SHERYL CARBONELL

I made my directorial debut - a docuseries collaboration with filmmaker, Molly E. Smith entitled:

'THE POWER OF CREATIVITY'

Why did I want to Direct and Produce a Docuseries?

The upside of acting? The acting part! Creating a character from the ground up for an audition or even better, for the job!. The downside? We actors do not always book jobs even though we are more than capable of doing it. For instance, my very first professional audition was at age 12 in Canada. I auditioned for ‘Annie’ and knocked it out of the park in front of the director and an auditorium packed with Annie hopefuls and their accompanying parents.

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The director said to me, in front of the packed audience, ‘I wish I could cast you as our Annie,’ while applauding vigorously and laughing. Laughter? Because in those days, no girl of colour would be cast as the iconic red-headed orphan. Was I capable? Of course? Did I get the part? No! I was cast as the orphan July and enjoyed the experience immensely but from then on, I simmered with angst wanting to do have more power to do what I wanted creatively, on my terms and not have to be held back by someone else’s biases.

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I found the answer to that later in life. CREATE. Create plays, films, paint, draw, photograph, sew, write, - creating creates more opportunities. Create when time allows because it is freeing, and cannot be managed by anyone else but you yourself and you!

I began to note how many of my friends and relatives were artists, specifically painters, who found joy, using their creative gifts. I dug deeper and began to ask these women about their art and their lives and what I witnessed was creative women freeing themselves from whatever held them back in their past, and instead, walking confidently and passionately, while embracing new promising chapters that awaited them. This examination culminated into a short film series about some of these women.