My own projects – Page 2 – Documentary Field Notes and Flashpoints

Talkies in Toronto

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 end I suggested to Mark and Azed that I show either the controversial documentary Capturing the Friedmans, which would have allowed us to discuss many tricky issues of access and consent, or one of my own films. They decided to go for one of mine, because it would be their first documentary and the Toronto premiere of Art in Action.

Now, if you read this blog often, you’ve already heard enough about Art in Action (see previous post). So let’s talk about Talkies. The very congenial but intellectually intense event takes place in what would be a loft if it wasn’t a basement, in Toronto’s East End.

Mark explains it this way:

“The films are selected primarily by the speakers. We give them free reign to pick what they want. We figure that they’ll know best what film they can discuss in an interesting manner. This has resulted in wide variety of films being selected, from Antonioni and Godard to the 80s thriller Angel Heart to a recent film like Doubt.”

“When we conceived the series, one of the ideas was not to confine it strictly to “film studies.” So we’ve been selecting people who have expertise in certain fields or practices, who also like to work with and think about film, and who are engaging speakers. We don’t want a classroom. This means we’ve had speakers take philosophical, political, psychoanalytic, sociological, and anthropological approaches. Most have been academics, but that’s not by design as much as by circumstance. We want to get more film makers and other artists and non-academic writers to participate.”

Talkies in Toronto organizers Mark Cauchi and Azed Majeed.

Can you give an example or two of interesting discussions?

“Nikolas Kompridis (Professor at the Center for Citizenship & Public Policy, University of Western Sydney) gave a presentation on Antonioni’s classic, Blow-Up. He suggested that the film was challenging the modernist ethos of mastery and control (exemplified in taking pictures, technology, and swingin’ 60s consumption) by presenting its main character and its viewers with an enigma that no amount of control (exemplified in blowing up a picture) could resolve. The main character and viewer learns that instead of always attempting to control actively one’s environment, sometimes one must simply be receptive to what is beyond oneself.”

“Kristine Klement (a graduate student in Social & Political Thought at York University) and Paola Bohorquez (Instructor of English, York University) gave a co-presentation on the recent film Doubt. They highlighted the fact that there is no evidence of crime in the film, and yet characters and viewers are compelled to regard the main character of the film as guilty. Leaving aside the question of whether or not he is guilty, they used psychoanalytic theory to explore the psychological processes that lead to such discrepancies.”

“Both discussions opened up the films in interesting and unexpected ways and generated a lot of discussion and response by our viewers.”

What’s coming up?

“The next Talkies will be on Saturday February 26.

We will be screening Bruno Dumont’s 1997 debut film, The Life of Jesus. Despite the title, this film does not depict the life of Jesus, a la Pasolini’s Gospel According to Saint Matthew or Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ. The film will be in French, with English subtitles.

John Caruana (Professor of Philosophy, Ryerson University) will be discussing the film. As usual, the event takes place in the basement at 245 Carlaw Ave, suite 004 (just north of Queen East), and starts at 7 pm.”

Thanks to Tobi Elliott for her help with this blog.

Salut Ti-Guy!

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 area that has a lot of marginalized people. The testimonies to Guy were touching, describing him very candidly as a sometimes-manipulative guy with addiction problems, but sensitive, generous and talented.

Guy was one of the main characters in my film Les Enfants de Choeur/The Choir Boys, about Montreal’s homeless choir, La Chorale de l’Accueil Bonneau, released about ten years ago. My terrific editor Louise Côté really liked Guy, and all his good and not-so-good sides were much in evidence in the film. People sometimes ask me – with a critical tone in their voice – why I included a scene were Guy, under the influence, pointedly tells me “Magnus, if you film me now I will…” He didn’t say #*$#@#, but it’s clear what he meant. Well, we showed him the fine cut, and he graciously accepted it without requesting any changes.

