By Ruth Van Dyken

Robin Williams in Taylor’s Tea Room in Dundas, Ontario – Courtesy Taylor’s Tea Room

A quiet stroll through the “Valley Town” of Dundas will carry you into the heart of 19th century charm.  With their heavy white mouldings, arched window frames and high facades, the shop-buildings bespeak their century-old heritage.  And all throughout the valley people are alive with a small-town cheer and fellowship that has never faded.  Shopkeepers wave and usher you towards their wares, strangers greet you with a friendly smile.  The crowd of “regulars” at the coffee shop – a jovial bunch of old fogies – chuckle when you walk in.

It’s a walk back through time, back into the best of Canada’s lively past.  Surely this is how all Canadian towns looked 150 years ago.  But what’s that?  A line-up of American flags?  The distinguished town hall looks like it was pulled from upstate Maine and plunked on these streets.  Here is hometown America transplanted in Dundas, Ontario.

For all its absurdity, the scene isn’t altogether uncommon. Ironically, filmmakers are looking north of the border to recreate that revered essence of Americanism – any town, USA.  And Ontario’s towns are cashing in.

What entices American filmmakers to head north?  For many production companies, the bottom line is, well, the bottom line.  While the rising Canadian dollar has brought financial challenges, Ontarian partners are working hard to keep filmmakers hooked by offering a comprehensive package of diversity and expertise.

Jacqueline Norton, manager of Hamilton’s film and television office, described the thrill citizens get when famous actors come to town.  “Robin Williams was amazing,” Norton says of Man of the Year in Dundas, “He petted little dogs that were on the street, he bought a bicycle from the cycle shop …  People don’t forget that.”
[pullquote]“We get kind of addicted.” – Deborah Tiffin[/pullquote]

Other major titles filmed in town include The West Wing, The Incredible Hulk and Warehouse 13.  Port Perry has frequently flown the red, white and blue for movies like Welcome to Mooseport, Kill Shot and Happy Town.  Niagara Falls has had notables like Fever Pitch, Superman II and of course, the classic 1953 film Niagara starring Marilyn Monroe.

It’s a long list of names.  But with the loonie virtually at par with the greenback, many are asking whether the future of these small-town sets will be as bright as their starlit past.  It’s a tough question.  Hosting towns have experienced a lull over the past few years, but some report a comeback. Donna Zuchlinski, Ontario Film Commissioner at the Ontario Media Development Corporation (OMDC), says the dollar’s rise “hasn’t had as big an impact as we might have expected.”  She points out that Ontario’s competitive tax credits, as well as its comprehensive services work to offset this.  In fact, this “service package” is what all parties are working toward.

Realizing the economic profit film productions bring to town (Closing the Ring, for instance, commissioned the building of an entire house in Port Perry) the Scugog Township has contracted a film liaison. Deborah Tiffin has filled this full-time position since 2004, connecting the township to filmmakers.  She handles permits and other paperwork, mediating between production staff and the community and finding locations for the desired film sets.  Acting as a mediating link, Tiffin makes Scugog more film-friendly.  And she loves doing it.  “We get kind of addicted,” she jokes.

In what she calls the “small town with a big reputation,” Sarah Wood works as manager of business development for Niagara Parks Commission. “Certainly Niagara Falls has always been unique because it has an icon that you can only get in one location,” she laughs, but points out that the Falls are only a part of the Niagara film package.  A recent and exciting development has been the addition of retired power plants as sets.  With their massive proportions and cavernous tunnels, the plants are ideal for stunts in action films or as sets for laboratories, power plants or just plain gigantic warehouses.  “These are unique properties, they’re new properties and they haven’t been over-filmed,” she says.  “Especially for film crews from major television and motion pictures, the plants are a lucrative gem, the unknown that is out there that you’ve just got to get your hands on.”

Niagara’s police services are often enlisted for security and local knowledge.  Wood and her staff are there to walk producers through legalities and keep them out of trouble.  And of course, being situated between the United States and Toronto has its benefits.  These are all part of the competitive package Niagara has to offer.

