Anita Best
Acting
Biography
Anita Best has spent a lifetime exploring, cataloguing and celebrating the rural Newfoundland lifestyle and culture. In the process she has become one of the province's most prominent traditional singers. Born on Merasheen Island in Placentia Bay (since abandoned under the resettlement program), Best has worked as an educator, archivist, folklorist, broadcaster and singer. A particular interest in oral history - songs and stories passed down through generations - lead to her performing career. She has toured extensively as a storyteller and singer, made numerous television and radio appearances and added her voice to several Newfoundland recordings. She is best known for two albums: The Colour Of Amber, a collaboration with Pamela Morgan, was released in 1993. Crosshanded, a collection of twelve songs for solo voice, followed a few years later. In these recordings and in her performances, Best tends to forego the standard Newfoundland repertoire in favour of the lesser known songs and stories collected from around the province. Anita Best is also the co-author of the folk song collection Come And I Will Sing You. She has worked with numerous folk arts councils and heritage groups, organizing concerts and other folklore events. She has received several awards and honours for her contributions to heritage preservation and the cultural life of the province.
Known For
The Untold Story of the Suffragists of Newfoundland (1999) is a docu-drama celebrating the thirty year struggle by the women of Newfoundland to win the right to vote.
The Untold Story
St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, is North America's most easterly landfall. For half a millennium, its perfect harbour has provided a safe refuge in the middle of the treacherous North Atlantic. For 300 years of its history it was an actual crime to try and settle--Newfoundland was the private preserve of British fishing merchants. But people stayed, despite the colonial masters, despite the lack of law and order, despite hellish weather and raging seas. And the city grew--lurching through centuries of crisis, disaster, privation. For filmmaker Rosemary House, "This is still a hard rock land, a dirty old town at the back of beyond. And yet the St. John's townie is so proud, you'd swear we lived in Paris." In this documentary, she explores her city with the help of six locals, Mary Walsh, Andy Jones, Anita Best, Brian Hennessey, Ed Riche, Des Walsh, writers and performers all. (Source: National Film Board)
Rain, Drizzle, and Fog
Mummers and Masks is a one-hour documentary Christmas Special that explores the ageless world of mummers. The producer traces the legacy of mummering from the humble kitchen parties of the remote outports of Newfoundland to the wild parades and razamatazz of the New Orleans Mardi Gras, and the gaudy present-day Philadelphia Mummer's Parade with its swirling batons, clowns and string bands, to the ancient folk dramas (with their ageless renditions of death and resurrection) still annually, lovingly re-enacted in rustic corners of the British Isles and Europe.