Annmarie Morais

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Annmarie Morais (born 1973 in Jamaica) is a Jamaican-Canadian screenwriter best known for writing the film How She Move. She earned a BFA from York University in Film and Video in 1995.

Morais won funding for two Vision TV Cultural Diversity Drama Competition movies: Hotel Babylon and Da Kink in My Hair, which aired on Vision in 2004 and 2005.[1] Hotel Babylon is the story of immigrants working in a hotel in Winnipeg, Canada. Kink was adapted from the Trey Anthony play about a beauty parlour in a Jamaican-Canadian neighbourhood. Morais was also a writer and story editor on the television series adapted from the play, which aired on Global Television in 2007.

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[edit] Nicholl Prize

Morais was the first Canadian to win the prestigious Nicholl Fellowship in Screenwriting. She was also the first person to win the Nicholl with a resubmitted script. Bleeding was a finalist in 1998, and she resubmitted it without changes in 1999. [2] The prize, administered by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, garnered Morais $25,000.

[edit] How She Move

While at York, Morais had produced a short documentary Steppin on step-dancing in Toronto's Jane-Finch neighborhood. In 2004, she received Telefilm financing to produce a feature film based on the same concept. Originally titled Step, the film How She Move was accepted into the 2007 Sundance Film Festival. At Sundance, a bidding war resulted in a $3.4 million offer from Paramount and MTV Films. [3] The film received wide release in the United States and Canada in January 2007.

[edit] Current Projects

Splitting her time between Los Angeles and Toronto, Morais has created a television show for ABC Family about high-school cheerleaders, called The Flip Side. She is also writing a thriller set in London, The Collectors to be directed by fellow Jamaican-Canadian Clement Virgo and adapting Jane Finlay-Young’s novel From Bruised Fell.[4] [5]

[edit] References

  1. ^ Hotel Babylon
  2. ^ Y-File
  3. ^ How she move that 49th parallel MacLean's January 17 2008
  4. ^ YorkU_feb08_>>PDF
  5. ^ Téléfilm Canada - Flash info

[edit] External links