Q.  What are some of the recent projects?

A.  I am also a painter as well as an actress so I am preparing a bunch of paintings right now for a show in LA.  I am also promoting a couple of films and one is premiering at Sunset 5 next week and it's called The Donner Party.  The other one is called Stay Cool and that should be coming out in the Spring time.

Q.  What can you tell us about the premise for The Donner Party and about your character Ann?

A.  I am Canadian, so it's all very new and exciting for me to learn the story which I find fascinating.  The Donner Party is about the first settlers to leave Illinois in 1846 and they travel to California for the first time.  I read everything I possibly could about that time period.  They have been traveling for about nine months at the point where our film starts.  They took a wrong turn and got stranded in the Sierra Nevada Mountains with early snow fall and they are running out of food and they lost their cattle and the horses couldn't make it over the mountains.  A few of the people, namely myself, my sister, and my father, because our family is originally from Vermont, they're the only people who are familiar with heavy snow and they know how to make snow shoes.  A few of the settlers decide that they are just going to walk over the mountains to California.  There are three separate accounts of Cannibalism in our storyline.  I read the script and I did all of the research, it's not a thriller, it's just what happens.  Because it's so crazy what they did, and what they went to in order to survive, it is a thriller!  I was on the edge of my seat even though I knew what was going to be said next and what was going to happen next. 

Q.  What is it about the film that made you want to be a part of it?

A.  When I read the script I didn't even know that it was based on a true story.  You sometimes read a script and it just excites you, you're taken along with it, it just grabs you. It grabbed me, physically almost.  It's hard to explain, it was well written and even though the story was so tragic, it was kind of inspiring in this dark kind of way with the human spirit.  They just wanted a new life, they just wanted to get to California.  It's a good time not just in American history, just right now in the current environment with everything that has happened economically, that's the human spirit to just keep striving forward. 

Q.  How was working with director T.J. Martin?

A.  I love T.J.!  He wrote the script too, it's his baby!  Apparently he was haunted by the whole story for years and you can see that in his writing.  It was his first film and he did a great job.  He's young and I love working with young directors because there is this innocence to it and you can try and push them around a little bit and they'll work with you.  He's a good friend of mine now and I really enjoyed working with him and he's like my brother now. 

Q. Did the chemistry with the cast come naturally or did it take some time to develop?

A.  No it was really good casting!  The dynamics between us socially were exactly what they were in the script.  Sometimes that's what is great about doing independent films, because there are no politics in casting, just the right people are cast for the job.  They didn't even have to try to make us be our characters, we just were.  They were just great actors.  It was intense, we shot that film so quickly and we're on the top of the mountain and there is twelve feet of snow and we had to take gondolas and snowmobiles to set and people got frostbite.  Nothing got in the way of the performances or the filming process.  It was one of my favorite film sets that I've been on. 

Q.  Why do you think that people will want to take the time to check out the movie?

A.  I feel like it's an important part of American history.  We go to the movies to remind us of the human spirit and there are lots of different stories and ways of doing it, especially right now with all of the struggle going on now.  I haven't felt it as much as other people have, but we hear about it on the news all of the time constantly, how bad the economy is right now.  I know a lot of people can't imagine starving to death right now but yet even in this film, as dark as it is, there is this constant fight. There is a liberation in this film that just the fight to go after your dream, they're going to California and that's just the way it is.  Every line in every story and every move that is made in this film is just about getting to California, no matter what, and it's good to be reminded of that. 

Q.  Is there a place online where those interested can go to learn more about you?

A.  I have a website and it is catherineblack.com and then I have a blog as well at http://thescienceofliberation.blogspot.com and there is also a link to my Facebook on my site as well.