their 2015 production of The Drowsy Chaperone. Ollerenshaw and her camera were there from the first production meeting to opening night, but a new career and a new baby put that project on the shelf for more than a year before Making of a Musical finally screened at DocFest in 2018. “Part of it for me,” she says, “was being part of the experience again.” Like Unravelling Vincent, it’s a film about creativity and passion. “Every single person involved in the musical said the same thing,” she says. “They can’t live without out it. They can’t live without theatre. They can’t live without creativity.” It’s a theme that connects Ollerenshaw with her work. “Perseverance, new beginnings, passion for your work. I really enjoy focusing on those creative, passionate people. It helps, when a project takes so long to complete, to really want to be invested in your subject matter.”
