The film has all the characteristics of a Longinotto documentary: it has amazing access to intimate situations, it deals with the rights of women, it’s tough and uncompromising, and doesn’t stay away from contradictions and difficulties. In this case, the main character is admirable, but Longinotto doesn’t idealize her, and at one point the film clearly shows her making a selfish and morally questionable choice which has serious consequences for a young woman who she has taken under her wing. The film is beautifully shot by the director herself.
Photo: Paul Galipeau
I went to hear Longinotto speak at a workshop at Hot Docslast spring. I was very impressed by her modest and unassuming presentation. What struck me the most was her combination of caring for her subjects but her incredible tough-mindedness. She is so close to the characters that they will, it seems, let her film just about anything, no matter how hard it is.
And she does – even when the scenes are almost unbearable to watch, as in a famous scene from a female genital mutilation in Africa. Life is often unbelievably hard for women in ‘Third world’ countries, and Longinotto is determined to show it – but always from the perspective of people who are working to change the situation. It’s an attitude which seems to be rooted in her own harsh childhood experience as a homeless orphan, and her feeling that filmmaking “saved her life.”
It’s film festival season in Montreal, and I have seen quite a few films.
I am often struck by how much it takes to make a really excellent doc. A good subject or a worthy cause are only the most basic starting points. A good story is one step better, but far from a guarantee of a good film, telling the story is the challenge. Great characters, good… but how will they be developed? what changes will they go through? will we really get to know them? And then there are all the questions of framing, movements, soundscape, texture, pacing…
Two of the films I saw in the last few weeks really stand out (in addition to the one I wrote about in the last post.) At the Festival du Nouveau Cinéma I saw Music From the Big House, directed by Bruce McDonald (Hard Core Logo, Roadkill, Highway 61.) It’s the story of how Canadian blues singer Rita Chiarelli performs with several bands of inmates at Angola Prison, a U.S. maximum security penitentiary in Louisiana.
Ten years ago Chiarelli had been on a road trip in the American South, looking into the history of the blues, and happened upon the prison. It took years to develop the relationships needed to make this exceptional film, a story not just of prisoners and music but of redemption. Chiarelli was at the FNC screening and spoke in a totally honest and very touching way about her feelings about the inmates – murderers and rapists – she had gotten to know, and about her contradictory feelings about the question of forgiveness.
And the other day, at the Rencontres Internationales du Documentaire de Montréal, I saw an amazing Danish film about the war in Afghanistan, Armadillo. It follows young Danish soldiers to a forward base in Helmand where they patrol and eventually engage in combat with the Taliban.
The film is masterfully made, very close to the characters, beautifully shot, colorized in a way which strengthens a pervasive feeling of unreality. And this is the cinematic equivalent of the thousands of secret memos about the war released by Wikipedia.
Never has war seemed so confusing and futile. The young soldiers naively spout the official line about protecting civilians and fighting evil, even as the suffering civilians tell them that their presence carries a heavy price. The camera captures the confusion and fear they experience in a hostile environment far from home, accentuated when their comrades are killed or wounded.
And when they finally score a victory against the Taliban, killing five of them in a ditch – shooting wounded soldiers which is against the rules of war – their victory celebrations seem misplaced and even sinister. This must be the best war film I have ever seen.
Thanks to Tobi Elliott for her help with this blog.
“I know them well,” he said, “and I wouldn’t have cared if they had shown the film first. I just want them to give me an answer.” He then introduced the directors of the opening film of this year’s Focus Québec-Canada section, my friends Patricio Henriquez and Luc Côté.
Omar Khadr at age 15 (above) and 21.
The film is about the shocking case of the young Omar Khadr, the 24-year old accused of terrorism and killing an American soldier, who has been imprisoned for seven years, most of that time in Guantanamo. I will not summarize the case and describe this moving and incisive film in any detail, because I would not do as good a job as Cinema Politica’s Ezra Winton – read his article on the Art Threat blog.
