Kenneth J. Harvey
Directing
Biography
Two-time Canadian Screen Awards and Giller Prize nominee, Kenneth J. Harvey is an award-winning filmmaker, journalist, photographer and international bestselling author. His films and TV programs have aired on CBC, Documentary Channel and NTV, and have screened at over seventy film festivals around the world, including Raindance, Hotdocs, Festival du nouveau cinéma and TIFF Film Circuit. He grew up behind the camera and in the editing room with his father, Josiah, who trained at the National Film Board in Montreal. Harvey's books are published in Canada, the US, the UK, Russia, Germany, China, Japan, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, Italy, Turkey, Sweden, the Netherlands, Denmark and France. He has won the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize, the Thomas Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award, the Winterset Award, Italy's Libro Del Mare, and has been nominated for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, and twice for both the Giller Prize and the Commonwealth Writers Prize. His editorials have appeared on CBC Radio, in The Times (London) and in most major Canadian newspapers, including The Globe & Mail, National Post, and Ottawa Citizen.
Known For
Coronation Street meets downtown St. John's. A serious drama, dark, funny and gritty. Not a silly spoof of Newfoundlanders.
The Slattery Street Crockers
Stan Hill Jr. is a Haudenosaunee artist living in Miawpukek First Nation Reserve, Conne River, Newfoundland. In “The Bear Inside a Whale,” he and his family discuss racism, identity, religion, creation and art, along with the cultural extinction of the Beothuk of Newfoundland. Throughout the film, we follow Stan carving a bear out of a whale vertebra. And we visit The Rooms (museum) in St. John’s, Newfoundland, where Stan talks about viewing and reclaiming Indigenous artefacts.
The Bear Inside a Whale
A feature-length documentary celebrating the life and work of Trinity Bay artist and storyteller Clifford George.
What the Darkness Cannot Extinguish: The Storytelling Madness of Clifford George
Ryan and Gwen are new to Newfoundland and find their St. John's home to be, well, let's just say 'pre-occupied'. Luckily for Ryan and Gwen, the question they haven't had the nerve to ask gets answered.
Our House
"I'm 14 and I Hate the World" is a short film released on September 17th, 2011, produced by Island Horse Productions, written and directed by Kenneth J. Harvey. It premiered at the Atlantic Film Festival.
I'm 14 and I Hate the World
A film that puts you in the shoes of the other 1%.
Mile End
A community of drinkers in an early-morning bar discuss why they drink.
The Drinking Life
A one-hour documentary on the daily life of beloved St. John's personality and bottle-collector Wayne Skinner - otherwise known as The Governor of Georgetown. Skinner passed away in March of 2023 at the age of 66, but was known by many for his sweet, loveable and gentle soul. In this sensitive tribute, director Kenneth J Harvey accompanies Skinner over five days as he ventures around the city of St. John's, collecting bottles and visiting with regular customers and friends in their homes and in the streets.
The Governor of Georgetown
Feminist painter or traditional housewife? Displaced and isolated, Mary Pratt’s life was a highly complicated one of delicate rebellion. Award-winning filmmaker Kenneth J Harvey (Immaculate Memories: The Uncluttered Worlds of Christopher Pratt) reconstructs Mary Pratt's life from archival footage dating back to the 1950s, tracking Mary's development over time, while capturing her gentle humour, strength, beauty of spirit, and fascination with objects in the home, which she embraced and glorified, deeply touching and inspiring countless women through her artwork.
It Was All So Wonderful: The Everyday Magic of Mary Pratt
The life and art of Christopher Pratt. 'Canada's most famous living painter' - The Globe & Mail. This is the first feature-length documentary that Christopher Pratt has agreed to participate in. An honest, funny, eloquent, bizarre, and sometimes unsettling account of his life and art, and an extremely important cultural document.
Immaculate Memories: The Uncluttered Worlds of Christopher Pratt
The lives of a mostly-elderly, highly traditional order of nuns are explored in St. John's, Newfoundland.
The Incredible Vanishing Sisters in the Death of the Garden of Eden
An artist attempts to finish his final major painting before his death.
I Heard the Birch Tree Whisper in the Night
An exploration of love and lust in nature.
Aliment Roots
Ancient holes and shafts. Young lovers with fruits, The lava and ice age that run through you.
Calamus Variations
GEEK ASSASSIN is about a young nerdy girl, Yolanda (Emma Harvey), who is being bullied at school. She is taken under the wing of a Sadie (Natalia Hennelly), a cool, sexy assassin who teaches Yolanda how to deal with the bullies, and it isn't through diplomacy.