New BrunswickFeature film Still Your Song, written and directed by Britany Sparrow and produced by Kayla Ossachuk, will have its New Brunswick premiere on Sunday at the Silver Wave Film Festival. But the road to this moment was a long one. Still Your Song, made on $12,000 budget, showing Sunday at Silver Wave Film Festival in FrederictonHannah Rudderham · CBC News · Posted: Nov 07, 2025 1:40 PM EST | Last Updated: 3 hours agoListen to this articleEstimated 6 minutesThe audio version of this article is generated by text-to-speech, a technology based on artificial intelligence.Still Your Song follows five former members of the indie rock band Low Tide who return to their small town for their high school reunion. From left, Abbie McCarthy, Rylan Melles, Andrew Allen, Kaitlyn Adair and Esther Soucoup. (Jules Keenan/Submitted by Britany Sparrow)When Britany Sparrow of Fredericton sat down 6 ½ years ago to write a movie script, she realized quickly that it required more than a short film treatment. “Writing and directing a feature, I feel, is sort of like a bucket list thing that a lot of aspiring filmmakers have,” said Sparrow, who has written and directed nine short films.“I didn’t really set out to do it at the beginning, but I came home one day and started writing this script … and then I just fell in love with the story.”Years later and the script will be making its New Brunswick debut Sunday at the Silver Wave Film Festival, which began Thursday. The showing starts at 7 p.m. in the University of New Brunswick’s Tilley Hall. Filmmaker Britany Sparrow sat down more than six years ago to write a script that would later become her writing and directing feature film debut. (Hannah Rudderham/CBC)Still Your Song follows five former members of the indie rock band Low Tide who return to their small town, where they are asked to perform for their high school reunion.Sparrow said each of the main characters goes on a personal journey, learning how to love themselves, while the film also explores themes such as grief and nostalgia. The film was completed with a budget far smaller than what would be classified as a “low-budget” film.“Typically, a low budget film is any film with a budget of less than $5 million,” Sparrow said. “In New Brunswick, people tend to make what they call a micro-budget film, which is, I think, between $500,000 and $1.5 million.”For Sparrow’s film, after crowdfunding and a small grant, the budget came in at $12,000.This meant that much of the work was made possible by volunteers and gear borrowed from the New Brunswick Filmmakers’ Co-operative. Shot over six months, the team had to use weekends and times when the actors and crew were available, since they weren’t being paid and couldn’t take time off work. The shooting schedules for feature films typically would take 20 to 25 days, said Sparrow, but because she and everyone else involved had a day job, the process had to be spread out. This meant the actors had to maintain their appearances throughout the filming process — always getting the same haircuts, consistently dying their hair, even sticking to the same colour of nail polish. About 60 actors and crew took part, but there was overlap, with some crew members acting or being extras. “One of the things that is so special about the New Brunswick film community is the fact that we are willing to show up for each other,” Sparrow said.“We’re a scrappy group of people that don’t have a lot of resources … and I cannot speak highly enough of the people that kept showing up.”The community was one of the things that kept Sparrow in the province after she moved here. Growing up in British Columbia, she wanted to see more of the country after doing two years of her undergrad at home. She moved to New Brunswick in 2004 for the University of New Brunswick’s creative writing program — not expecting to stay — and when she took a film elective, everything clicked.WATCH | How Still Your Song came together:How a team of volunteers from N.B. put a feature film together for just $12,000Still Your Song, written by Fredericton filmmaker Britany Sparrow, makes its New Brunswick debut at the Silver Wave Film Festival in the capital.One of the major players behind the film was Kayla Ossachuk. When Sparrow started writing the script, she approached Ossachuk, who had been an assistant director on one of Sparrow’s short films, and asked her to be her producer. For Ossachuk, the answer was immediate. The pair, under their new joint company Battle Cat Films, began planning logistics and applying for funding. Funding for films is hard to come by in New Brunswick so it wasn’t easy, Ossachuk said.She said they were able to apply to a specific funding stream for being an all-women team, but even that didn’t work out since it was a Canada-wide application process.“I think a lot of people outside of New Brunswick forget that New Brunswick is a province, and that we have creatives here, and we have artists, and a lot of people here have to do a lot with a little bit because of that,” Ossachuk said.“Obviously, if we could pay all of the artists who worked on everything that we’ve ever done, we would have a thriving art community, but that’s just not the case in this province.”Kayla Ossachuk, producer for Still Your Song, said securing funding for New Brunswick films can be difficult. (Hannah Rudderham/CBC)But still, the pair persevered and made do with the $12,000 budget and a dedicated group of actors and crew.For Ossachuk, the six years flew by, and before she knew it, she and Sparrow were embarking on a “hometown tour,” where they premiered the film in both of their hometowns — Vernon, B.C., for Sparrow and Kenora, Ont., for Ossachuk.“I think for a lot of my life, my parents have thought that my filmmaking is kind of like a back burner type of enjoyment, and I think this was the first time that they actually were able to … watch something that I had a huge hand in and say, ‘Oh, this is what you’re doing, we understand now,” said Ossachuk, who has lived in New Brunswick for 10 years.For Sparrow, the premiere in Vernon brought together people she’d known her whole life but didn’t necessarily know what she did.But Sunday, when Still Your Song will show in New Brunswick for the first time, will be a special day as well, Sparrow said. “I went to my first Silver Wave in 2005 as a film student, and I remember how cool it was seeing my name in the credits of a movie, and I remember I was sitting with a friend of mine, and we were both like, ‘We’re going to be up there one day,’” Sparrow said.“It feels very full circle that this is happening this way.”ABOUT THE AUTHORHannah Rudderham is a reporter with CBC New Brunswick. She grew up in Cape Breton, N.S., and moved to Fredericton in 2018. You can send story tips to hannah.rudderham@cbc.ca.
Ahead of N.B. premiere, filmmaker grateful to community for her especially low-cost 1st feature