Suffice it to say that the film is a deconstruction and analysis of the surveillance camera video of the seven-hour, truly revolting –Orwellian more than Kafkaesque– interrogation of Khadr by representatives of CSIS, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service.
Ezra is right in pointing out that we all have a share of responsibility for what the Canadian government is doing to this young man, a child soldier at the time of the events. You can only leave this film with a sense that something has to be done, even though Khadr’s lawyer explained at the launch that he is stuck between the devil and the deep blue sea.
Indeed, it seems – in the bargaining going on right now – that he will have to choose between pleading guilty to a crime he didn’t commit and continue serving time in prison, or rot in his cell in Guantanamo (the facility Obama promised to close!) forever. Amnesty petition here.
Since the film premiered, Patricio and Luc have been caught up in a whirlwind of activities, including a repeat screening of the film at the 700-seat Imperial Cinema where it premiered, and an upcoming screening on Parliament Hill in Ottawa. They nonetheless took the time to answer a couple of questions:
When we watch the film, the concept comes across so clearly and the structure seems so simple, so obvious. But during your process of creation…?
PATRICIO: The chronology in the shooting of a documentary doesn’t always provide an interesting dramatic structure. Often in the editing room you need to betray this chronology to give meaning to the images. Of course, in this case, we weren’t the ones who filmed the interrogation of Omar Khadr at Guantanamo by the Canadian secret police. Nevertheless, the seven hours of video recorded over four days in February 2003 (accessible to the public thanks to a decision by the Supreme Court of Canada in 2008) had a progression that we kept in our film.
Luc, our editor, Andrea and I, we watched these seven hours – of very poor technical quality – several times. We quickly discovered that each day had its own specific, separate nature. So we decided to identify each day as a journey: Day 1: Hope. Day 2: Fallout. Day 3: Blackmail, Day 4: Failure. Also, we understood we would need some context for these four days. So we directed our research toward eyewitnesses, people who had seen Omar, experts (scientific and legal), objective observers such as the Toronto Star reporter Michelle Shephard, and politicians. All these people had to help us better understand what played out during this four-day interrogation.
Andrea first edited together the interrogation in this order, and then we showed all the participants the passages they could appropriately illuminate for us in interviews. Then, we inserted these new elements into the structure of the interrogation. And voila, it wasn’t a very complex creative device.
Patricio Henriquez
Having followed this story for several years, how do you evaluate the media’s coverage of Khadr’s case?
PATRICIO: In Quebec, the coverage was particularly lacking. To my knowledge, the first print media to send a journalist to Guantanamo was Rue Frontenac, the website of the locked-out journalists of the Journal de Montreal. That’s totally to their credit.
Elsewhere, they trafficked in misinformation. One example: in a report aired Nov. 13, 2009, a Téléjournal correspondent in Washington said this of Omar Khadr: “He has already spent over seven years in Guantanamo, waiting for his trial for the murder of an American MILITARY DOCTOR.”
There are two grave errors in this communication. The 1st Class Sergeant Christopher Speer, in whose death Omar Khadr is allegedly implicated, had never been a military doctor. At the start of the proceedings against Khadr, the Pentagon stated (perhaps not innocently) that the victim had been a medic (‘un infirmier’ or ‘un brancardier’ in French.) The Radio-Canada reporter translated badly, calling him a “doctor.”
But even worse: Omar Khadr’s lawyers have proven since 2004 that the Pentagon has held back the fact that, in reality, Sergeant Speer was in Afghanistan as a member of the special forces known as Delta Force. And although he had been trained at one point as a medic, his primary role in Afghanistan was not to heal, but to kill.
This difference is doubly loaded with consequences for Khadr, because, according to the laws of war, killing a duly identified nurse or medic is a war crime. Therefore, probably more by negligence than in bad faith, Téléjournal reinforced all the same this idea that Omar had committed a war crime in killing a medical doctor. It’s not a shock then that public opinion, having fallen victim to similar misinformation, is still largely indifferent to the fate of Omar Khadr.
