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 is scheduled for a theatrical release in 2012 courtesy of Phase 4 Films. The sex comedy was shot in late 2011 and stars Chernick as Jordan Abrams, an uptight accountant who falls for a free-spririted stripper. The film co-stars Emily Hampshire (Good Neighbors, Cosmopolis), Sarah Manninen (The Line), and Vik Sahay (NBC's hit series Chuck, American Pie Reuinion).
Currently, Jonas has three feature film screenplays in development. Borealis is 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. The project is in development with Telefilm Canada and Astral Media's The Harold Greenberg Fund, and will be produced by Chernick and Buffalo Gal Pictures (Mad Ship, High Life, The Stone Angel). Clara's War, an adaptation of the book by Kathy Kacer, is an inspiring story of a young girl coping with life in the infamous Terezin ghetto during the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia by participating in a rebellious production of a children's opera. The project is in development with Corey Marr Productions (Who Loves the Sun, Passenger Side), with the assistance and support of Telefilm Canada. Also in development is the sexy comedy The Spark, produced by Chernick and Avi Federgreen (Still, I'm Yours, Score: The Hockey Musical). The movie tells the story of a young married couple who give themselves a one month deadline to either reignite their sexual spark, or dissolve the relationship once and for all.
Jonas has written several other feature film scripts, including Teenland, a high-concept comedy, and Chemical Love, a coming-of-age story about a group of friends experimenting with the drugs and sex of the underground "rave" culture in Canada in the early nineties. Jonas also works as a professional story editor, and has assisted on screenplays by some of Canada's top writers. He is 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.