WEYBURN - A Weyburn actress, Bernadette Mullen-Hennig, won an award for “Best Actress in a Feature Film” for her role in the post-apocalyptic movie, “Welcome to Kittytown”, at a film festival held recently in Montreal.
A longtime actress who has appeared on TV, on the stage and in film productions, she had a supporting role as “Charlotte” in the movie, which was shown at the Montreal Requiem Fear Fest, which specifically featured the horror genre in TV and feature films.
The funny thing about the award, she said, is that she does not consider it a horror movie in the traditional sense of gore and slash flicks, but is actually more a dark comedy that is a buddy movie.
“It’s an endearing film with lots of humour. This film has dark moments, but nothing is seen. It’s not like ‘Friday the 13th’,” said Mullen-Hennig. “A dark comedy is a better description of it, but unfortunately we don’t have any dark comedy film festivals.”
She was surprised by this award for two big reasons: one, she does not have a lead role in the movie, and “best actress” awards usually go to a leading character.
Secondly, “Welcome to Kittytown” was not an official selection of this film festival, but when it was shown, it had a great reception by the audience.
Explaining about her role, she said, “You hear my voice for the first two-thirds of the film, and you don’t meet me until the last 20 or 25 minutes of the film – but she comes on strong. She comes on in a big way.”
Her character, Charlotte, has a safe haven in the town of Kittytown in a post-apocalyptic world, and the two leading characters, Vern and Ted, go on a journey to meet her, “and they are in for a surprise,” said Mullen-Hennig, laughing.
“You don’t even see me in a trailer, because if you did, it would give the film away.”
The film itself had a bit of a journey, as they began shooting it in 2019 just before COVID hit, shot on the prairies between Saskatoon and Humboldt, and two years ago they thought they had a finished product.
It began to tour the film festival circuit, and caught the attention of a distribution and production company who thought this film had potential to be better, said Mullen-Hennig. They took the film off the festival circuit and it went back to post-production, and ended up deleting about 15 minutes worth of film which made it a tighter and better movie in the end.
“There are thrilling moments in it, and that was missing in the first version. It makes everyone’s characters much stronger, and the final cut is much better, for sure,” she said.
The film will next be seen on Oct. 16 at the Austria Fright Night festival, and then there will be a screening in Regina on Saturday, Oct. 26, at the Kramer IMAX Theatre for a matinee showing. Tickets are $20 each, and there will be prizes and swag available for those who take it in.
The film was directed by Doug Luciuk, the founder of the Recording Arts Institute of Saskatoon, and was co-written by Darren Zimmer and Robert Bryn Mann, who also play the two lead roles of Vern and Ted.
The movie has won a number of other awards on the festival circuit, noted Mullen-Hennig, including three acting awards for Mann, and it won as Best Horror Feature at the Arizona International Film Festival in September.
Mullen-Hennig had worked with Zimmer before, and said of him, “He’s a seasoned actor who plays a fantastic lead role. He has since moved to Vancouver to pursue his acting career.”
She has been recognized for her acting work in the past as well, winning the Best Actor award in 2021 at the Saskatchewan Independent Film Awards, for her role in a short film, “Far From Me”.
She was also nominated at the Saskatchewan International Film Festival for best actress for this film, and in 2015 was nominated for “Dr. Bennett” at the Independent Film Awards.
