Patricia Rozema (born 20 August 1958) is a Canadian film director, writer and producer. She was part of a loosely-affiliated group of filmmakers to emerge in 1980s from Toronto known as theToronto New Wave.

Patricia Rozema
Rozema in 2015
Born	(1958-08-20)20 August 1958 (age 66) Kingston, Ontario, Canada
Occupation(s)	Film director, writer, producer, editor
Years active	1985–present
Children	2

Rozema was born inKingston, Ontario and raised inSarnia, Ontario. Her parents, Jacoba Berandina (née Vos) and Jan Rozema, were DutchCalvinists.^[1][2] Television was severely restricted and she did not go to a movie theatre until she was 16 years old. Rozema studied philosophy andEnglish literature atCalvin College inMichigan.^[3]

After a brief stint as a print and then television journalist (CBC Television'sThe Journal), Rozema directed her first feature,I've Heard the Mermaids Singing (1987), aserious comedy starringSheila McCarthy about a loner named Polly who is an art gallery secretary and aspiring photographer. At the1987 Cannes Film Festival,I've Heard the Mermaids Singing won thePrix de la Jeunesse.^[3] In 1993, theToronto International Film Festival ranked it ninth in theTop 10 Canadian Films of All Time, with Rozema becoming the first female director to have a film on the list.^[4] The film did not appear on the updated 2004 version.^[5]

In 1990, Rozema directedWhite Room, a neo-noir starring McCarthy,Kate Nelligan,Margot Kidder, andMaurice Godin.^[6] Writing inThe Washington Post, Rita Kempley described it as "a suburban gothic fairy tale, a work of dark, conflicted magic that might have been cut fromBlue Velvet byEdward Scissorhands."^[7] Rozema also directed theSix Gestures (part of theYo-Yo MaInspired by Bach television series), which combined images of Yo-Yo Ma performing with skating sequences byJane Torvill andChristopher Dean, interwoven withJ.S. Bach's first-person narrative.Six Gestures was nominated for aGrammy and won anEmmy Award for Outstanding Classical Music-Dance Program, as well as aGolden Rose, the top television award in Europe. She then directed the romance filmWhen Night Is Falling in 1995 starringPascale Bussières and Rachael Crawford, and featuringDon McKellar andTracy Wright.

Rozema's next two feature films were made outside Canada;Mansfield Park (1999) is arevisionist adaptation ofJane Austen'snovel of that name.^[8][9]Happy Days (2000), an Irish production, is a film version ofSamuel Beckett'shumorously despairing play in which a woman lives partially buried in a mound of sand.

She later directed andghost-wroteKit Kittredge: An American Girl (2008),^[10] which was based on theAmerican Girl book series. The film earned Rozema aDirectors Guild of Canada Award nomination for Best Director.

Rozema's television credits include the pilot and two subsequent episodes of theHBO seriesTell Me You Love Me (2008), an episode of the HBO seriesIn Treatment (2010), and episodes of the Canadian television sitcomMichael, Tuesdays and Thursdays, which premiered onCBC Television in fall 2011.^[11] She most recently worked as a director on theAmazon seriesMozart in the Jungle.^[8]

Rozema and co-writerMichael Sucsy received an Emmy Award nomination (Outstanding Writing for a Miniseries, Movie or a Dramatic Special), a Writers Guild of America Award nomination (Long Form – Original) and a PEN USA Award nomination in Screenplay for the HBO movieGrey Gardens (2009).

Her feature filmInto the Forest, starringElliot Page andEvan Rachel Wood, premiered at theToronto International Film Festival in September 2015.^[12]

Her most recent feature,Mouthpiece (2018), premiering atTIFF, is an adaptation of a two-woman play created and performed by Norah Sadava and Amy Nostbakken, who also star in the film. Sadava and Nostbakken play dual versions of the same female protagonist, who struggles to find her voice while writing her mother's eulogy. A profile of Rozema in the Globe & Mail called it "her most directly political film" and added that "it also may be her most heartfelt and emotionally mature."^[13]

In 2017, Rozema founded her own production company, Crucial Things, to co-produceMouthpiece.^[14]

Rozema is openly lesbian and has two children with her former partner, film composerLesley Barber.^[15][16]

Short film

Feature film

Television

• Second prize at the Chicago International Film Festival for her shortPassion: A Letter in 16 mm.
• I've Heard the Mermaids Singing won thePrix de la Jeunesse atDirector's Fortnight in Cannes and was nominated for Best Picture – with Rozema garnering nominations Best Director and Best Screenplay – at the9th Genie Awards in 1988. The film received 17 further awards. It is listed as one of the Best Canadian Films of All Time by the International Film Critics association.
• White Room earned 4 prizes, and 3 Genie nominations.
• When Night Is Falling premiered in competition in the45th Berlin International Film Festival^[17] and went on to win over 30 awards from different countries and at various gay and lesbian film festivals.
• Yo-Yo Ma, Inspired by Bach Rozema's episode "Six Gestures" won a Prime Time Emmy Award and was nominated for a Grammy. (other contributors included Atom Egoyan)

• List of female film and television directors
• List of lesbian filmmakers
• List of LGBT-related films directed by women

• Official website
• Patricia Rozema – femfilm.ca: Canadian Women Film Directors Database
• Patricia Rozema atIMDb