Ever since she was a little girl, Fortescue Lake cottager Rebeccah Love has dreamed of seeing her name in bright lights at Highlands Cinemas.
The independent filmmaker said she feels like she’s manifested her destiny. Love’s first feature-length production, a coming-of-age drama titled Fortescue, will run four screenings at the Kinmount theatre May 16 to 19.
“This is one of the most meaningful things in my whole life. I’ve been watching movies at Highlands Cinemas ever since I was old enough to watch movies. This is the movie theatre that made me fall in love with filmmaking,” Love said.
The milestone hasn’t come without its challenges, however. A decade into her career, Love said she poured her heart and soul into nine short films before focusing on her first full-run flick. She spent years perfecting a script, finally bringing her hand-selected cast to the Highlands in September 2023 for filming.
They wrapped after three weeks, with post-production running until May 2024. The movie debuted in London, Ontario in October, with Love taking it on tour across Canada over the winter. Kinmount will be its penultimate stop.
Labelling Fortescue a fun, quirky, largely upbeat movie, Love said it also deals with a real issue that’s close to her heart. When she was 18, enrolled in her first year of university, Love suffered a psychotic breakdown, with frequent episodes spanning the next four years.
“I was in and out of psychosis, in and out of emergency rooms. I had to be put in restraints. I was very sick,” Love said.
Filmmaking, it turns out, was an eventual escape for her. At 22, she enrolled in film production at Ryerson University – now Toronto Metropolitan University – and later completed her master’s in fine arts and creative writing from the University of Guelph.
Just as she was preparing to launch her new career, she was stricken with a second illness – psoriatic arthritis. She lost all mobility and, also dealing with physical pain, felt herself spiralling headfirst into another episode. But Love was able to catch herself, inspired to turn a lifetime of bad luck and negative energy into good,
“Going through these pretty crazy medical situations, making movies now is a way to process my pain and give a voice to people who have complex psychiatric conditions,” Love said. “The thing about psychosis is people suffer behind closed doors. There’s no public conversation, no public figures talking openly about how destructive the condition can be. There’s still an enormous stigma.”
She stopped short of calling her movie an educational film, saying it still dramatizes key topics.
Starring Kelsey Falconer, known for her roles in The Handmaid’s Tale and Fargo, as Lea, Chelsea Preston as Gabby, and Tyson Coady as Kevin, the story follows two teenage girls enjoying summer at a cottage.
“They’re eccentric, whimsical… But they’re having so much fun. Until suddenly, one of their boyfriends arrives and it changes their dynamic completely,” Love said.
The trio come together to put on a play for the local cottage community, though one of the girls experiences a psychotic break, leading to some “very dark and disturbing scenes.”
The movie was produced by Love’s company Fortescue Film Limited and cost $180,000 to make. The Canada Council for the Arts contributed $100,000, with Love fundraising the remaining $80,000. It took her three years, but she was able to retain creative control, which was important to her.
About 250 people, including volunteers on Fortescue Lake, were involved in making the movie, she estimated.
Love said it’s been 14 years since she’s been hospitalized, and while she feels like she’s in control of her condition, she knows thousands of Canadians are suffering. The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health estimates four per cent of the population – about 1.5 million Canadians – suffer from schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders.
Love hopes that by telling her story, she can help bring other people back from the brink.
“Talking about this lets people know they’re not alone. That there’s hope for recovery. I’m proof of that,” Love said.
The movie will run for four nights at Highlands Cinemas, May 16 to 19, at 7:15 p.m.
