Sophy Romvari
THE LOVELY DARK
Pre-production grant
Funds will support project development, including character research and casting.
About the project: Based on the short story “Lovely, Dark, Deep” by literary legend Joyce Carol Oates, The Lovely Dark (screenplay by Bronwyn and Molly Lewis) depicts a fictional meeting between the renowned and aging poet Robert Frost, and a young razor-sharp journalist, Evangeline Fife. The rendezvous sheds light on the more complex aspects of one of the world’s most beloved male poets, posing the eternal question: can (and should) the art be separated from the artist?
About the filmmaker: Sophy Romvari is a filmmaker born in Victoria, B.C. and based in Toronto. Her critically acclaimed short films have travelled the international festival circuit and have earned her a reputation as a leading young talent.
Her 2017 hybrid documentary Pumpkin Movie premiered at True/False to considerable praise, as well as at Hot Docs and Sheffield Doc Fest. It has been praised by critics as “a lovely, subtle work of feminist protest.”; In 2018 her short Norman Norman received its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival. It was also the centerpiece of “Super Succinct and Radically Direct,” a retrospective of Sophy’s work at the Museum of the Moving Image in New York City. She has directed documentary films for such acclaimed outlets such as CBC Short Docs (In Dog Years, 2019) and Kino Lorber (Remembrance of József Romvári, 2020).
Sophy completed her Master of Fine Arts at York University, where she shot her thesis film Still Processing. The film had its World Premiere at TIFF in Sept 2020 where critics called it “her most masterful and heart-wrenching work to date; the kind of personal reflection on family and loss some directors and writers can spend their entire lifetimes striving to accomplish.”
She is currently in development for several short films, as well as her first feature film.
Project produced by Sara Wylie.