By Lawrence Dushenski

In 1999, Rosie Dransfeld left behind the northern German city of Hamburg, where the skyline is littered with high church spires and neo-Renaissance architecture still influences the landscape. When she landed in Edmonton, she was met by urban sprawl and the magnificence of the concrete jungle in the far north of Canada.

Standing over six feet tall and with sharp features, Rosie is armed with an edgy personality, a rough German accent and an undeniable fearlessness. These attributes have allowed her to produce several documentary films to rave reviews.

Rosie moved to Canada from Germany in 1999 – All photos courtesy ID: Productions Inc.

The change in scenery has had a significant influence on her work, and her use of a once popular style has catapulted her among the elite independent filmmakers in Canada. Cinéma vérité is rarely used today, but Rosie says it’s the best way to capture all of the elements necessary to tell a story.

“It is a style that I am best at. I think it is the best style for documentaries. This was a popular style of film in the ’60s in Canada, and is a very pure style,” says Rosie from her condo in trendy downtown Edmonton. “The essence is to document what is happening without narration.”

Part of what makes her style intriguing is that the characters tell the story, rather than having a narrator detailing the events on screen. It can make the films much more complicated, while capturing the raw emotion of the characters.

“If you succeed in doing this then it is really powerful. This may be one of the reasons that my film Broke won the Gemini award. People watch it and they realize it is all real, it is all real people. Many broadcasters shy away from this style,” she explains.

The film was one of Rosie’s most successful projects. Set at an inner-city pawnshop in Edmonton, the film follows owner David Woolfson through his journeys with the eclectic clientele that frequent his store. It highlights the lengths that people go to in a time of need, as they realize that almost everything in life has a price.

The film was shot entirely inside the pawn shop, and brought a largely unknown part of society to life. While it is rare to shoot an entire project in one location, the technique served her well. Broke won the Donald Brittain Award for social/political documentary at the Gemini Awards, and received critical
acclaim in the industry.

Scott Parker, who worked as the editor on Broke, first met Rosie when she was working on another project at his editing studio. They have now worked together on many projects and Parker says he has gained something truly valuable from his experiences with her.

“I have gotten a really good friend out of the deal, which is probably the best thing for me,” Parker explains. “It has been fantastic for me because I prefer to work alone. I don’t work with a director in the room and Rosie is very keen on that.”

Rosie gets to know the characters in her films and gains an understanding of the story that she is going to tell before she begins filming. This allows her to stand back on the set and let the characters tell the story. Her attention to detail originates from her work in Germany, and it has translated well into the Canadian film industry.

One of the first people that she worked with in Canada was Andrew Johnson, now the senior producer of documentaries for the CBC News Network. At the time, Johnson was working for Rough Cuts, a weekly CBC documentary series, and commissioned Rosie to create a project about Alberta and the perception of Albertans across Canada. The result was Crash Course Alberta, a film about what it means to be an Albertan.

[pullquote]“She has an eye for the odd, the quirky, the humourous but also the marginalized.”
- Andrew Johnson, CBC[/pullquote]

“She has her own perspective on things and a kind of fearless rigour to her view on social reality and issues,” explains Johnson. “She was someone who thought that things were pretty wonderful in Alberta, but she discovered that there was a lot of animosity between the East and West in Canada. She decided to explore it and she met a lot of interesting people. She did it with humour, but with her unique point of view.”

Beaver Man, the first documentary Rosie made with her production company, ID: Productions Inc. was also bought by Johnson.

“It was another film of her understanding Canada,” he says. “It was about a guy who was obsessed with beavers, and it was about beaver culture, the animal in Canadian culture. This man tried to highlight the beaver in his life.” It is this type of project that Rosie was passionate about, as the concept of such an infatuation with an animal from an outsider’s perspective captured her attention.

As an immigrant, Rosie’s view of Canadian culture is reflected in her films. “It was really that unique perspective and approach that she brings to things,” Johnson says. “You get a fresh look at somebody … she is from Germany and brings that perspective with her. It is a fresh look, a fresh viewpoint on things that we may take for granted here.”

“There is a fearlessness to her. That whatever situation she goes into, she is not afraid to ask questions that maybe Canadians are too polite to ask,” Johnson says. “She has an eye for the odd, the quirky, the humourous, but also the marginalized.”

Rosie Dransfeld and David Woolfson in his Edmonton pawnshop

Jerry McIntosh, who now manages the Canadian Film Centre in Toronto, met Rosie at a film festival in Banff, Alberta. She can be intimidating to some, as she towers over most of her peers and has a sharp edge, but she made an immediate impact on Jerry.

“I was impressed with her. She has a very strong personality and you always know when she is in the room.”

But as others have discovered with Rosie, McIntosh found there is depth behind her rigid exterior.

“Because of her particular perspective, she finds a quirky side in her characters. It is amusing, entertaining and very fresh,” he says. “I am accustomed to working with Canadian filmmakers who are perhaps a bit more purist about our culture – and she’s not. That is very refreshing.”

Rosie’s movies sometimes shock people, but that is often the only way to get a point across when dealing with such sensitive issues.

Sergio Olivares, the cinematographer for Broke and several other of her projects, embraces this approach. “You have to decide who you are going to be. Every time I pick up a camera, I decide to defend human rights. That is why I get along so well with Rosie,” he explains. “She has the ability as a producer to get in there and attach herself to all of these beautiful things, and that is extremely difficult to do in Canada. It works for humanity when she does these projects.”