Local filmmaker’s short film tapped for CBC competition

August 20, 2026 · 0 Comments

When Beth Evans and her husband bought a unit in the Wells Street Schoolhouse Lofts more than 15 years ago, they initially secured it as an investment property – in more recent years, however, it’s provided a backdrop for creativity which has recently caught the attention of the CBC.

Unit 303, a short film written and directed by Evans and produced by her company, Windrun Media, is one of nine Canadian short films tapped by the national broadcaster for the latest season of its CBC Short Film Face-Off.

The selected short films will be showcased on the CBC over three evenings beginning August 29.

Each film screened as part of the series will be evaluated by a panel of judges, with the ultimate winner receiving a cash prize of $30,000.

In recent years, when a tenant moved out, Evans saw a prime opportunity to flex her creative muscles in a local location. She conceived the idea for Unit 303 and completed the script in little over half-an-hour.

“It just came to me, I don’t know what else to say,” says Evans of the film, which follows a man and a woman looking through the eponymous suite.

The circumstances of what brought them there and why aren’t clear until the end of the five-minute reel and Evans tasked herself with shooting the piece in one day with just two actors in the condo suite overlooking the Town Park area.

“I just thought, with two people in there, what would they be doing? If it’s empty, they are either coming or leaving,” says Evans of the initial idea.

Unit 303 made its local debut at Aurora Town Square last year ahead of a screening of York Region director Sean Cisterna’s documentary, Silver Screamers, and the couple’s on-screen journey unfolded in front of a packed house.

“I think the saddest thing that can happen in a relationship is when it just doesn’t work, when somebody’s done something that maybe could be forgiven, but just can’t be overlooked by the other person,” says Evans. “They are two good people who can’t make it work, and it’s about the heartbreak of that. In my mind, there was no cheating, there was no clear finger-pointing in this relationship, but the deep sadness of it is that despite their efforts, despite their love for one another still, it’s not going to work.

“It’s just one moment in the course of an entire relationship, and it’s just encapsulated in a little five-minute scene.”

Unit 303 will be beamed across the country in the August 29 season premiere of the CBC Short Film Face-Off, alongside two other shorts.

Evans says she’s not only eager to hear feedback from the series’ assembled film critics but to showcase Aurora to the wider country. Of course, the $30,000 top prize certainly doesn’t hurt!

If she’s lucky enough to win, Evans will invest the money into producing and directing her first full-length feature film. She plans to shoot the feature Aurora – and, inspired by Silver Screamers – with local residents taking part wherever possible.

The planned feature will follow a woman “feeling erased by the demands of marriage and motherhood who decides to rekindle a connection with a former high school teacher who she had a secret relationship with as a teen.”

“The decision forces her to confront what lies beneath her broken confidence and the quiet inertia that has shaped her life,” says Evans. “It deals with the themes of loss of identity within a marriage, motherhood, and other sensitive topics. It’s a psychological drama and also a dark comedy. The heartbeat of the story is the fact that she has lost her connection with herself as she has immersed herself in her role as a wife and a mother. This loss of identity has led her to search for herself down paths that she probably shouldn’t go.”

Still working on the script, Evans says she’s been workshopping the project in the career accelerator program Women in the Director’s Chair, where feedback has been invaluable.

Whether or not the CBC’s prize money comes her way, Evans is committed to seeing the feature through to completion.

“I am committed to finding a way to make the film regardless, see what support I can muster up within the community and what funds I can put together because this really is the next step for me as a filmmaker and director,” she says. “I’ve done four short films now and it’s time for me to level up to the longer format.

“I’ve been really inspired by [what Cisterna did with Silver Screamers] and I am really hoping with my future film to find similar ways to involve the community in the creation of the film. I think it’s a way to expose people to the filmmaking process and inspire people to tell their own stories. It’s just another way to build community – and to build up that sense of arts within the community.”

For more on the CBC’s Short Film Face-Off, visit shortfilmfaceoff.ca.

By Brock Weir
Editor
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter