The Coast: Halifax filmmaker Leah Johnston screens Mothers Skin at Vancouver International Film Festival

By the fall of 2021, the local film biz was roaring back to life after a series of COVID-related shutdowns: Things we moving, sets were cropping up all over, and Screen Nova Scotia was announcing an industry-wide boom. Local filmmaker Leah Johnston was both an example of the buzz and completely outside of it, filming a 1970s-set short on 16mm film in Sambro, NS. An NYU Tisch School alum, Johnston’s shorts are no strangers to sweeping the fest circuit: Her 2016 flick Ingrid and the Black Hole was long-listed for an Academy Award and nabbed the Telefilm: Not Short on Talent prize when it showed at the Cannes Film Festival. The project she spent fall 2021 shooting is called Mother’s Skin and it follows a neglected six-year-old’s attempt to cope with her mother’s depression and her father’s alcoholism. When the child discovers a secret hidden within their home, her world shifts completely. Mother’s Skin stars actual six-year-old Briar Mosher in her first acting role. The film will be making its international debut early next month at the Vancouver International Film Festival before showing at Montreal’s Festival du Nouveau Cinema and New Brunswick’s Silver Wave Film Festival this fall. Peep the official film trailer below:

Read more at: https://www.thecoast.ca/halifax/halifax-filmmaker-leah-johnston-screens-mothers-skin-at-vancouver-international-film-festival/Content?oid=29431946