A coffee shop in downtown Dundas, Ontario – photo by Ruth Van Dyken

The city periodically hosts familiarization tours that showcase these assets to producers.  “Film crews at Niagara are a perfect fit,” Wood says.  “We know how to work with film crews, we have the services to be able to serve them, but we also know how to work with major film stars.”

Back in Dundas, the town is so popular as a set that production requests are actively filtered.  Finding the ideal fit is in everybody’s best interest, says Norton.  In addition to it’s “small town anywhere” look, Dundas has beautiful views of the Niagara escarpment, extensive rural areas and historic homes.  “It’s got everything,” Norton says.  “It’s got older buildings, it’s got a small industrial area, it’s got waterfalls, it’s got so many things that add up to a really neat community.”

Norton says there is a lot of “stickhandling” necessary to minimize the interference of production on shop merchants.  She advises producers to pre-plan every step.  Locked schedules are very difficult to work with as both merchant and production needs have to be filled.  Filming during Christmas is usually out of the question, and Sunday through Wednesday are preferred above the rest of the week.

The OMDC has a film division devoted to selling the province to filmmakers.  Their services – which can come at no charge to the production company – include sourcing locations and providing connections with industry professionals and officials. Zuchlinski says the province’s great infrastructure, highly trained crews, varied locations and competitive tax credits are just some of the reasons producers choose Ontario.  The OMDC has a full-time marketing agent in Los Angeles to promote Ontario to companies there. Zuchlinski says production companies can cash in on “a tax credit of 25 per cent of their eligible spending, which includes labour, equipment rentals, studios and location fees.”  Credits like these help to explain the production trends of the past few years.

Predictably, 2008 showed annual foreign investment in Ontario’s film industry at less than half of 2007 figures.  Yet the market bounced back with a $5 million increase in 2009 and more than recovered in 2010.  OMDC statistics show the year closed at $48 million: that’s $13 million more than 2007 figures. Zuchlinski says the enhanced tax credits helped the market recover.

As the film commission eases production challenges in Ontario and connects them to competitive credits, the OMDC is yet another player working to bring American productions to Ontario.

And how do citizens view the “Americanization” of their hometowns?  For many Dundas merchants, the hassle film crews cause is generally worth the publicity they bring. Colleen House, owner of Amaretto’s Ladies Wear says even though she’s “not easily dazzled,” the filming can be fun when people like Robin Williams come to town. “He’s a warm personality, accommodating to his fans.  He allows people to get close to him.”

Norton sees the publicity as a positive factor for the “valley people”.  “When West Wing came to Hamilton, it had a real cult following.  We had phone calls from across Canada wanting to do interviews about this little town of Dundas and the filming of West Wing,” she said.  “The residential community in Dundas loves the filming.  They’re quite tickled by seeing stars walk around the street.”

[cincopa AMDAkk6u5U5Z]

By Adam Carter

Cast into the Atlantic Ocean on Canada’s eastern side, the island of Newfoundland is known for many things: a rugged, worn coastline, battered by high winds and pervasive fog. Salt-strewn streets and even saltier food, coupled with a dialect that is both parts lively and borderline indecipherable. A rich and varied history filled with hardships, entertainers, struggles and storytellers.

The Newfoundland Coastline - courtesy Sandra Elford

St. John’s, the capital, is not a burgeoning metropolitan centre. Though it has a thriving arts community and a plethora of rural live theatre, Newfoundland is much more at ease with being called quaint than it is hip. This is not to discount the depth and scope of the Newfoundland arts community: this little island has produced some of the best art this country has ever seen.

But hip, it isn’t.

That all changed in 2009, when Republic of Doyle started filming for CBC. Suddenly, the arts world exploded. Jobs opened for actors, production staff, culinary services – the world was immediately their oyster. Downtown St. John’s was transformed seemingly overnight into a hubbub of camera crews, lighting trucks, and cordoned off streets. This little town now boasted a hit television series, and its winding streets were jammed full with Canadian stars, film crews, and more people that could stake their claim as a film extra than Newfoundland had ever seen.