Guy was 47 when he died, one week after participating in his last concert. The homeless choir has come back to life, under the name ‘La Chorale sous les étoiles,’ the Choir under the Stars. They sang at the service – not a funeral, because Ti-Guy had been buried already in his hometown of St. Siméon.

The producer of ‘Les Enfants de Choeur’, Paul Lapointe, as well as the editor Louise Côté and DOP’s Martin Duckworth, Andrei Khabad and François Beauchemin join me in saying: Salut Ti-Guy, you enriched our lives and we are grateful for it.

Thanks to Tobi Elliott for her help with this blog.

Wearing two hats

Mukash, Isacsson & Sioui-Labelle — Myself and DOP René Sioui-Labelle shooting Power at Hudson’s Bay in the early 90s interviewing Cree chief Matthew Mukash.

Film students sometimes ask theoretical questions which, while not uninteresting, are not particularly important to a practitioner. But Tom Eden from the documentary program in Rivière du Loup asked me this: is it a good idea to direct and to do camera and sound at the same time?

This is a big question, and I could write a book about it. Some pioneers of cinéma vérité did their own camera work (Pennebaker) or sound (Wiseman). Some of my colleagues whose work I admire do their own camera work: John Walker, Martin Duckworth, Ali Kazimi… and I do my own sound – as did one filmmaker who really inspired me, Barbara Kopple.

I think some of us took this approach years ago because we wanted to have a small crew and also to maximize the number of shooting days (by spending less money per shooting day.) But the combination of reduced budgets and accessible digital technologies have really brought this way of working to the fore.

These days there are filmmakers who do everything themselves – one example is Montreal filmmaker Eve Lamont, who just released a film on prostitution (L’Imposture), which she directed while doing camera and sound herself. An impressive achievement, considering some of the situations involved several different characters, sometimes in uncontrolled environments.

The other day I saw a very good film, Gasland (shortlisted for the Oscars) shot by the filmmaker – but the shooting is pretty awful. What saves the film is the personal narrative tone, the investigation and the excellent editing. Imagine if it had been well shot as well!

For me, doing camera work would have come naturally, as I have a background in visual arts and photography. But I have chosen to do sound because I find that it allows me to have a better overview of what’s going on, looking around to see what else is going on outside of the frame.

So… doing creative tech work while directing has many advantages, primarily reducing the size of the crew and controlling costs. But here is a caution. Directing really requires your full attention. So does camera work and sound recording. So if you wear two of these hats at the same time, you are inevitably compromising.

If you are on a tight production schedule, something will get less attention. So one key issue is time. Doing camera or sound is great if you know how to do it, and you are not in a rush! Another key is really knowing your gear. (You don’t want to be struggling with tech issues at the crucial moment when you need to reassure your characters, negotiate access, ask a key question…) And your relationship and communications with whoever else is working with you needs to be really tight.

Here is an old photo to show that directing and doing tech work can be fun: myself and DOP James Grey on a beach in Rio during the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro.

Thanks to Tobi Elliott for her help with the blog.

Super-Grannies – and two shorts

The normal progression for a budding filmmaker has generally been from student films and shorty shorts towards longer shorts, and then medium-length films and finally feature length ones. Working on the short films, he or she would learn the ropes, learn how to use equipment and tell a story. Later on, with more resources, would come a bigger crew and competent technicians or co-creators.

Not so in my case. When I started making audiovisual stories for television, I already had many years of storytelling behind me as a radio producer. And as a television ‘producer’ (meaning actually director) at CBC and Radio-Canada television, I didn’t have the right to touch the equipment. I remember the editors saying to me, “You can screen the cut again while I’m on my break, but close the door and don’t tell anyone.” It was a co-conspiracy by the bosses and the union.

Things have changed a lot since then! Now, in the digital world, many television journalists and directors do their own shooting and editing.

And for my part, I am looking after the beginnings I never had as a filmmaker. Over the last couple of years, I have made my first short films. And they will be screening at the Park Cinema in Montreal, before my film Super-Grannies (subtitled version of ‘Les Super-Mémés’) from Oct. 18th to 22nd.