Then, we realized that practically every media in Quebec and in Canada has been content to merely reproduce the most emotional part of these seven hours of recorded video, the moment where, yielding to the psychological pressure of the Canadian secret agents, Omar cracks and falls into a depressed state, crying uncontrollably. No one seems to have taken pains to listen to the tapes in their entirety.
We do understand that journalists, working constantly under pressure, haven’t had the time to decode the material. This is where, sometimes, the documentary can be useful in supplementing, more calmly and later on, the picture of a certain reality.
How did you manage to finance the film?
Luc Cote
LUC: Financing this film hasn’t been very easy. After being refused by broadcasters and public institutions, we went to Jean-Pierre Laurendeau and Sylvie de Bellefeuille at Canal D. Without hesitation they agreed to give us a license. With this license, we had access to tax credits. But there still remained an immense hole in the budget of 50 per cent. One of my best friends, Kevin Kraus, who closely follows our work, offered to lend us money. So we went ahead by investing our salaries, our equipment, etc. For lack of resources, all of the filming – camera, sound and interviews – was done by Patricio and myself alone.
Thanks to Tobi Elliott for her help with this blog.
Barry Greenwald‘s terrific documentary The Experimental Eskimosreveals an extraordinary attempt at social engineering. The film follows three Inuit, Peter Ittinuar, Zebedee Nungak and Eric Tagoona, who, as 12-year-old boys, were shipped South in the early 1960s from their homes in the Canadian Arctic to attend white public schools in Ottawa. The consequences for their identity and culture were brushed aside.
In their twenties, they became a thorn in the government’s side and were instrumental in the establishment of aboriginal rights that led to the creation of the territory of Nunavut. The film is the untold story of how an experiment in assimilation not only changed the future of their people but the actual geo-political configuration of Canada.
Now, if I praised this film you might find that suspect, as Barry is a close friend of mine. So let me quote filmmaker Martin Duckworth – he copied me on a message to Barry after seeing the film:
What a brilliant and beautiful film, Barry. Such a great story, and so cleverly told. Relating personal tragedy and political triumph. Allowing the story to unfold at its own pace, with each chapter appearing as a surprise and a revelation. The film is a work of ingenuity and dedication. Chiseled to perfection. You have reached a pinnacle. It leaves one wondering, “What is there left for this guy to do?” My god, I must look at it again.
Eskimos received the “Allan King Award for Excellence in Documentary” at the recent Directors Guild of Canada Awards (Editor Nick Hector, Sound Editor Michael Bonini, Director Barry). The film has also received honours at the Winnipeg Aboriginal Film Festival (Best Feature Documentary) and the Yorkton Film Festival (NFB Kathleen Shannon Award).
A still from the documentary "The Age of Stupid", directed by Franny Armstrong
I have just spent two weeks teaching at Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington State. More on my course another day, but I also had the opportunity to speak to the students and faculty about Documentary in the Context of Globalization.
I talked about how the new digital technologies have democratized access to audio-visual production and how the web has made it possible to instantaneously distribute videos worldwide. This has opened up a two-way street, making local stories available to the world, and bringing the world (or stories from elsewhere in the world) to audiences just about everywhere.
To illustrate my points, I showed excerpts from three films. Burma VJ is one I wrote about on my blog earlier. The film documents the use of small digital cameras by courageous video journalists – VJ’s – to reveal what goes on inside the Burmese dictatorship. With digital cameras and satellite uploads they distribute images worldwide within hours. Their work made all the difference during the 2007 uprising led by Buddhist monks across the country.
Another example I used was the video of the killing of a young Iranian woman during the 2009 protests in that country. It graphically showed her dying moments, and really touched people emotionally. Thanks to the web and cell phone – Twitter was particularly instrumental – it spread like wildfire, and actually helped change the relationship of forces between the regime and the opposition.