With a production this monumental must come change, but how has the arts community shifted? Has Doyle irrevocably transformed the scene in Newfoundland and if so, how?

Doyle’s executive producer John Vatcher lives in Newfoundland, and with his wife Debbie, has raised two kids on the island. His love for Newfoundland is palpable when he speaks, and it quickly becomes evident that he sees the island as an intrinsic part of the show.

“I think that the land actually shapes you, and learning to be a musician or an entertainer is something that you take on here, it’s not given. We have a sense of what is important, what is not, and what we love,” he says.

“If we’re gonna go listen to music, well why not just go play music? If we’re gonna go watch a play, well then why not just act? We love to entertain ourselves, we don’t wait for anyone else to do it.”

He mentions Canadian actors that have called Newfoundland their home, and the names quickly start to pile up: Rick Mercer, Mark Critch, Allan Doyle, Shaun Majumder, Mary Walsh, Gordon Pinsent, the list goes on. “These people become well received in Canadiana because they’re funny, vibrant, and very talented,” he says.

He’s quick to point out while Republic of Doyle has in fact altered the arts community, it has done so in tandem with hordes of talented Newfoundlanders who are getting the chance to showcase their craft. “With Doyle being here we need craftspeople, we need the lighting business, we’ve actually trained piles of people in the last two years as to how to be a background artist,” he says.

“We can expose actors that might otherwise have had to go to Toronto, we can use them as Newfoundlanders and add that flavour to the show, and we can showcase it.” There’s a kind of almost nationalistic pride that comes in using born and bred Newfoundlanders as much as possible, and it speaks to the ideals and sense of togetherness that has been created.

Vatcher believes the arts community as a whole will only get better as Doyle continues. He sees actors getting better as they audition more, and local musicians finding a place on television for their voices. Vatcher and company have already catalogued the songs of hundreds of local musicians for use on the show.

“[Doyle] has everybody bring their ‘A’ game – we get the benefit of that and they get the benefit of us. It’s a true collaboration. I don’t think we could tell the story in any other city, and we’re very happy that the arts community are our best partners.”

That contagious excitement that resonates throughout Newfoundland doesn’t begin and end with the producers. Krystin Pellerin plays Constable Leslie Bennett on set, and she can attest to the lift now found on these shores. “There’s just been this infusion, and everyone has come together suddenly. The whole arts community is coming together in a huge way,” she says. “There’s a great feeling going around, a wonderful energy.”

Allan Hawco on the set of Republic of Doyle - Photo by Ian Vatcher, courtesy Republic of Doyle

Pellerin started acting at the age of 14 with the Shakespeare by the Sea theatre company, performing the Bard’s work on the jagged cliffs of Logy Bay and Cape Spear. She then found herself working with the Beothuk Street Players and MUN Drama, before heading to the mainland for school and work. It was her role in Republic of Doyle that brought her back to the province she loves. “The spirit and the strength of the community has always been here and thrived, and now Doyle has really raised the bar,” she says.

She concedes that one of the biggest things hurting Newfoundland’s arts community presently is funding. “I remember seeing some of the best plays I’ve ever seen here – it’s a very thriving community without the funding behind it, so people would do it just because it needed to be done.”

Having lived here and knowing the community well, Pellerin knows how difficult it is to make a living as an artist in Newfoundland. “You come across a lot of people who are extremely talented at a lot of different things because they have to be, which is pretty unique to St. John’s because of the amount of funding available,” she says. Many people are forced to become a kind of jack of all trades to simply make ends meet.

Now, with Doyle into its second season and looking at a third, the cash influx has helped enable creators to do what they really want: create. “It’s boosted morale for the arts scene big time,” she says. “On lunch breaks people are all talking about the short films they’re making, and their side projects.”

