Echo Park
Alyssa McGowan | 22 min, DV | Edmonton
Echo Park is a rare film in Prairie Tales’ past and present volumes: a narrative by and about adolescent students dealing with love, depression and abuse within their surprisingly violent domestic lives. Jesse (Jeff Garneau) is a sensitive high school student struggling through life with a neglectful mother, abusive father and an all around destructive home life. Echo Park is a place where Jesse comes to find clarity and peace away from his family and where he wishes his adult life would finally start. Eighteen year-old Alyssa McGowan has constructed a screenplay capturing Jesse’s home life that indicates a fine critical sense, and never falls into precociousness as characters speak about the very real problems with their lives with a sweetness and emotionality that is difficult for most filmmakers to achieve in any honest way. Echo Park, finally, is an all too brief character study of a spiraling young life brought to the edge of disaster.
Edmonton born, 18 year old Alyssa McGowan is a budding and passionate filmmaker. A graduate of Victoria School of Performing and Visual Arts, Alyssa has a wide background in many areas of the Arts, but it wasn’t until she finished her film classes in high school that she realized where her true passion laid. She has traveled numerous times to work on projects across Canada including a guest spot as assistant set decorator on the hit TV series Smallville in Vancouver. Echo Park is her directorial debut and earned her a nomination at the Arthur Hiller Student Film Festival. She plans to attend York University’s film program in the fall.