Keilani Elizabeth Rose’s love for acting, dancing, and DJing arises from her deep desire to connect with her creativity and build community amongst artists. Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, connectivity to others and the ability to create were limiting for Rose. Still, the pandemic has not deterred Rose from acting. Her most recent feature, The Sinners is slated to be released in Europe this year.

In The Sinners, Rose plays Katie Hamilton, a high school student who is a member of a secret cult. The Sinners 2020 opening night at Mammoth Lakes Film Festival in California was the last event she went to before the pandemic: “We were really lucky because we got to celebrate the premiere for The Sinners right before the pandemic hit.”

Quickly after, like many people around the world, Rose went into quarantine. She summarizes last year as a “huge lesson in adaptability.” Most importantly, she learned how to be creative in an innovative way.

The multi-disciplinary artist has been featured in shows like Once Upon a Time, Lucifer, Six, A Series of Unfortunate Events and The Magicians. Apart from The Sinners, Woodland and Within The Silence have been Rose’s most recent feature film projects. During the pandemic, Rose ventured into producing on a web comedy series called FLIMSY and is currently producing the upcoming film BREATHE, which will begin filming this year in Vancouver.

Rose comments that production for FLIMSY (directed by Vivian Full and Cody Kearsley and musically scored by two-time Grammy award-winning musician Printz Board) was “more challenging” to shoot due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The series was shot all remotely on Zoom (a first for Rose) and took six weeks to film. It was also Rose’s first time producing and as she called it, having to “wear so many hats.”

“We had to be so self-sufficient. We had a director and the cinematographer on Zoom with us, but we were all completely in charge of our own lighting, set deck, and camera setup. It was just a huge learning curve,” she says.

Rose comments that this new on-set experience helped her understand “how much ownership” she could have over her creativity and explains that she now can “step beyond the role of an actor and into the role of a writer or producer.”

As a dancer, model, DJ, actor, and now writer and producer, Rose states that these artistic activities have helped her develop a “deeper connection” with herself, family, and friends. She says her affinity for the arts kind of just “fell into her lap” and that her transition into writing and producing is a “cool evolution, like butterflying.”

With new skills under her belt, Rose is producing the film BREATHE. It’s about an Indigenous girl’s battle with addiction due to trauma and the historical effects of colonization. Rose, who is from the Lheidli T’enneh First Nation (Prince George, BC), has implemented a mentorship program for Indigenous youth to have the ability to work pre- and post-production on BREATHE.

Rose retells the story about how she suggested Kearsley incorporate a mentorship program in the production of BREATHE: “I just said to him that this subject matter is really heavy. It's a piece about addiction, mental health, separation from culture and spirit. I asked him how do you feel about bringing a mentorship program into play here? I really wanted to find some way to incorporate strength into the project, and I think the best way that we could do that is by inviting the next generation [of Indigenous youth] onto pre-production and into post-production, so they can have a space at the table, feel like their voices are important and that the reality of sharing their stories is there for them.”

Likewise, Rose is currently writing her first feature film called SUNFLOWER. “It’s a story about an Indigenous girl who survives the foster care system as part of the Sixties Scoop. She finds belonging and reclaims her identity when she makes her way back to her family and her culture.” Having principal control of SUNFLOWER, Rose wants to make this film a family affair, as she’ll be including her siblings in the soundtrack, art, and design process.

Rose has a bright future ahead of her and exciting projects on the horizon. “I really look forward to seeing how much impact I can make in the future with projects, telling stories the way I want to tell them, amplifying voices, and representing stories from people of different cultures,” she says.

You can find out more about Keilani Elizabeth Rose here or follow her on Instagram.

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KEILANI ELIZABETH ROSE ON HER CREATIVE EVOLUTION IN FILM