That sentiment is echoed by Melanie O’Brien, who had a short role on Doyle in its first season. O’Brien is a working entertainer in St. John’s, making a living day to day as a musician and actress. She firmly believes the show has radically altered the way the arts community is now running. From one day of work on set with a speaking role, she did so well with pay and an extra ACTRA credit that she didn’t have to search for a nine-to-five summer job as she usually does, which allowed her more time to focus on acting and music – her real passions.

“What Doyle is doing is cutting out the joe-job,” she says. “It’s giving artists more time to focus on their craft and what they really want to do, therefore they’re getting more done, therefore there’s more music being released here, there’s more plays happening here, it’s just really enriching the whole scene.”O’Brien says every time she watches Doyle she sees familiar faces from the local arts community. “When I see them, I know that it was a great boost and a great lift for them. Not just for confidence, but financially as well.”

Not only that, O’Brien says the cast and crew are just really fun to work with. Cast dinners and hockey games help foster a sense of community. “It’s one of the nicest casts I’ve ever seen,” she says. “They fed me a lot … I feel like a princess every time I’m on set. Someone’s always knocking on your door and saying ‘Are you hungry, can I get you anything?’ and maybe some actresses don’t take them up on it – but I’m an actress who eats.”

Philip Goodridge, another St. John’s-based actor who had a part on season one of Doyle, knows that his artistic community has always been strong, but says the show is still a boost for the province overall.  “The exterior shots are excellent, because in every movie or television show that I’ve seen about Newfoundland, everything looks so damn foggy and bleak and miserable.” He laughs, adding “at least on Doyle there’s a bit of bloody sunshine, you know?”

“There’s a lot of consistent work on the production side, which is awesome to have. And it’s great for those who have lead roles,” he says.

He believes dedication on all fronts is key. “Everyone that I work with that has auditioned for the show and that has gotten on the show, we try really hard and we make a good effort here. People kill themselves in this town even doing volunteer stuff.” That in itself is the crux of the problem that lies within Newfoundland and the way Doyle is changing it. There are so few venues in which the creators can create, and yet still be paid for it. Doyle is enabling steady work and stability, something performers deserve just as much as any other profession.

Rick Boland has been on both stage and screen in Newfoundland for over four decades, and he knows this all too well. “It’s a very difficult life when you’re self-employed,” he says. “I’ve been at it for 40 years but I have no pension. I don’t have the security of a future that I can retire into.”

Boland’s massive body of work includes CBC’s Hatching, Matching and Dispatching, as well as Newfoundland theatre stalwart Revue, which still sells out houses all over the province after 25 years. Even so, he is far from rolling in revenue generated through acting. “We often sell ourselves short because we want to do the project anyway. You think ‘I love this, so I’ll do it for next to nothing’,” Boland says. “This is not a field that you get into unless you can’t do anything else. I don’t mean that you’re not capable of doing anything else, but that nothing else makes you happy.”

Photo by Ian Vatcher, Courtesy Republic of Doyle

Boland knows Doyle is doing plenty for the Newfoundland arts community, but cautions this is a case of “be careful what you wish for.” There’s a vortex brewing in Newfoundland when it comes to crew, and it’s culminating because of the show. “Crew are all used for Doyle, so other producers just can’t produce anything because they have none,” he says.

Ironically, Newfoundland’s producers would have to bring in their crew from elsewhere, which means hotel bills on top of salary, making the entire venture more expensive. “The fact that the crew that we’ve built here is now doing Doyle is great. It’s fabulous to have a national television show that’s going into its third season out of St. John’s…But we now need to build a new crew.” This isn’t Montreal or Toronto – this city really only has one production crew, essentially.

“Don’t get me wrong,” Boland says cautiously, “For the 10 or 12 regulars on the show it’s utterly fantastic, it’s out of this world. I know people who have bought and paid for houses off of Republic of Doyle, and that’s wonderful – we need more of it. But the thing on everybody’s minds is – if you have your whole crew working on one production, then you pretty soon stagnate. If you don’t start building a second crew so that you’re growing, then, God forbid…” he says, trailing off.

