We’re sipping martinis with Jennifer Holness at the J Wray and Nephew bar at the local premiere of the Canadian independent film Home Again. The spunky, effervescent Rock-born Holness is the film’s co-writer and producer. As she readies to unveil her latest work — basking in flashing camera bulbs — we steal a moment to gab.

What are you sipping?

A lychee martini.

Jeans or LBD?

I think there’s always a reason for a little black dress, although as a film producer I do a lot of work on the ground in jeans. Really, they’re both sort of uniforms for me; it’s either the little black dress – or purple, because I love the colour purple – or jeans… the tighter the better. I love skinny jeans.

Flats or stilettos?

If I’m on set, definitely flats; if I’m wearing an LBD, definitely stilettos, especially if it’s something with a fabulous print.

Who does your hair?

I have a wonderful girlfriend named Mel, up in Scarborough, Ontario, who creates the best hairstyles. I go into her place for a couple of hours and I come out looking and feeling fabulous.

Who does your nails?

I have to say this is the one area where I’ve kind of fallen off. I have this bad habit where I pick at my fingernails a lot, so I make up for that with my toes. Getting them done is a treat. I get them done at a shop called Nails for You in Toronto.

What perfume are you wearing?

I’m kind of a classic girl. I love Chanel. I use it all the time.

What are your travel essentials?

Water, some kind of oil — either olive oil or coconut oil, because my skin gets so dry — a good book, and my computer.

How would you describe your personal style?

I think clothes should reflect your personality, and it should be fun. I really go for outfits that aren’t too conservative. I like a little colour and things that make a bit of a statement — not too crazy though.

Are you a romantic comedy or an action adventure type of woman?

I have to say I am a drama and romantic comedy lover. I love romance. I grew up reading romance novels, and I think I wrote my first one when I was about eight years old. It wasn’t very good; it was just a lot of kissing. But I like a story that takes me into a world where there’s something deeper going on, but at the heart of it it’s a love story, whether it’s between a father and son, a mother and daughter or a guy and a girl. For me love is the essence of life, and that tends to influence the type of films that I watch.

What is your idea of a perfect date?

Well, I’m married and I haven’t been on a date in a long time. But I can tell you: flying me to a Caribbean island — because I live in Canada, and it’s cold — and taking me to a fantastic villa where there will be a chef, and someone to clean up afterwards. We’d sit down to a fantastic meal, and after the meal — since the date would be with my husband — we would do what wives and husbands do. That’s a perfect date for me.

What bad habit would you most like to put in your rear-view mirror?

I grew up often having to figure things out and do them on my own, so I’ve now made it a bit of a habit to assume that if there’s anything to be done I’ll have to do it myself. So I’ve come across situations where I’ve not really followed up on things, because I assume that I’m going to have to do it myself, and that’s something that I’ve been trying to shed. I’m trying to now open up to everybody and every possibility.

Who inspires you?

Oprah Winfrey is a very easy one; she inspires me because of what she’s accomplished in the mainstream industry — which is tremendously challenging. She inspires me deeply because not only has she done it, but she gives back as well. My husband also inspires me, he’s a very creative guy and he’s a really kind person, and I believe that kindness is the most important attribute, besides love and support. He inspires me because he treats everybody equally, and I follow his lead in that. He also helps me sometimes when I feel really down, telling me I can do it. He really is like my life coach.

What propelled you to enter the business of filmmaking?

Once again, I have my husband to thank for that. We met in university, and I was studying political science at the time, specialising in policy analysis, and I just wasn’t happy. I think I was doing it because I love politics and I was kind of good at it. At the time he was studying film. When I was invited to apply to law school because my marks were so high, I was about to make the mistake of going, and then I thought, “Well, I don’t really want to go to law school”. That’s when I looked at the type of work that he was doing and thought, “You know what, I can do that”. Spike Lee was another influence of mine. This was around the time when he was coming out and he was making these really great movies, and I had never seen black movies telling black stories like that, and I said, “I want to tell stories like that”. So my husband inspired my interest in getting into the business, and Spike Lee showed me that I could actually tell the stories I wanted to.