As an example of how the new production and distribution context has allowed people who did not traditionally have access to the resources to express themselves audiovisually, I used the amazing Wapikoni mobile experience, which has been running for six years in Quebec. Young aboriginal people have been given training and access to production facilities, and the result is impressive. Many of their films have been presented at festivals and won awards.
For some filmmakers, the starting point is not local but global. That was the case with the 2009 film The Age of Stupid by Franny Armstrong. The premise, established with much aesthetic panache, is that while the world has gone to ruin, one man (played by Pete Postlethwaite) remains in the Global archive in 2055. His archives reveal the stupidity of the people of our era who knew the world was on the road to perdition but didn’t act – stories set, naturally, in our own time.
Finally, I spoke about the phenomenon of immigrant directors (or children of immigrant families) making films about their home countries in the ‘developing countries’. Having access to the funding mechanisms of the richer countries as well as an intimate knowledge – or at least personal connection – to their country of origin, these talented directors have made some great films. Ali Kazimi’s Narmada – A Valley Rises, Rithy Panh’s films about Cambodia are good examples, but I chose to show an excerpt of Up The Yangtze by Yung Chang (NFB & EyeSteel Films).
There are increasing numbers of excellent films coming out of the countries in the South. As a member of the board of the Alter-Cine Foundation, I am able to see the incredible diversity of projects from Asia, Africa and Latin America looking for funding every year. Just reading the proposals, one gets a sense of the many aspects of reality which are not adequately covered by our television networks.
Conclusion – it sound a little simplistic when summarized, but it’s true: by offering a more in-depth treatment of other realities, documentaries contribute to understanding and awareness between peoples.
The film, Se Souvenir des Cendres (“Remembering the Ashes”), is the ‘making of’Denis Villeneuve‘s film Incendies, a fiction film based on Wajdi Moawad’s stage play of the same name. Produced by Micro-Scope for Radio-Canada, Se Souvenir follows the shooting of Villeneuve’s film in Jordan. Villeneuve and his crew worked with actual survivors of the conflicts as extras, from notably Iraq, Lebanon and Palestine, and these people become the mainstay of Anaïs’s making of film: they compare what they see on set to what they lived through in real life, and the effect is striking.
Also, Anaïs – who does her own camerawork – has a real eye for the children. There are many moving moments with children remembering war and expertly discussing arms, survival strategies, fears and hopes.
Anaïs - Photo Credit: André Turpin
Children are also at the heart of Anaïs’s first novelJe voudrais qu’on m’efface (“I Would Like to be Erased”), based on the lives of children in the Montreal East End Hochelaga-Maisonneuve neighborhood where she shot some of her previous films.
The launch took place at the Usine C performance space, simultaneous with the première of a photo exhibition by cinematographer André Turpin, featuring very creative pictures of children growing up in a context marked by poverty, absent parents and various forms of addiction. All proceeds from the sale of large prints of the photos go to Dr. Gilles Julien, who is internationally renowned for his work with children, mainly in Hochelaga-Maisonneuve.
Anaïs tells me that she used to see me as an inspiration. Well, the tables have been turned, now it’s the other way around. Chapeau Anaïs!
NOTE: Se Souvenir des Cendres: Regard sur Incendies will be re-broadcast on ARTV Tuesday, Sept 21 at 4 pm, and again on Sunday at 2:30 pm and 7 pm. The film will also be presented at the Festival du Nouveau Cinéma in October.
Thanks to Tobi Elliott for her help with this blog.
Waterlife the website is considered a success, but how do you measure success in the online universe? Is it in page views, critical response, viewer comments, or what?
That is a very difficult question and I don’t really know what the answer is. Waterlife is considered a success probably for two reasons. One, there is a lot of public interest in it, and a lot of visits – about 600,000 visits – since it first went online a year ago.
