A climate-fiction thriller created by Eric Rose and jason rothery
ABOUT
So Dark The Sky is an episodic short-form series being developed for the free CBC Gem streaming service. Told from the perspective of Cass - a lone scientist-engineer managing our one remaining seed bank in Canada’s far North - locked in a desperate struggle to save a reeling human population from extinction. Following in the footsteps of post-apocalyptic thrillers such as The Road and 12 Monkeys, So Dark The Sky is an intimate and startling exploration of the trap of nostalgia, technological overdependence, and the shape of our survival as a species.
Setting and Background
So Dark the Sky unfolds in and around a subterranean vault situated in a shrinking strip of habitable territory known as the Band. A string of climate-related disasters has reduced the human population to a fraction of its seven billion peak, a sequence of events now referred to as “The Great Contraction.” The Vault, a storehouse of seeds and animal DNA, holds the promise of replenishing and repopulating an infertile planet, and restoring us to a lost Golden Age.
Jason is a Calgary-based writer and lapsed academic with a professional artistic career spanning nearly twenty years. He served as resident dramaturge of Playwrights Theatre Centre (Vancouver), resident playwright of the Soulpepper Academy (Toronto), co-founder and Festival Director of the Calgary Fringe Festival, and Artistic Director of Ghost River Theatre (Calgary). Jason has enjoyed many professional productions of his work, both as playwright and collaborative-creator. Highlights include Inside the Seed, recipient of a Jessie Richardson Award for Outstanding Original Script, and published by Talonbooks. The City & the City – an adaptation of China Miéville’s celebrated cult novel – enjoyed a sold-out premiere run at the PuSh International Performing Arts Festival. (Re)Birth: EE Cummings in Song toured to New York City’s 42nd Street Theatre after multiple mainstage mountings. Jason's debut novel, Privilege, was published in 2019.
Kyle is a Canadian filmmaker, and an alum of the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema at Concordia University in Montreal. His award winning short films including Not Far From The Abattoir(2011) and The Post (2012), have screened at festivals around the world including SXSW and Telefilm’s Not Short On Talentshowcase at Cannes. In 2014 Thomas completed his first feature film, The Valley Below,produced with the support of Telefilm Canada and the Alberta Media Fund, and had its World Premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival. The Valley Below was acquired for Canadian distribution by A71 Entertainment, and went on to garner 2 Canadian Screen Award nominations in 2015. Thomas recently completed his second feature film as writer/director, Range Roads, and is also a lead producer on Hey Viktor!, an Indigenous dark comedy funded by Telefilm Canada, set for principal photography in 2021.
PRODUCTION HISTORY
February 2017: Workshop, West Village Theatre, Calgary, AB
May - August 2020: Development through the Canada Council for the Arts’ Creation Accelerator
FUTURE DEVELOPMENT
This new version of So Dark the Sky is being developed in partnership with the Canada Council for the Arts and CBC/Radio-Canada. If you’d like to stay up to date on this show in the future, sign up for our newsletter at the bottom of the page.
Feel an artistic calling to this project? Interested in partnering on the project? Contact Kyle Thomas from North Country Cinema at kyle@northcountrycinema.com.
CREDITS
Eric Rose: Co-Creator, AD Ghost River Theatre
Jason Rothery: Co-Creator
Kyle Thomas: Series Director, Co-Founder North Country Cinema
Reavn Brasch: Production Designer
