Newfoundland movie 7 years in the making debuts in Halifax

A Newfoundland movie literally years in the making made its world debut at the Atlantic International Film Festival in Halifax this week.

“We filmed it every season, summer spring, winter,” said director Nik Sexton. “In the film there’s a boy whose face is in the beginning. He’s eight years old, then two minutes later in the film he’s 15 and it’s really the same boy.”

“Skeet” follows a young man returning from prison to his St. John’s neighbourhood and finding it full of Syrian refugees.

“The film is a redemption story,” Sexton. “He’s a bit of a fish out of water in his own home and it’s about an unlikely friendship in this most unlikely place.”

Sean Dalton stars as the lead and although he has no prior acting experience, Sexton thought he’d be great in the role.

“Nik just said, ‘Can you act like a skeet?’ A skeet is like a Newfoundland tough guy,” Dalton said. “I think we were up on my patio and I took my shirt off and started kind of acting up and he was, like, ‘That’s perfect, you got the job.’

“It’s a great story. It’s heartbreaking, it’s important, it’s dealing with issues that we both really care about.”

Sexton hopes people who see the film find inspiration to tell their own similar stories.

“There’s a new Newfoundland,” he said. “There are so many different facets of populations coming in, newcomers and stuff. I hope people feel they’re represented in this and they get inspired to make more films like this.”