Screenplays
Jonas's first produced screenplay, Lucid, made its world premiere at the 2005 Toronto International Film Festival, won the award for Best Canadian Film at the 2005 Vancouver International Film Festival, and went on to play at a variety of festivals worldwide. The film had a theatrical release across Canada in the spring of 2006, courtesy of distributor Mongrel Media, and is now available on Netflix Canada. Jonas co-wrote the screenplay with director Sean Garrity, and played the lead role.
His second produced screenplay, My Awkward Sexual Adventure had its world premiere in September 2012 at the Toronto International Film Festival and was named one of TIFF's Top Ten movies of the year. Produced by Chernick's Banana-Moon Sky Films and julijette inc., it also won the People's Choice Award at the Calgary International Film Festival and the Audience Award at the Whistler Film Festival. It was released in April 2013 in Canada by Phase 4 Films, and in the US by Tribeca Film. It won two Canadian Comedy Awards (nominated for a total of six), was nominated for a DGC Award for Best Feature Film, was nominated for two ACTRA Awards (for Jonas's lead performance, and for Marina Stephenson Kerr's supporting performance), sold to over 35 territories worldwide and was optioned for remakes in France, South Korea, India, Ukraine, Russia, Poland and Lithuania, where it was released in 2015 under the title Nepatyres, and became the third highest grossing movie in Lithuania that year. The sex comedy stars Chernick as Jordan Abrams, an uptight accountant who falls for a free-spririted stripper and co-stars Emily Hampshire (Good Neighbors, Cosmopolis), Sarah Manninen (The Line), and Vik Sahay (NBC's hit series Chuck, American Pie Reuinion). It can currently be found on iTunes, Netflix (USA) and multiple VOD platforms.
Jonas also wrote the screenplay for the feature film Borealis, a comedic drama road-trip movie about a father determined to take his visually impaired teenaged daughter to Churchill, Manitoba to see the magnificent Northern Lights before she loses her sight completely. Borealis was released in theatres across Canada in April 2016, after screening to rave reviews and sold out houses at the Montreal World Film Festival, Cinefest Sudbury, the Edmonton International Film Festival, the Calgary International Film Festival, the Kinsgton Canadian Film Festival, Toronto's Canadian Film Festival, and the Vancouver International Film Festival, where it was awarded a Special Jury Mention for Best Performance by star Joey King (Emmy nominated for Hulu's The Act, White House Down, The Conjuring). Directed by regular Chernick collaborator Sean Garrity, Borealis was also nominated for a 2016 Canadian Screen Award, and was the Opening Night Film at the Brooklyn Film Festival.
In 2020, Jonas was nominated for a Canadian Screen Award for Best Original Screenplay for the comedy feature film James vs His Future Self, which he co-wrote with director Jeremy LaLonde. The sci-fi rom-com stars Chernick, Daniel Stern (Home Alone, City Slickers), Cleopatra Coleman (The Last Man on Earth) and Frances Conroy (six-time Emmy Award nominated star of HBO's classic series Six Feet Under). In the film, Chernick plays a scientist on the brink of becoming the world's first time traveler, when he's kidnapped by the crazy and unpredictable future version of himself (played by Stern), who has come back to warn him to give up on his time travel aspirations, or suffer the consequences. He also co-wrote the 2022 psychological drama Ashgrove with co-star Amanda Brugel and director Jeremy LaLonde, which premiered at the 2022 Glasgow Film Festival, won two awards at the 2022 Canadian Film Festival, and was nominated for two Canadian Screen Awards.
Jonas wrote the sexy rom-com The End of Sex, which premiered at TIFF 2022 and opened in spring 2023 on 200 screens across North America, after screenings at the Glasgow, Dublin and Taipei Golden Horse Film Festivals. The film was directed by Sean Garrity and co-stars Chernick, Emily Hampshire, Melanie Scrofano and Gray Powell. Next up is the time-bending romantic drama The Burning Season, starring Chernick and Sara Canning, and also directed by frequent collaborator Garrity, and which is slated for a 2023 release via Sphere Films International, Northern Banner Releasing, CBC Films and Hollywood Suite. Chernick has several other screenplays in active development, including a feature film based on the life of comedian Phil Hartman, called Starring Phil Hartman with co-writer Jessie Gabe, sci-fi action comedy Saving Hicksville with co-writer / director Andrew Hunt, and quirky coming-of-age story Mitzi, with co-writer Ellie Moon.
Jonas has taught screenwriting at the Toronto Film School, and also works as a professional story editor, assisting on screenplays by some of Canada's top writers and directors. He's also a published essayist - his Sean Garrity , The Unwitting Patriarch: Musings from the Middle was included in the Winnipeg Film Group's 2009 collection entitled Place - 13 Essays, 13 Filmmakers, 1 City.
