The Summer 2005 issue of Filmmaker Magazine features its 8th edition of the “25 New Faces of Independent Film.” Each year the magazine spotlights a group of writers, actors, and directors who they predict will be making the great indie films of the future. I love checking out this article to lock some names to watch out for in my head, and also to see if there’s anyone on it that we may have heard of. What a delightful surprise to see Chlotrudis Award recipient Ellen Page (photo courtesy of Henny Garfunkle) anchoring the list at #25!
Ellen talks about how she caught the acting bug during a moving scene with Molly Parker in MARION BRIDGE. She’d been working in films for several years, but at age 15 during the climactic “are you my mother” scene, she made a real connection with her co-star Parker. “I remember losing my breath, and I thought that was cool,” Page relates.
Ellen’s got two movies in the works, starting with the much-anticipated HARD CANDY by David Slade due out later this year. By now Chlotrudis members have all heard about the film in which Ellen plays a young girl who violently turns the tables on an Internet predator. She will follow that with Alison Murray’s MOUTH TO MOUTH in which she plays a teenager who runs away from home and joins a cult, only to have her mother track her down and join the cult as well.
Since HARD CANDY’S success at Sundance, scripts have been rolling in, with Hollywood Blockbusters mixed among the indies. Didn’t we, at the 11th Annual Chlotrudis Awards Ceremony in the Spring of 2005 tell Ellen that she was going to be the next big thing? Regarding those Hollywood blockbusters, we have only this to say: “Scarlett Johansson in THE ISLAND.”
Congratulations, Ellen! We wish you all the best!