An arts community is only as good as the innovation behind it. Every artist deserves some stability, but comfort is precarious – to rely on a single lucrative production sets the art scene up to fester in mediocrity around that one gem. What happens when it’s gone?

Common sense would then seem to dictate there is an easy fix here: simply hire more crew. More work for everyone should be a great thing, and in some ways, it is. Though the construction of secondary crew has started, it still can be difficult. “When you have to build a crew, that costs money,” Boland says. “You’re talking about training, so you’re talking about doubling up in some instances. In your camera department, instead of an efficient unit, you have a bunch of people who are apprenticing.” Without the proper guidance, who is there to ensure the quality that’s needed for this next generation?

All his technical worries and woes aside, Boland does equate Republic of Doyle with that certain kind of nationalism a place like Newfoundland breeds. “It’s very difficult for artists in Ontario to create things about Ontario,” he says. “Because Ontario doesn’t give a good god damn about itself. It doesn’t have that, so it’s harder to sell. And because they aren’t an island, they’re part of the stream – so they think it’s much more important to emulate an American tradition. Whereas here, it’s very important to us that we celebrate our difference, and in many ways Doyle does that.”

“As much as it is Rockford Files, and as much as it’s American formulaic detective drama, it’s also unmistakeably Newfoundland. Jake Doyle is the son of Gordon Pinsent’s rowdy man – that character is a part of us.”

By Cooper Evoy

‘A Generation after Genocide’ is an ambitious in-progress project about Rwandan children affected by the genocide of 1994. It examines the healing power of sport, and how these children and survivors have used this soccer field as a means of reconciliation.

Even though the film has been three-years in the making, the finish line is still not in sight. For creators Jon Weiman and Torey Kohara, it has been one long learning experience that continues to this day. What originally began as a small project for a small organization has blossomed into what could potentially be the duo’s first feature-length documentary film.

When approached by the Narrative Therapy Centre of Toronto in 2008 to do a documentary on genocide survivors, Weiman had no idea where the project would lead.

“I did a documentary in 2006 on kids in Rexdale [a suburb of Toronto] who were addicted to drugs, and Narrative Therapy liked the work I did on that. They wanted me to go to Israel for a month, and then go to Rwanda for a month, and basically compare and contrast how Holocaust survivors dealt with grief and how Rwandan genocide survivors dealt with grief.”

Not a small task for a relatively novice filmmaker, still in the midst of completing a film degree at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ont. Regardless, Weiman set about creating a proposal and formulating ideas while waiting for the necessary funding to come through.

But the funding didn’t come.  That, combined with scheduling issues on both ends, led to the project never growing beyond exchanged emails between the parties. It was at this point the project took on a new direction.

“I had told a friend at Queens about this project in passing, and he says, ‘you know I have a professor, Eugene, who I’ve become friends with who is a survivor of the genocide. You should at least meet him to pick his brain a little bit because if you’re going to do this project with Narrative Therapy you should at least know what you’re talking about.’”

While knowing a great deal about the Holocaust – his grandfather escaped from Auschwitz – Weiman knew relatively little about the Rwandan genocide. He arranged a meeting with Dr. Eugene Nshimiyimana, the formality of which Weiman greatly overestimated.

“I had all these questions written down, and I wanted to get his take, and after five minutes that all went away and it became a casual conversation,” Weiman says.

Dr. Eugene Nshimiyimana, a professor of French language and Francophone literature at McMaster University in Hamilton, had been teaching at Queen’s when first approached by Weiman.

Eugene Nshimiyimana speaks with his soccer players

“Jon came to me just to learn more about what soccer can be on a social level,” says Dr. Nshimiyimana.

During that initial meeting, Dr. Nshimiyimana told Weiman his story of using soccer to help heal the divide created by the genocide. In 1996, he started a soccer team for a group of Rwandan children. Having seen the political and social divide that had led to his country’s genocide, he wanted to play his part to ensure the next generation did not face similar circumstances.