Back when people like Magnus [Isacsson] and I started in documentary about 20 years ago, a CBC documentary would typically get 500 – 600,000 viewers, no problem. But that’s not true anymore. Although the film Waterlife has also been quite a success – it still screens almost weekly – it will not have reached a cumulative audience anywhere near 600,000. So that’s one measure: how many people come see it.
Another measure is how long they stay. In the case of Waterlife the website, when it first launched the average stay was seven minutes, but many users apparently stay around twenty minutes. To the web folks, this is a mark of success, but it does make you wonder about the quality of the experience vis a vis film.
It’s always difficult to measure, and it’s the same for a film: do you measure by critical success, by the fact that it really moves people and a lot of people go see it? By commercial success? All of these measures are relative and valid.
You write about Marshall McLuhen and his view that “the media’s touch is physical, and the feelings they provoke are real.” ** How do you think each medium – interactive media and feature film – feels to the audience? How do they perceive or react emotionally to them?
Broadly speaking, the film is really an entirely emotional experience. Some would say it’s more arty, or more of an intellectual film in some ways, but having been in many audiences, I’ve seen that the way they react to the film is really emotional. It’s a movie – it’s got music and pictures and people, and [the audience] reacts to the emotions it evokes in them.
I would say the website has an emotional component but also an intellectual one. The interesting thing about the web is that it’s engaging both sides of the brain all the time. It’s got pictures and sound, but it also has text. One of the advances in the Waterlife website is it relies much less on text than other websites do, but it still has text. That keeps that linear part of your brain engaged all the time.
Do you think each type of media appeals to different people?
I think they probably appeal to different people, because of the generational aspect, but they also appeal to people in different ways.
How did you combine the different platforms in terms of design, information-sharing, content? How did that work out?
The way they work together is that people who see the film and appreciate it, particularly anyone in an educational context such as teachers, students, are driven to the website by the film. There are two websites, and Ourwaterlife.com was set up to link people with activist organizations in their community, like Great Lakes United, Lake Ontario Waterkeeper, where they can go to take action. Waterlife.nfb.ca has that, but it’s kind of buried.
The film sends people to the website but I don’t think the website sends people to the film. It’s counterintuitive, the opposite of what we think websites are about. Websites were initially set up and used for film and television as advertising. Like flyers for your film.
But I don’t think that’s how they work, and in Waterlife’s case that’s not how it works at all… partly because the website is accessible to everyone in the world and the film’s available for screenings only in Canada and the U.S. It’s not as available as films in your living room that you can dial up via a website. We also know this because a lot of the feedback on Waterlife.nfb.ca comes from around the world and from places where the film is not showing.
What they share is their aesthetic, and they share a lot in their content. There’s no way of tracking the traffic between them but my sense of it is, there’s not a lot.
We went into this project thinking the website should be an adjunct and that it should drive people to the film. But Rob McLaughlin (Director of digital content and strategy for the NFB English Program), the driving force behind the website, said, “They are two different things. They share assets, there will be some back and forth traffic, but you have to approach it as two different things.” He was completely right and has proven to be over time.
The above image is pulled from the excellent photo essay, Poetic Justice – one of Hélène’s own compositions – featuring the young slam poet Marjolaine Beauchamp.
1. What was the most difficult part or challenge of making this project? The bilingual nature, traversing the “solitudes”, working from coast to coast, or something else?
Bringing together a group of documentarians and photographers from one end of the country to the other for a common year-long project was a challenge in itself. We spent a week together in June 2009: I presented the goals of the project and each and every one could share their own creative point of view.
Over and above bilingualism, GDP puts forth universal stories of humanity. When we look at the origin of the movies Quebecquers are viewing, we can see they are not only viewing movies from here, and it is the same thing is all the provinces. The resilience and demands that a human being must confront when faced with crisis situations are surely universal.
