Mount Allison launched its screen studies program during the pandemic, but this year, it broadened its scope when graduating student Darcy Worth pitched an independent study project to write and produce a short film. And this weekend, that short film, “The Yellow Wallpaper”, will premiere at the Motyer-Fancy Theatre.
Worth dropped by CHMA to talk about the project:
About two dozen fellow students worked on the film, says Worth, including actors, production designers, hair and makeup artists, costume designers and set builders. Before coming to Mount Allison, Worth studied and worked in film. “So when I heard about screen studies and what they were doing, I thought, wouldn’t it be cool to do a sort of independent study and actually make something and give the other students the experience of working on a film?”
Worth’s film is based on the 1892 short story by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, “The Yellow Wallpaper”, a story of a woman with misunderstood postpartum depression who is trapped by her physician husband for a rest cure treatment, which eventually causes her to lose her grip on reality.
“It’s terrifying and creepy,” says Worth, “and sadly, still very relevant in terms of how we treat a lot of conditions today.”
Worth says he fell in love with the story immediately, and saw its potential for a visual medium. “I remember reading it and being able to kind of see it in my head and what I thought it should look like,” says Worth. “The writing is very descriptive, you know, what the room looks like, what it smells like, how it affects her. And so I just thought it would translate well.”
Worth says he and his fellow students owe a debt of gratitude to Dr. Sarah Fanning, Mount Allison’s director of drama studies, the department that is home to the screen studies program, and the supervisor for Worth’s independent study. Fanning says she’s heard positive feedback from many of the students who worked on the film.
“It has already inspired other students who are proposing future filmmaking projects,” she writes in an email to CHMA. Fanning says the program was able to take on Worth’s project because of his background in technical filmmaking, but the “unprecedented interest and involvement in this project” means that Fanning and her fellow screen studies faculty “will be looking to include applied filmmaking as an integral part of the Program’s future.”
Tickets to The Yellow Wallpaper are available on Eventbrite for Friday and Saturday night at the Motyer-Fancy Theatre. The event also includes readings of two new plays by students, Story of the Century by Maika Branch and EUCHARIST by Sarah Tardif.