“The history of Rwanda, it’s a history of division between Hutus and Tutsis, but kids don’t see life through those categories,” says Dr. Nshimiyimana. “After the genocide, there were a lot of suspicions between people, but among kids that wasn’t an issue. So bringing them together to play was my goal because I know if you don’t save young kids, you are just creating another tragic society.”

Intrigued by Dr. Nshimiyimana’s story, Weiman left the meeting and set out to inform his filmmaking partner, Kohara.

“He had grown up in sports his whole life,” says Weiman. “That wasn’t really my world. He can relate to that world more, the unifying power of sports.

“Eugene’s relationship with soccer and sport prior to, during, and after the genocide was a really, really powerful motivator for us,” says Kohara, also a Queen’s film student at the time. The two agreed they had an incredible story to tell, and decided to pursue the project.

Funding issues did not last long, as their unique idea attracted the interest of several production companies, including Kohara’s employer, Ontario Production Company (OPC). With the majority of funding locked down for an initial trip to Rwanda, the filmmakers prepared for their journey.

Having only done small projects previously, a documentary of this scale was something neither had experienced before and they admit they approached it with potentially overblown expectations.

“We were pretty idealistic,” Kohara says. “We thought there would be something there, and down the road we realized it wasn’t that cut and died. At the root of it all, we had an idea, but not a solid path to get to that idea.”

We went in as cowboys,” adds Weiman. “My thinking, at least, was that if we shot enough footage, a documentary would come from that.”

They travelled to Rwanda in the summer of 2009 with their team, equipment, and a general idea of what their documentary was about. They entered the country searching for stories that would play into their ideal narrative, which was the healing power of sport. Working with Dr. Nshimiyimana, they tried to encompass every side of the story into their film.

“When you talk about soccer and reconciliation, there’s a political side to consider, there’s a social side to consider, and there’s a psychological side to consider,” says Dr. Nshimiyimana. “It took us a lot of energy and collaboration to put all those levels together.”

Having worked so closely developing the project, Dr. Nshimiyimana felt comfortable that Weiman and Kohara would tell his story without portraying him in a way he was uncomfortable with – as a hero. Dr. Nshimiyimana believes that because most people view what happened in Rwanda as a tragedy, whoever does something about it will be portrayed as a hero. He only wants to be seen as part of a larger effort for reconciliation in his country, which the film’s narrative shows.

“We go from what I did, and we look into what other people did,” says Dr. Nshimiyimana. “That doesn’t mean what I did is bigger than what the other people did; it’s part of a general effort in the reconstruction of the country. We are all part of a society, and everybody brings his small stone to this big house.”

Dr. Nshimiyimana’s personal connection to the project gave the filmmakers access to their subjects right away, but he points out that it did not mean there weren’t questions.

“When you go on a project like that you don’t know what you are going to find,” says Dr. Nshimiyimana.
What Weiman and Kohara found was gaining people’s trust can be a difficult proposition for documentary filmmakers, as they are faced with the task of making the subject comfortable while also telling the most truthful story.

“The biggest thing is getting to know your subject, and allowing them to understand you’re not there to misrepresent them,” says Kohara. “But it’s difficult in a country like Rwanda where a) there aren’t so many westerners running around and b) there aren’t so many westerners running around with cameras.”

Despite the unfamiliar circumstances and the difficulties that accompany such an ambitious project, the duo and their team returned home after six weeks of shooting with what they felt was enough footage.

“When we got back, we kind of felt like a million bucks,” says Weiman. “Here we are, these students who made this film, we got on Canada AM, we were published in the Montreal Gazette, we were feeling like big shots.”

“But then we looked at our footage, and we were like, ‘what do we have here?’ It was a very weird thing when we got back and looked at the footage and said, ‘how do we put this together?’”

In hindsight, they agree that their first trip to Rwanda should have been done without cameras. Whether it be because of their inexperience making documentaries, or just getting caught up in their first production, they paid more attention to the aesthetic factors of the film as opposed to the most important part: the subjects.

