Pamela Gallant wins $200K film award for 'Monica's News' at Whistler festival

VANCOUVER - Acadian-Canadian filmmaker Pamela Gallant has won a major prize from the Women in the Director's Chair organization at the Whistler Film Festival.

The director-producer won the WIDC Feature Film Award, which comes with an in-kind prize of up to $200,000 in services and rentals for a scripted feature project directed by a Canadian woman.

The award is designed to encourage more feature films directed by Canadian women and gender minorities.

Gallant has directed, shot or edited more that 70 documentaries filmed and broadcast throughout North America and Europe.

The Prince Edward Island native won the WIDC award for "Monica's News," which marks her feature-length drama directorial debut.

The story centres around a nine-year-old girl and the patriarchal traditions in the secluded village of Millman, N.S., in the summer of 1974.

"In the '70s, while feminist groups heroically waged battles for equality in North American big cities, in isolated rural settings, individual young girls and women were also bravely taking on the sexist inequities of their times within their own families and in religion-steeped communities — often at great personal cost," Gallant said in a statement.

"Their stories are much lesser known which is why I wrote 'Monica's News.'"

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 9, 2019.