Dartmouth director makes feature film debut amid N.S. budget cuts

CITYnews halifax/ By Steve Gow

Nearly two weeks after the Nova Scotia government announced it was making massive cuts to the arts sector, a Dartmouth filmmaker is about to release her new movie into theatres.

Opening Saturday in Halifax at Cineplex Park Lane Cinemas, Monica’s News tells the story of a young girl waging a radical fight for equal rights in a fictional Nova Scotia town during the 1970s.

However, after nine-year-old Casey’s feminist cousin Monica is discovered murdered, the intrepid small-town paper carrier attempts to confront the alleged suspect, facing a vehement response from family and others in the community.

“It’s very much a story that seeks to recognize women who have fought in big or small ways to have a voice, to be seen or to be heard,” says Pamela Gallant ahead of the movie’s release a day ahead of International Women’s Day on Sunday. “So it’s really special that it’s opening this weekend as well.”

Filmed around Nova Scotia, with locations in Ellershouse, Black Point, and Kidston Lake Beach in Spryfield, Monica’s News has been garnering praise ahead of its release, earning the film a best feature nomination and a best director award for Gallant at the 2025 Screen Nova Scotia Awards.

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In spite of the critical acclaim, Gallant notes that Monica’s News was not an easy movie to make.

“I wrote the script in 2010, so it has been a long journey,” says Gallant, noting that during the lengthy production process, her film had undergone government funding cuts. “You do need that funding from the government to complement or finish your financing structure in order to get an independent feature done in Nova Scotia.”

Gallant says with the province’s latest budget cuts of around $130 million in grants for arts and culture programs, she worries about what that means for film and talent development in Nova Scotia in the future.

“It’s important to have a voice, basically,” says Gallant. “It’s important to have a Canadian voice, an Atlantic voice, a Maritime voice, a Nova Scotia voice, to counter the other voices that are out there.”

Although she’s unsure how the cuts will impact filmmaking in the province, she realizes that the reduction of funding will create even more obstacles to develop local talent and tell local stories, or even worse, contribute to a collapse of the film industry.

“Art is supposed to make people think or reflect or challenge the status quo,” says Gallant. “Culturally also, we are already awash in American culture so what happens if we completely lose any means of creating culture here.”

Monica’s News will screen at Cineplex Park Lane Cinemas on March 7, 8 and 12 and at the Al Whittle Theatre in Wolfville on March 11.