Next Phase is the production company headed by Canadian screenwriter, producer, and director B. P. Paquette.
Born in London, Ontario, Benjamin Patrick (B. P.) Paquette spent his childhood and adolescence in Greater Sudbury, Ontario. After completing over a dozen shorts, he produced, wrote, directed, and edited two features while still a high school student, Maxwell's Silver Hammer (1993) and A Descent Into Darkness (1994). Upon graduating with a Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) degree with a Specialization in Film Production from The Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema at Concordia University in Montreal, Quebec, he completed his third feature, Raining Angels (1997).
After obtaining his Master of Fine Arts (MFA) degree in Film Production at Concordia, Paquette made his professional filmmaking debut with the international award-winning and critically polarizing A Year in the Death of Jack Richards (2004), the first segment in his triptych on the psychology of romantic love. This was followed with The Woman of Ahhs: A Self-Portrait by Victoria Fleming (2008), and was concluded with The Anonymous Rudy S. (2019).
His other features include two docu-fiction features: Your Name Here (2019) and Beautiful Accidents (2019). Docu-fiction is a form of filmmaking that mashes characteristics of documentary and fiction. The lead character or characters are often portrayed by non-professional or amateur performers who are essentially playing themselves, or slightly fictionalized versions of themselves, in a fictionalized or partly fictionalized scenario.
Above: On set with some of his crew members, Paquette is at right to the camera.
His most recently completed feature is Perspective (2021), an episodic drama consisting of 9 chapters that were produced intermittently over a 9-consecutive year period.
Paquette is currently in production on the feature dramatic comedy Fidelity (2022), which is mostly animated with some live-action, and in post-production on the docu-fiction Swan Song [2022].
Above: Actor Pandora Topp in Perspective.
Awards, Nominations and other Accolades
2004 - nomination for Best Canadian Feature Film at Cinéfest Sudbury International Film Festival for A Year in the Death of Jack Richards
2005 - recipient of the Best Independent Feature Award at the Festival of Fantastic Films (UK) for A Year in the Death of Jack Richards
2005 - nomination for the FIPRESCI Prize for Best First Feature Film at the Transylvania International Film Festival for A Year in the Death of Jack Richards
2005 - recipient of the Grand Jury Award at The DeadCENTER Film Festival for A Year in the Death of Jack Richards
2008 - nomination for the Grand Prix Focus at the Festival du Nouveau Cinéma for The Woman of Ahhs: A Self-Portrait by Victoria Fleming
2009 - recipient of the Bronze Palm Award at the Mexico International Film Festival for The Woman of Ahhs: A Self-Portrait by Victoria Fleming
2009 - nomination for the Best Canadian Feature Film at Cinéfest Sudbury International Film Festival for The Woman of Ahhs: A Self-Portrait by Victoria Fleming
2009 - nomination for the Best Non-European Dramatic Feature at ÉCU The European Independent Film Festival for The Woman of Ahhs: A Self-Portrait by Victoria Fleming