What types of stories are you most interested in telling?

You know, I really want to do it all. But I find it’s easiest for me — at this point in my career — to finance things that are a bit gritty, although my first feature film was a romantic comedy, and it did very well for us, and I do eventually want to make another one. I think we should never limit ourselves. Hollywood wants to finance a certain kind of black film, and there’s nothing wrong with those films, but we just need to be able to do more, and that’s what I want to do. I also want to do a science fiction movie — it’s like black people never exist in the future, why is that?

Tell us a little about your film career thus far.

I started off producing, that was because I knew nothing about filmmaking, and I hadn’t been to film school. But I was relatively intelligent, and good at organising, so producing became my thing. I started off producing music videos, short films, documentaries, feature films and television shows. In the middle of all this I was working with my creative partner David ‘Sudz’ Sutherland — who is a writer/director — and when he started getting hired to direct other projects it became clear that someone needed to help with the writing. Now I love writing, I’d always been doing it, so it occurred to me that I needed to be doing the writing, since he was too busy to. So I started writing, and we realised that I was actually good at it. I’m now an award-winning writer, and I’m so happy that the journey started where it did.

Is it difficult at times juggling both roles?

It’s very difficult, because in Canada we have to do a lot of paperwork. We get a lot of government financing and there’s a lot of transparency, so that takes up a lot of my time. To compensate, what I find myself having to do is carve out three weeks at a time to write, when my ideal situation would be being able to write every day.

Tell us about ‘Home Again’ and what inspired that effort.

I was born in Jamaica and raised in Canada, so I’ve always felt connected to both places. But I know that I could never survive in Jamaica without any family support, because I just don’t know the runnings. You have to know people, you have to know where to go, and all that stuff. So when I had a friend who was deported and then killed a few years later, it really shocked me to my core, because I thought, “If I didn’t study, or follow a certain path, or if my mother didn’t file my papers properly, this could easily have been my life”. When it hits you that close to home you feel compelled, and then when I came to Jamaica in 2005 and interviewed over 40 deportees, young and old, I was stunned at some of the challenges they had faced around deportation, so I just felt like this is a story that needed to be told. It’s impacting not just Jamaica, but all of the Caribbean and Africa, and so we can’t pretend it doesn’t exist and that it’s not a huge problem. We’re hoping that this film can act as a tool to let international governments know that they have to do better. If they’re going to deport people, for example, they should have resources in place to protect those people who often grew up in their country, who they now say is someone else’s problem.

What’s the next project?

I actually have two projects that I’m really excited about. There’s my next feature film called Operation Red Dog, which is based on a true Canadian-American story that also involves the Caribbean. It’s about a young journalist who basically wants to be a famous Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, and who stumbles across a crazy plot that he thinks will help make his career. It involves a Jewish gunrunner, Neo-Nazis and the ex-Prime Minister of Dominica; and it’s about a coup that these guys are planning. Basically, the journalist convinces them to let him follow along, promising that he’ll write his book/article after the coup has happened — all the while he’s really planning on telling the cops. As we go along it really becomes a question of how far he’s willing to go to get the big story. The other project is a television miniseries called Perceptions, which is a political crime drama that deals with the subject of racial profiling.

What word of advice would you give to aspiring Jamaican filmmakers?

Well, one thing that’s great is that the technology nowadays lends itself to independent filmmaking for young people. So I do think that if you have a burning story to tell, then get a camera and get the people. But the truth is they need the resources and the support of the government. They need training and access to actors. Because what will happen is that they’ll do it, but the quality of the product might not be as high because they don’t have the training. I’d say though that the best place to start is with documentaries. You can do a documentary relatively inexpensively, and that is something you can do that will actually travel internationally. So what you have to do first of all is watch documentaries, and if you have a powerful story, whether it’s personal or more global, you can document it, you can tell that story, and that’s where I think young people should start.

Where do you see yourself five years from now?

I would like to be one of the top filmmakers in the world, and I would like to see the movies that I bring to the cinema go global, and for people to recognise that these stories are valuable and important, and that black people have the same talent. So basically, I’d like to continue to tell these stories, but on a more global stage.