Jereme Watt’s Everything’s Coming Up Rosie

Jereme Watt is the second of four Canadian short filmmakers we’ve featured in issue#61

Thirty-three-year-old Jereme Watt had not always planned on becoming a filmmaker. After receiving a diploma in Outdoor Pursuits at Mount Royal College, he moved to Fernie, B.C. to improve his snowboarding skills. But after two years on the slopes, he decided to make a change and go back to school. Jereme went to the Fernie library intending to research a post-secondary program, such as physiotherapy, that would allow him to expand on and nurture his love for the outdoors. However, the library’s collection of academic calendars was quite sparse, and instead Jereme encountered information on a film program in Calgary. He has since graduated from the program and worked on several projects. Everything’s Coming Up Rosie is his first short that has generated buzz outside the realm of YouTube.

The film centres around the life of a young autistic girl who struggles to communicate with her family on the most basic of levels. Jodelle Ferland of Nanaimo, B.C., star of horror flicks Silent Hill and Tideland, plays the leading role (she’ll also be in the third Twilight movie). While we get a glimpse into the life of a loving family experiencing strain due to frustration, the film is slightly atypical in that it employs both animation and actors to tell its story. What arises from this is a sort of Alice in Wonderland-type feeling where the viewer not only has the opportunity to see what the parents of the autistic girl see, but also to view the trials and tribulations that the girl herself has to sift through in her own mind.

If you do shed a tear at the end of the film as I did, Jereme would be pleased—not because he enjoys watching his audience cry, but because this is a way of measuring success. He says, “I have heard from some people who have seen Everything’s Coming Up Rosie that there was an emotional nerve struck and that is very satisfying to me because it’s all about storytelling … I am very proud of this project overall in that regard.”

Although this is Jereme’s first major short, there is certainly no visible lack of experience in the film. Humbly, he credits much of its success to the creative people he worked with on the project, who allowed him to learn more about the filmmaking process. He adds, “finding the reasons for doing the things that we do, can be a very entertaining aspect of life.”

Words: Alicia Wrobel