We also discovered that web users recognize themselves in the stories of those people who work in sectors or industries similar to theirs, without regard for geographic location. As a result, the fact that the site is bilingual permits us to counter this linguistic divide.
I also want to share with you the qualities of the Web that we’ve since discovered. We have no restrictions of length, or number of episodes, or the pacing of putting them on line. We are simply following the natural rhythm of our stories, which is frankly marvellous.
Photo Crédit : Marc-André Grenier
2. I find the quality of the small films or reports very uneven. What do you think? Reasons?
GDP is a pilot project where trial and error have their place. When it’s a question of the creative process, this notion of trial and error is precious. It’s what challenged Fernand Dansereau when he discovered GDP last December. This possibility of playing outside a safe and secure box.
We are asking our directors to be one-man-orchestras. They accomplish all at the same time camerawork, sound recording and obviously, the directing. It’s extremely demanding. They are not all on the same level technically but despite some limitations, all end up delving into the universe of their protagonist.
Of course, some stories are stronger, but all have their relevance. Unequal quality is unfortunately often the lot of these group productions. However, because we’re on the Web, the user has the choice to watch only what interests them.
It’s astonishing to see that the most viewed films and essays are not always the best from a technical point or view, and even in terms of narration. That’s where we have a new gift from the Web. The user chooses what he or she pleases. As a documentarian, I would like to cause them to be interested in one story more than another, but I no longer have that privilege with this virtual audience.
3. There are some photographic essays that are particularly well done, do you agree? Reasons?
The photographic essays had as their first goal to document the impacts of the crisis in the far-flung regions. They are small, unique works, and so are a lot easier to watch as one-offs, while the narrative arc of the films evolved over one year, and take their meaning in time. They are a powerful artistic force.
The web effectively gives a new breath to certain mediums that have preceded it.Photography thus finds a new momentum, and the photographers have a chance to push their creativity more to the fore, and that is wonderful to me.
Thanks to Tobi Elliott for her help with this post.
L’image ci-dessus est tiré de l’excellent photo-essai “Une chance qu’il y a les mots,” qui a comme sujet la jeune slammeuse Marjolaine Beauchamp. C’est une des composantes du projet PIB que Hélène a réalise elle-même.
1. Quelle a été la plus grande difficulté, le plus grand défi du projet PIB? Faire ça bilingue, à travers les solitudes, “coast to coast”? Ou d’autres choses?
Constituer une équipe de documentaristes et de photographes d’un bout à l’autre du pays autour d’un projet commun pendant un an était un défis en soi. Nous avons passé une semaine ensemble en juin 2009 où je leur ai présenté les bases du projet et où tous et chacun a pu partager son point de vu créatif.
Au-delà du bilinguisme, PIB propose des histoires humaines universelles. Quand on regarde la provenance des visionnages, les Québécois ne regardent pas que les films québécois et ainsi en est-il dans toutes les provinces. La résilience et les autres forces dont un humain doit faire preuve lorsque confronté à des situations de crise sont assurément universelles.
Nous avons également constaté que les internautes se reconnaissent dans les récits de gens qui travaillent dans des secteurs d’activité similaires au leur sans égard à la location géographique. En fait, le fait que le site soit bilingue, nous a permis de contrer cet écart linguistique.
J’ai aussi envie de te faire part des qualités du Web que nous avons découvert. Nous n’avons aucune restriction de durée, de nombre d’épisodes ou de cadence de mise en ligne. Nous suivons simplement le rythme naturel de nos histoires et ça c’est franchement merveilleux.
Photo Crédit : Marc-André Grenier
2. Je trouve la qualité des petits films ou reportages très inégale, qu’en penses-tu? Raisons?
PIB est un projet pilote où essai et erreur ont une place. Quand il est question de processus créatif, cette notion d’essai/erreur est précieuse. C’est d’ailleurs ce qui a interpelé Fernand Dansereau lorsqu’il a découvert PIB en décembre dernier. Cette possibilité de jouer en dehors d’un cadre établit et sécuritaire.
