Documentary Field Notes and Flashpoints: category

Documentary film funding is not what it used to be. With broadcast windows few and far between and cutbacks everywhere, we doc-makers are turning to other sources, using other methods. And one of the new ways is web-based participatory, or crowd funding. This week I am participating in the Cuban Hat on-line pitch in the [...]

For the last two years, I have been working on a film about a man who can be described as a footnote to history, Honoré Joseph Jaxon, alias William Henry Jackson. An enigmatic figure,  his life was full of drama. He admired the Métis and participated in the Northwest Rebellion of 1885, acting as a [...]

« …un super film qui donne le goût de vieillir dans la délinquance! »  Paul Houde  (Montréal Maintenant, 98,5 FM) Mon film LES SUPER-MÉMÉS, sur les Raging Grannies et les Mémés déchainées, a été lancé en tant de film de clôture du Festival de films sur les droits de la personne en mars 2010. Cet été, [...]

Je vous ai déjà parlé de mon tournage en cours à Montréal-Nord. C’est donc pour un film produit par Jeannine Gagné à Amazone films qui sera diffusé à Canal D. Le processus de ‘casting’ a été long, mais voici mes trois ‘personnages’ principaux, que nous suivons pendant un an et quelques mois. Danny Raymond est [...]

One of my films, Uranium, 1990 (in Canada you can watch it on the NFB website here) was selected to participate in the first international Uranium Film Festival in Brazil, which just ended. (Read a wrapup article here from Environment News Service.) As Brazil is not known for its uranium or nuclear industry, I found [...]

For the last nine months – and with six months to go – I have been shooting a documentary in Montreal North. With my DOP Martin Duckworth and our assistant Franck Le Coroller, I have been immersed in the daily reality of a mutli-ethnic ‘underprivileged’ neighborhood. Compared to downtown Montreal where we live ourselves, this [...]

Depuis neuf mois – et pour encore six mois – je tourne un documentaire à Montréal-Nord avec le directeur photo Martin Duckworth et notre assistant Franck Le Coroller. Nous sommes plongés dans la réalité quotidienne d’un quartier multi-ethnique défavorisé – un autre monde par rapport au Centre-Ville de Montréal où nous habitons. Le quartier a [...]

Quebec has a higher percentage of union members (about 40%) than Canada as a whole (about 30%) or the United States (about 15%.) Perhaps this is why this province regularly sees pioneering efforts to extend unionization into new sectors. The most recent is the effort to sign up the workers at the Couche-Tard chain’s many convenience [...]

A few weeks ago, I was invited to present a film at an event called Talkies in Toronto. It was one event in a series of screenings and discussions, organized by York University humanities professor Mark Cauchi and his co-conspirator filmmaker Azed Majeed. I thought about the choice of film for a while. In the [...]

This past weekend I attended a memorial service for Guy Tremblay, a sometimes-homeless singer and volunteer worker affectionately known as ‘Ti-Guy’ in the shelters and soup kitchens in downtown Montreal. The service, at the Notre Dame des Lourdes chapel on St. Catherine street East was warm and unpretentious, marked by the social context of an [...]