Talented women take film, music honours
Opra-Szabo’s stop-motion short well worth the effort, while trombonist Ochoa certainly no Afterthought
Two hard-working female artists — Zsofia Opra-Szabo and Audrey Ochoa — are recipients of the 2018 Edmonton Film Prize and Edmonton Music Prize, respectively. The prize winners and runners-up were announced in ceremonies at the ATB Arts & Culture Branch Tuesday afternoon.
Theatre designer, puppeteer and filmmaker Zsofia Opra-Szabo won the $10,000 Edmonton Film Prize for her first film effort, a stop-motion animation short featuring puppets titled Sophia.
Despite that title, Opra-Szabo says the film is not solely autobiographical.
She chose to use Sophia as a working title early on for identification purposes and kept it for convenience, but says the story has only loose parallels to her life.
“It’s about a woman’s journey to confront her demons, and along the way you learn how we clothe ourselves in our own illusions. There is some of me in it but it’s not really about me.”
Because of the painstakingly slow process behind stop-motion animation, her 11-minute film took most of two years to complete.
“It’s such a slow process and I was alone so I did everything, the sets, the lighting, the puppets and the animation.”
The experience left her proudly enthusiastic over the prospect of creating other films, and she says the prize money “will be a big help to invest in the next film.”
Opra-Szabo was born in rural Hungary and lived in Budapest before her move to Edmonton in 2013 to take a Master of Fine Arts degree in Theatre Arts at the University of Alberta. In the years since, she taught part-time at the U of A, and has worked as a theatre designer and puppeteer with various local theatre companies and productions at the U of A and MacEwan University.
Since the film’s local premiere through FAVA last year, Sophia has played festivals in New York City, Palm Springs, Vancouver, Bulgaria and Hungary. She hopes to make the film available online this spring.
As a new Canadian, Opra-Szabo was surprised and pleased to win the award.
“It’s such a big honour just to be nominated, especially because I’m still kind of new after just five years here in Edmonton. It makes me feel like I’m really part of the arts and culture of the city. It means a lot to me.”
The first runner-up for the film prize is Cree director Alexandra Lazarowich for her film Fast Horse, which just picked up the Short Film Special Jury Award for Directing at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, last week.
Second runner-up is filmmaker-producer Adam Scorgie for his documentary Making Coco: The Grant Fuhr Story.
Scorgie was the film prize winner last year for his documentary Chasing Evel: The Robbie Knievel Story.
Both runner-ups are awarded $1,000 for their efforts. The Edmonton Film Prize is adjudicated with help from Alberta Media Production Industries Association (AMPIA).
Music PRize winneR
Trombonist-composer-bandleader Audrey Ochoa received the $10,000 Edmonton Music Prize for her second album, the trio recording Afterthought. The release on Chronograph Records presents a mix of jazz, Latin and dance grooves and features bassist Mike Lent, drummer Sandro Dominelli and the mixing talents of DJ Battery Poacher.
“External validations just feel like mother’s milk,” Ochoa joked, “but it will be great to funnel this into an upcoming album. I have a third album in the works right now that’s not complete, and it would be great to push it forward. This can also go into helping me tour these projects.”
Ochoa was pleased to make connections across Canada and the United States with Afterthought, including college radio airplay in the U.S. and some notice from festivals. One offshoot of that was an invitation to share a conference billing at the University of North Texas last year with American jazz luminaries like Marcus Miller and Chris Potter.
The Edmonton native is the second generation of musical Ochoas. Her father, trumpeter Romeo Ochoa, played with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra and Tommy Banks. As a trombonist for hire, she is one of the busiest musicians on the Edmonton music scene between recording, arranging, and/ or performing with jazz, roots, pop, Latin, ska, or singer-songwriter acts.
You may have caught her in performance (or on record) with the likes of King Muskafa, Ben Sures, Kemo Treats, Rooster Davis, Calgary’s Mocking Shadows, Dana Wylie, or the Edmonton Jazz Orchestra. She also performed in the 2017 Citadel Theatre presentation of Hadestown.
“It feels like I’m busier than ever and, with pride, in many different genres. I think working in different areas has also improved my jazz playing, too.”
Ochoa’s win came against the largest field yet, with 28 entries for the music prize. Now in its sixth year, the music prize is adjudicated with the help of Alberta Music.
First runner-up is pop-soul singer and previous Edmonton Music Prize winner Nuela Charles. Her recent release Distant Danger is nominated for a 2019 Juno Award.
Second runner-up, singer Marco Claveria, has tapped various Latin, jazz and roots influences on three albums, but his latest recording Something In Common has expanded even further beyond his Chilean roots.
It’s such a slow process and I was alone so I did everything, the sets, the lighting, the puppets and the animation.