On demande aux réalisateurs d’être homme-orchestre. Ils font à la fois leur caméra, leur prise de son et évidemment, la réalisation. C’est extrêmement exigeant. Certains sont plus forts techniquement, mais malgré ces limitations techniques, tous parviennent à pénétrer dans l’univers de leur protagoniste.
Bien sur, certaines histoires sont plus fortes, mais toutes ont une pertinence. Ce constat d’inégalité est malheureusement souvent le lot des oeuvres chorales. Cependant comme nous sommes sur le Web, l’internaute a le choix de regarder uniquement ce qui l’intéresse.
C’est étonnant de voir que les films et les essais les plus visionnés ne sont pas toujours les meilleurs d’un point vue technique et même narratif. C’est là une nouvelle donne du Web. L’internaute choisi ce qui lui plaît. Comme documentariste, j’aimerais les inciter à s’intéresser à une histoire plus qu’à une autre, mais je n’ai plus cet aval sur ce public virtuel.
3. Il y a des essais photo qui sont particulièrement réussis, es-tu d’accord? Raisons?
Les essais photographiques avaient pour but premier de documenter les impacts de la crise en régions éloignées. Ce sont des petites oeuvres uniques, donc beaucoup plus faciles à regarder à la pièce alors que la courbe narrative des films évolue pendant un an et prenne leur sens dans le temps. Ils ont une formidable force artistique.
Le web donne effectivement un souffle nouveau à certains médiums qui l’on précédé. La photographie retrouve un souffle nouveau, les photographes ont la chance de pousser leur créativité plus avant et cela m’enchante.
This week at Sunny Side of the Doc at La Rochelle, the NFB and Arte.tv Franceannounced a collaboration for the production of webdocumentaries. They will produce one documentary per year, with a budget of $100,000 CDN. The two companies already have considerable experience with webdocs.
For almost a year, the NFB has hosted a major online project,GDP – Measuring the Human Side of the Canadian Economic Crisis. The NFB’s director of French programming, Monique Simard, a longtime union leader and former politician known for her involvement with social issues, took the initiative for this endeavor.
From the beginning, her intuition was that the economic crisis would not be a passing thing, but would profoundly affect the lives and directions of many people. The GDP project allowed many filmmakers and photographers across the country to follow people affected by the crisis. I haven’t had a chance to look at all of the stories, naturally, but here are some initial impressions.
First off, the site’s architecture is impressive, as is its design. We have access to stories told in both official languages, with subtitles as needed. You can watch multiple episodes in the order of choice. You can comment, share, and use social media tools to talk about the stories.
As for the content, I found it very uneven generally. There are some excellent stories, such as “Auto-workers at a crossroads“, the story of a couple who both work in the auto industry in Oshawa, Brian and Cassandra, who lose their jobs and must fight to survive. It’s very much in the documentary tradition, without the dramatic structure but in exchange having the advantage of following their story over time in several episodes.
The same goes for a report on an immigrant family who are staying in a motel in British Columbia – we enter in their universe, we understand the challenges they have to surmount, and their emotions. Occasionally a series starts well, like the story of a group of young women in the West who are trying to get out of debt – but at a certain point nothing much happens, the story isn’t going anywhere. In additionthere are some stories that don’t reveal much of anything, neither a strong human story, nor strong production values.
Copyright: ONF / Photo : Renaud Philippe
One of the positive surprises of this project is the quality of the photo essays, produced notably by Renaud Philippe in Quebec, Brian Howell in Vancouver, Goh Irotomo and Craig Chivers in Toronto. The above photo is taken from one of Renaud Philippe’s photo essays titled “Willpower is power.”
Next week: a conversation with Hélène Choquette, director and coordinator of GDP/PIB.
Thanks to Tobi Elliott pour her help with this post.
