Valanne Ridgeway

Movies

Ordinary Magic
Production Design
When his father dies, Jeffrey is sent to live with his aunt Charlotte in Canada. Once there he leads his aunt and his friends in staging, a non-violent hunger strike to try to save his aunt's house from being demolished to make room for a ski resort.
White Room
Production Design
Norm, a confused young man, lives two lives, one in and one out of reality. One night, he witnesses the murder of rock video star Madelaine X and feels guilty, as he did nothing to prevent it. At Madelaine’s funeral, he meets a mysterious woman in black. Norm then gets a job at a news stand through a Cindy Lauper like girl called Zelda. They discuss the mystery around Madelaine’s death.
Where the Spirit Lives
Production Design
In 1937, a young First Nations (Canadian native) girl named Ashtecome is kidnapped along with several other children from a village as part of a deliberate Canadian policy to force First Nations children to abandon their culture in order to be assimilated into white Canadian/British society. She is taken to a boarding school where she is forced to adopt Western Euro-centric ways and learn English, often under brutal treatment. Only one sympathetic white teacher who is more and more repelled by this bigotry offers her any help from among the staff. That, with her force of will, Ashtecome (forced to take the name Amelia) is determined to hold on to her identity and that of her siblings, who were also abducted.
The Top of His Head
Art Direction
Satellite dish salesman Gus (Stephen Ouimette) experiences some life-altering changes when he meets performance artist Lucy (Christie MacFadyen) in this visually poetic fantasy. After Lucy vanishes, leaving a puzzling note, Gus goes on a quest for the mysterious woman. Moving from his meticulous life in a technologically advanced world into the spontaneity of nature, Gus learns some important lessons and begins to trust his own instincts.
I've Heard the Mermaids Singing
Art Direction
Awkward, shy and delightfully funny, Polly Vandersma is an "organizationally impaired" temporary assistant who finally gets her first permanent job at the age of 31. While she works for the curator of an art gallery, Polly narrates her own story, sharing the comical and bittersweet pretensions of the art world. At the same time, she reveals a special part of her own private world, taking the viewer to enchanted places in this quiet assault on the notion of authority everywhere.