Patricia Rozema Video | Clips from Films Directed and Interviews

Patricia Rozema (born August 20, 1958) is a Canadian film director and screenwriter. Rozema was born in Kingston, Ontario and raised in Sarnia, Ontario. Her parents, Jacoba Berandina (née Vos) and Jan Rozema, were Dutch Calvinists. Television was severely restricted and she didn’t go to a movie theatre until she was 16 years old. Rozema studied philosophy and English literature at Calvin College in Michigan. After a brief stint as a print and then television journalist (CBC Television’s The Journal), she directed her first feature, I've Heard the Mermaids Singing, a serious comedy... MORE

Patricia Rozema (born August 20, 1958) is a Canadian film director and screenwriter. Rozema was born in Kingston, Ontario and raised in Sarnia, Ontario. Her parents, Jacoba Berandina (née Vos) and Jan Rozema, were Dutch Calvinists. Television was severely restricted and she didn’t go to a movie theatre until she was 16 years old. Rozema studied philosophy and English literature at Calvin College in Michigan. After a brief stint as a print and then television journalist (CBC Television’s The Journal), she directed her first feature, I've Heard the Mermaids Singing, a serious comedy about a socially inept Girl Friday (Sheila McCarthy as Polly), which made one of the most outstanding feature debuts in the history of Canadian cinema. At the 1987 Cannes Film Festival, I’ve Heard the Mermaids Singing won the Prix de la Jeunesse. That same year, it was voted one of Canada’s ten best films ever as polled by 100 international critics. Rozema also directed the Six Gestures (part of the Yo-Yo Ma Inspired by Bach television series), which combined images of Yo-Yo Ma performing with skating sequences by Jane Torvill and Christopher Dean, interwoven with J.S. Bach's first-person narrative. Six LESS