Carleen

“Carleen gets dressed and goes to comedy class, tears in her eyes her heavy heart laughs.”

The first line of Katie Ormiston’s beautifully written song about Carleen’s journey to overcome tragedy with humour says it all.

Creative team

Writer/director/producer: Carleen Kyle
Writer: Katie Ormiston
Producer: Gordon Rempel

Director’s statement

Carleen Kyle says:

“After a series of family tragedies I wondered if I could recover from trauma using humour so I took a stand-up comedy class and decided to bring a camera crew along.

My dear friend Katie Ormiston of Pawn Shop Diamond showed up at my house with her guitar and a song that she’d written about what I was doing. I listened to the song and when I stopped crying I featured it in my documentary Heavy Heart Laughs.”

About Carleen Kyle

Carleen directed the documentary Heavy Heart Laughs which inspired her to produce and perform in the stand-up comedy revue A Comic Concern, a successful fundraiser for the Vancouver Food Bank.

Her screenplay Pearl’s Cut & Curl won a Praxis fellowship and was selected to represent Canada for the prestigious Hartley Merrill International Screen Writing Prize where it received Honorable Mention.

She directed the Gemini Best Short Drama nominated and Saskatchewan Showcase Best Drama award winner Scrounger as well as several shorts film projects.