When Semi Chellas took a leave of absence from her graduate studies at Cornell University to join the Canadian Film Centre, she vowed only to return if she couldn't make a living as a screenwriter. But after umpteen rejections from story departments for which she was seeking to intern, one chance meeting with Bruce McDonald solidified the young, budding writer's fate.

It was 1994 when Chellas, fresh out of the cfc's screenwriting resident program, met the Hard Core Logo director at a party. He told her he wanted to make a movie about a Quebec girl who gets lost in Toronto. She told him she had recently moved to Toronto and shared some of her observations. He asked her if she would be interested in writing an outline for his untold story. She, with not one writing credit to her name, said "yes" and the embryonic Claire's Hat was conceived.

"I totally wasn't trying to get the job," says the ascending screenwriter, who is decked in black from top to bottom as she sits on a ragged Salvation Army couch in her Annex apartment. But whatever her intention, McDonald made the offer without any reference to her professional experience (or lack thereof) and paid the young writer's rent for the few months it took to complete the outline. "That was great for me at the time because I was really, really poor," she says and giggles.

Her accent is as curious as her name and she looks 10 years younger than her 31 years, but despite appearances and trappings, Chellas, considered by most to be a new arrival on the scene, has spent the past six years becoming one of the most prolific young screenwriters in Canada.

"I've been doing the same thing for six years and suddenly everything is getting made at once and there's a critical mass of people hearing my name," says Chellas, who was recently named a "Young Leader of Canada" by the Globe and Mail, and whose Claire's Hat, which is now in post, was finally produced by Robert Lantos.

The ofdc financed the film's first draft, but soon after fell apart as a funding agency, leaving McDonald to look elsewhere for financing. Lantos, who had seen the first draft years earlier when it was presented to Alliance Atlantis, finally picked up the film 14 drafts later.

It was Chellas' 31st birthday when she got the call. She was still recovering from a party the night before when she made it to the phone to find 30 messages from Lantos' office.

"I didn't even know they were talking about it," says Chellas, who quickly pulled herself together to find out upon arrival at Serendipity Point Films that the script she had been rewriting for the past five years was going immediately into preproduction.

And this wasn't the first time serendipity played such a large part in Chellas' fate. In addition to her initial meeting with McDonald, she also fluked out on her first feature The Life Before This.

When she completed the program at the cfc she went out to make some shorts for Showcase, which at the time had a calling card program. She was doing it for free so she could rack up credits to qualify for membership in the Writers Guild of Canada. Then, in the midst of her pursuit, the program was cancelled. "One of the producers there then introduced me to Ilana Frank. They must have felt sorry for me," says Chellas, recalling the first time she met the producer of her first feature film, which later premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival (1999).