Reel Talk kicks off tonight at the Khyber

Women in Film and Television-Atlantic continues its steady progression into the local film community beginning this Friday, March 25 at the Khyber (1588 Barrington Street) with Reel Talk, a monthly series of Q&As with notable industry women. The list includes producer and scholar Rita Shelton Deverell (April 29), cinematographer Becky Parsons (May 27) and filmmaker/Carbon Arc co-curator Siloën Daley (June 24).


The first event will feature Connie Littlefield, a local documentarian who will premiere her 2010 film Feed Your Head, which was sparked by her 2002 film Hoffman’s Potion, about LSD researchers whose work was thwarted by the drug’s street use and connections to the flower power scene.


One of her subjects in that film, Abram Hoffer, suggested she make a film about schizophrenia. “I wasn’t that interested at the time,” says Littlefield from her home in the north end. “Five years ago, he sent me an email that said ‘Look, you’ve really got to make this film because I’m going to be dead soon.’” She set up Feed Your Head with the National Film Board, which had produced Hoffman’s Potion. “Hoffer cured this rich guy’s son,” she says. “The rich guy’s son wanted to give him money, and he said, ‘I don’t want your money, but I know this filmmaker.’”

The NFB backed out at this point—“it looked like a conflict of interest”—but that meant Littlefield had a sizable budget at her disposal, with no restraints. “I’m completely spoiled rotten now, I had nobody to answer to,” she says. But that doesn’t mean she didn’t seek help. “Kent Martin is a dear friend of mine—he had retired from the National Film Board in Halifax in the meantime, but he consults on story issues and I have a lot of friends who producers. I don’t just go out blind and make a film. The community of filmmaking in Halifax comes in handy, whatever kind of large or small contribution, it’s hard to make films in a vaccuum.”

Reel Talk will happen at 7pm at the Khyber. It’s $6 or free if you’re a WIFT member.

This article appears in Mar 24-30, 2011.