“From my perspective, because we were trying to get this incredible narrative, we forgot about the human voices,” says Weiman.

In their initial interviews, the filmmakers took a very direct approach. Instead of getting to know the children, and digging deeper to explore each child’s approach to reconciliation, they asked the most straightforward questions possible.  “Asking a kid directly, ‘how did soccer help bring the two sides together after the conflict?’ is a fine question to ask, but we never really asked, ‘who are you?’” Weiman says. “We never really got to their souls, as it were.”

Weiman acknowledges that these are things that a filmmaker can only learn through experience. “I don’t think we could have learned anything if we hadn’t gone and had these two years to process it.”

As both mature as filmmakers, they are also learning new things about their project and discovering the necessary steps needed to create the film they both imagined it would be.

They know their mistakes and  know how to fix them, but the duo has made no return trips to Rwanda since their initial one in the summer of 2009. They both are up-and-coming commercial directors, operating under the production company Family-Style, and are bogged down with busy schedules.

Finding time for personal projects is difficult. However, the commercials that are preventing them from focusing on their documentary provide the means to pursue such personal ventures. “It’s the commercials that allow us to do stuff like this,” explains Kohara. “They are our livelihood, and you owe a certain amount of time to the people who are paying you.”

But that does not mean “out of sight”, out of mind. Both remain focused on completing their work, no matter how long it takes.

“I’m from the school of belief that there’s one way to make a film, and that is the right way,” says Kohara. “It’s completely separate from timelines, and budgets. You will know when your film is done.”

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By Jeffrey Doner

The majestic Canadian territory of Nunavut is rarely associated with video cameras, films, and actors – but a recent program created by the National Film Board of Canada (NFB) and the Nunavut Film Development Corporation (NFDC) has created a buzz in Canada’s Far North.

Stories from Our Land is a workshop designed to teach aspiring Inuit filmmakers about the filmmaking process.  David Christensen, executive producer for the North West Centre, was one of the driving forces behind the development of the workshop.

Christensen hopes the Stories from Our Land program will be a factor in encouraging Canada’s Inuit to get behind the camera and tell their tales.

“The NFB is really interested in helping to develop filmmaker and creator voices from the North to tell their own stories, ” says Christensen.  “For the longest time it was southerners going up and telling stories from the North.”

The workshop, which took place in Iqaluit last November, gathered 28 participants from all over Canada’s territories. The NFB and the NFDC recruited editors, cameramen, directors, and filmmakers from across Canada with backgrounds in a variety of fields.

Christensen elaborated on the importance and hard work of the mentors.  “[The filmmakers] have somebody there who they can mount ideas off of, they can get help operating the camera, help them edit, help them really know the craft of storytelling and editing and help them pull out a really interesting story.”

[pullquote]“They are sort of off to the races … their survival skills are going to be just fine.”
- Carrie Haber, filmmaker[/pullquote]

Under the guidance of the mentors, the participants were put to task, making a six to seven minute mini-film project.  On the final night of the workshop, the films were screened for all in the community, Christensen says.  The next part of the program was to get the new filmmakers to send in a proposal to make a film.  “The caveat (was) they had to propose a film where they didn’t use interviews and they didn’t use narration,” says Christensen.  It was about telling their stories visually.

The NFB has chosen four films from the group to produce.   “We will fully finance them, work with the directors, and support them as we always do with emerging directors,” Christensen says. Montreal-based filmmaker and editor, Carrie Haber, was one of the mentors in Iqaluit.  Those who participated were “people with anything from a passing interest to really dedicated documentary filmmakers that are coming up into their first professional productions.”

Haber says the whole community was there to talk about filmmaking and their experiences.  “Some of them have made films before, but there are certain skills that you just don’t get from working in a vacuum.”

