Among the many highlights of 2023 film productions with connections to Cochrane was the world premiere of the film Faultline, produced, co-written, and co-starring Stacie Harrison, who grew up in Cochrane.

Faultline was sold-out a week in advance with a waiting list for its debut in the 465-seat main theatre of the Cineplex Odeon Eau Claire Market Cinemas at the Calgary International Film Festival (CIFF).

In Faultline, the lives of sisters Paige (Stacie Harrison) and Jessie (Kirsten Lankester) Tennant are shattered when their mother’s troubled personal life leads her to perpetrate a horrific crime. With their world blown apart, the sisters’ intensely personal reactions drive them to lead separate lives.

Twenty years later, Paige must move past her pursuit of professional success when she stumbles across new information which makes her reconsider her mother’s past and casts doubt on everything she thought she knew. This startling new information leads the sisters down a dangerous rabbit hole of lies and deception. With the help of Brennan (Stafford Perry), a cop and childhood friend, the sisters must band together to overcome the past. But can Paige and Jessie stay alive long enough to expose the truth?

Faultline

Directed by Anna Cooley, the 90-minute crime mystery movie was the brainchild of Kirsten and Stacie, who together established Any Road Productions over eight years ago. It began in 2015 as an idea of creating a heavily female driven film.

"She and I are both really big fans of British mysteries and that's sort of how we had that conversation about this. You know, those amazing shows that you see from BBC that just pull you in. We love that sort of genre and so she came in one day and said, you know, I've got this idea, and I said great, so she set to writing it."

In 2016, they shot a sizzle reel to pitch the film. In 2018, they won a Storyhive grant to make a 10-minute pilot.

"That went really, really well, and then we ended up using that pilot to pitch further to get more funding and more investments."

They got their greenlight from investors in February 2020, just in time to be stalled by the pandemic. The cost of COVID protocol was too high to absorb for an indie production, so they took a pause until the dust settled. Filming took place in February and March 2023 in Calgary.

They got the movie in the can, did all the post-production and it was finished mid-August in time for CIFF.

Having been involved in every single aspect of the film, she feared she may have lost perspective on what they had created. She was anxious to see how the audience would respond.

"You're like, are people going to love this? Are they going to get it? Are they going to feel those moments? Are they going to have those moments with me? To be in the audience and to hear them responding and being so invested was just such a reward, because they got it, and they were there with us, and they were really engaged. It was just an incredible feeling."

British crime mysteries are known to use compelling suspense to keep viewers on the edge of their seat. She says they provided some comical moments to provide some levity.

"It was so awesome to hear the audience laugh at the moments that we were hoping they would laugh. There were definitely those moments we really wanted them to be on board and to be surprised by the ending. We were excited to see what came out of that and it was awesome that it went the way we had wanted."

Faultline was not only shot in Calgary, but the story occurs there.

"There's a bit at the beginning that takes place in London, England, but it was really important to us that we didn't want to mask Calgary. This mystery takes place in this city, in the heart of this city, and it explores the glossy corporate end of Calgary, and it also explores the darker, gritty side of Calgary. And you know, both of those sides of the city exist, and we wanted to highlight that. We didn't want to hide that."

Faultine 2Stacie Harrison as Paige Tennant and Jonathan Hawley Purvis as Scott Eastman. (photo/Any Roads Productions)

Stacie is equally proud of the Calgary talent they were able to recruit for the production.

"Kirsten plays my sister, so the two of us costar, but then we have an incredible cast of local Calgary actors attached as well. We have Stafford Perry, who's very well known in Calgary and the theatre community who plays a very important role in the in the film, and just a huge list of other actors that are super recognizable and super well known in Calgary for theatre."

With the world premiere behind them, the goal is to reach a wider audience.

"The Calgary International Film Festival was a great first step in that a lot of people got to see it, which was great, but so many people didn't get to see it because we sold out. So, we're excited to find different ways to get it out to the public. We're hoping that TV will be one of those ways, and then also a limited theatrical release at some point as well."

Stacie's family moved to Cochrane when she was two-years-old. She completed all her public school here and is a graduate of Cochrane High.

Theatre has been her passion from a young age.

"Even as a young child, I was writing my own little plays in my room, and then costuming them and coming out, performing them for my family. So, it was something that I always did. And then when I hit junior high, I started taking it a bit more seriously."

She took theatre classes in Calgary and was heavily involved with the drama department at Cochrane High. At one point, the musicals had stopped, and she helped to convince Merrilie Stonewall (Cochrane high music teacher at the time) to bring them back.

"She said, I'll do it. You produce it. So, we produced it and I think that sort of started my entrepreneurial aspect of making theatre at that time because I got right in there with producing the musical. I think that's really where I kind of began thinking of building my own company."

She went straight into university from high school and earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree. While working towards her degree, she came back to direct several plays at Cochrane High.

At 19, she established Seraph Theatre in Cochrane.

"I just saw a real hole in opportunities in Cochrane for other people to be able to perform and to have opportunities to expande their creativity in that way. So I thought. Well, I'm going to start a theatre company and. I just kind of did it, you know, that sort of thing when you're young and you're like, yeah, why not? I'll just do this. So, I did."

A year later, she launched an outdoor Shakespeare festival.

"Our first two years we were Shakespeare in the Ranch, because we were performing in the Cochrane Ranch. And then we had to move our venue and we were just in the park in Glenbow. We called it Shakespeare in the Valley at that time."

Through it all, her parents Ken and Sandy were extremely supportive.

"When I was running my theatre in Cochrane, we used to rehearse in their basement because when I started the Seraph Company, I had no money. My mom used to bring down snacks for my cast all the time, and we did the outdoor Shakespeare plays behind their house in the park. And you know, they were there every single time, helping with everything."

She particularly remembers how her mom went around handing out garbage bags to the audience when it began to pour rain through a performance of The Tempest

"They were just incredible supporters. I don't know what I would have done without them over these years, but they're pretty awesome people, that's for sure."

Stacie is the primary instructor at Company of Rogues Actors' Studio, where she specializes in the Meisner Technique and has been working in the film and theatre communities for the past 20 years. She currently resides in Vancouver and constantly travels between the two centres.

Besides Faultline, her film credits include Damnation, Heartland, Don't Ever Look Back, Shred Kelly, Wynnona Earp, ageLESS, Heritage Minutes: Viola Desmond, Hug-O-Gram, Who Is Riley Oakes, Cut Die, The Great Fear, Dryland and My Misspent Youth.

She was recently nominated for Best Actress at the Hang on to Your Shorts film festival in New Jersey for her work in Who is Riley Oakes.