- Christian Sparkes is an award winning writer and director hailing from Newfoundland, Canada. He has directed numerous episodes of television and his films have screened at the world's top festivals including TIFF, Fantastic Fest and Busan. An alumnus of the prestigious Canadian Film Centre in Toronto, Christian's debut feature Cast No Shadow was nominated for four Canadian Screen Awards including Best Picture. His sophomore feature Hammer starring Will Patton and Mark O'Brien debuted in 2020 and received widespread acclaim from Roger Ebert and The Hollywood Reporter, amongst others. His third and fourth feature films, Sweetland and The King Tide, are set to be released in 2023, the latter of which was selected for TIFF's prestigious Platform Program.- IMDb Mini Biography By: Anonymous
- When you grow up in a small town, oftentimes, you can't get out of there quick enough. I grew up in the suburbs of St. John's, [and] I watched mostly American, very Westernized films. I wasn't interested in telling Newfoundland stories. Invariably, you get a bit older and you come back in to where you started. You realize the more you travel, being from Newfoundland is the one thing that makes you interesting.
- There wasn't much to do on cold winters in 1950. People became really good storytellers, really good musicians. People are very creative in these remote places, just out of sheer necessity to entertain themselves. There's a lot of creative people here, and a lot of it comes from those humble beginnings. What are you going to do on a dark, lonely Saturday night in the Middle of Nowhere, Newfoundland, right?
- When you look at the tourism ads and you look at Republic of Doyle, people have this idea of the colourful houses and the happy people waving you over, and that's great. It's done Newfoundland proud and done well for the community. But that's not my Newfoundland. That's not the Newfoundland that interests me. I much more respond to the artwork of David Blackwood and Michael Crummey and this idea of Newfoundland Gothic.
- Let's be real: for a long time, Newfoundland was the butt of the joke. You get a bit of a steely armour, you turn inward a little.
Contribute to this page
Suggest an edit or add missing content