Why I Hate Bees

PRODUCTION STORY

When I discovered Nancy Jo Cullen’s Short story “ Why I Hate Bees” in the quarterly literary magazine Grain, it had just won an honourable mention in this Canadian publication’s writing contest. The complete text of Nancy Jo Cullen’s story serves as the narration to the film. For the accompanying visuals and sound, I play with the way memory races ahead or lags behind the stories we tell, and the tendency it has to linger on the things we do not mention in our stories. Through optical printing, use of colour, animation and sound, I interpret the memory and point of view of the young narrator – sometimes touching directly on her story, other times suggesting what she might have experienced but is not telling.

Local non-professional actors participated in shooting the film on location in Brockville and Gravenhurst, Ontario. The energy of the kids was explosive, and they contributed smart suggestions for production practicalities. Principle actor Kathleen Swim Fowler was stung by a bee during rehearsal for the kissing scene. Ten-year-old narrator Ruby Watson Rowe was a natural, reading Cullen’s story just as it sounded in my imagination.