It’s not just about going up north and teaching people how to edit and use cameras, says Haber – it’s about the bigger picture.  “The goal is to release the responsibility of people from the North to have to come down to the South to edit their films and produce their films, and get lighting people,” Haber says.  “We’re trying to create a self-sufficiency of knowledge and skill level up there that is on par with Toronto, Montreal, Winnipeg, and Vancouver so that there can be a filmmaking community with a strong skill set.  That’s the real goal.”

Christensen says that Canada’s North will be a significant place for the world in the long term.  “On so many levels; politically, geo-politically, culturally, environmentally, there’s going to be a lot that happens in the North that will determine what Canada does over the next century,” he says.   “If we can be a part of helping to tell some stories and providing a point of view and perspective on this place for other Canadians, I think that’s a great thing.”

Much of what is conveyed to the public of late deals with boundary disputes and global warming. Even so, Christensen says filmmakers have been mostly telling stories about culture and identity.

Nyla Innuksuk, a filmmaker from Iqaluit who participated in Stories from Our Land, was chosen to produce her film in association with the NFB and NFDC.  She says the workshop has helped her make new relationships for future projects.

“It was a really great opportunity to meet all these other people up North who are interested in film and I’m definitely sure I’m going to be working with other people who took part in the workshops in the future on other projects,” Innuksuk says.

Innuksuk is shooting in the small hamlet of Pangnirtung on the northeast coast of Baffin Island, Nunavut which is inhabited by about 1,300 people.  Her film, Inngiruti, is centered around a button accordion player named Simeonie Keenainak.

What makes this story unique is the history behind how the button accordion got to Pangnirtung in the first place. “In the 1800s when whalers were coming from Europe they would stop into these small communities and they’d bring musical instruments with them and play traditional Irish music,” Innuksuk says.  “They brought over the button accordion and some other instruments and they actually also brought over their square dancing.”

Nunavut - Photo courtesy of Carrie Haber

Innuksuk says that because the music and dancing has been in the town for so long, it has become part of the local culture in some small Inuit hamlets and communities.  “This accordion player, Simeonie, he’s one of the last people that are doing this and the town often gets together in the town hall and has square dances where Simeonie and his band play,” she says.

The film will be completely shot in Nunavut over a period of just a few days, which is exactly what the NFB and NFDC hoped would come from the Stories from Our Land program.

Allen Auksaq, a filmmaker from Nunavut, made a five-minute documentary about the cultural significance of the formation and construction of an igloo.   In If You Want to Get Married, You Have to Learn How to Build an Igloo, Auksaq uses the natural sounds and landscape of Sylvia Grinnell Park in Iqaluit to capture the essence of igloo-building. “I grew up knowing that if I wanted to get married, I had to learn how to build an igloo.  That was taught to me at an early age.  I built my first igloo when I was 16,” Auksaq says.

When it comes to the growth of the Nunavut film industry, there is some cautious optimism.  Haber said there is a lot of work to do in a competitive industry.  “I see it as kind of a microcosm of what is happening all over the world,” Haber muses.  Here, as elsewhere, it’s difficult to find funding for independent films.

“Because they are starting from scratch and coming into this model right away, I think that they’re not going to go in with the expectation that they’re going to be selling to these big distributors right away.  It’s just get the things made and seen,” Haber says.

For now, Haber is optimistic about the industry.  “They are sort of off to the races now,” she says. “I think their survival skills are going to be just fine.”

As an Inuit filmmaker herself, Innuksuk says programs like Stories from Our Land are crucial for the younger generation.  “I definitely see programs like this really helping to invigorate this film industry that’s just starting to emerge in the North.”

“I think it was really great for some of these younger people up North that they got a chance to work with these really amazing mentors,” she says.

Auksaq says the growth of the film industry in Nunavut is very important for people to learn more about Inuit culture and identity.  “Film and television is a medium that is being used by everybody in the territory.  There has to be a way for us to influence what they watch and learn through television,” he says.

Christensen concurs.  “You could tell they were just sort of bursting at the seams because they’re just so interested in not only letting southerners know about their story, but actually talking about themselves.”