Here is a brief description of the three films – with apologies for the PR language!

Letter to Béthièle. (8 min. 2010) In French with English sub-titles.

In a touching visual letter to his adoptive daughter Béthièle on her 10th birthday, Montreal filmmaker Magnus Isacsson reflects on her roots in Haiti and his own in Sweden, drawing some surprising conclusions.

Sonny Joe & the casino. (22 min. 2004)

Sonny Joe Cross collects used clothes from the residents of the Mohawk territory of Kahnawake. He sells some in his store and gives the rest to the homeless and poor in nearby Montreal. A former hard-drinking gambler, Sonny Joe leads a suspense-filled campaign against a casino promoted by the band council.

Les super-mémés. (45 min. 2010.)

Decked out in gaudy shawls and outrageous hats brimming with a cacophony of colours, «Raging Grannies» defy the invisibility so often experienced by older women. They are a colourful presence at most demonstrations and grassroots meetings promoting peace, social justice and environment.

On the surface, they are amusing, even hilarious. But underneath that humorous veneer, they are deadly serious. The film does more than portray of the movement and its members. It raises universal issues very seldom addressed by the current media, such as the role of senior citizens in our society. “With this documentary film, I wanted to accomplish myself what these exceptional women do so well: entertain while forcing us to reflection,” says the filmmaker.

Production: Island Filmworks

Distribution: Vidéo Femmes

Thanks to Tobi Elliott for her help with the blog.

Anaïs: turning the tables

Trio politique — Three children from Anaïs' film Se Souvenir des Cendres: Regard sur Incendies

French would be the logical language for this post, but I’d like to share this content with people outside Quebec.

This past week was Anaïs Barbeau-Lavalette week. This extremely talented, 31-year-old Montreal director launched a novel, held a vernissage for a photo exhibition, and signed a terrific documentary broadcast on Radio-Canada Sunday night at 10.30.

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 Barbeau-Lavalette — Anaïs - Photo Credit: André Turpin

Children are also at the heart of Anaïs’s first novel Je 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!

(Anaïs is the daughter of director Manon Barbeau and cinematographer Philippe Lavalette.)

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.

Singing for the children in Haiti

Géthro Auguste directs the children. (Photo: Jocelyne Clarke)

Over the last few months, Martin Duckworth and I have been shooting the rehearsals and recording sessions for a song for the orphans in Haiti, much more numerous since the January earthquake. The recording of the song is an initiative by Géthro Auguste, the head of a community cultural organization called Culture X in Montreal North, a neighborhood known as ‘underprivileged.’ It is home to the largest concentration of Haitians in Montreal, as well as immigrants from Latin America and North Africa – in addition to the Caucasian population. And the song: first, there will be a single, later a video clip. We are finding the whole experience very touching and inspiring, and I am thinking perhaps we could make a fifteen-minute film in addition to the music video. But where would we show the short film ? ( There is a link between these shoots and one of my film projects, more about that another time.)

Myself and DOP Martin Duckworth filming Géthro Auguste.

Thanks to Jocelyne Clarke (photos) and Jessica Berglund (blog assistance).

Lancement Les super-Mémés

Louise-Édith Hébert et Marguerite Bilodeau. Photo Marie-Pierre Savard.

Au cours des dernières semaines, nous avons lancé mon film Les Super-mémés, sur le mouvement des Raging Grannies et des Mémés déchaînées. C’est un film produit par Isabelle Couture et Ian Boyd aux films de l’Isle, avec une license cruciale de Canal Vie, et distribué par Vidéo-Femmes. Le film a d’abord été le film de clôture du Festival des films sur les droits humains, et a ensuite été lancé au Musée de la civilisation à Québec. Après six ans de travail et beaucoup de difficultés de financement, j’étais très touché de voir la réception du film à la fois par les journalistes et par le public. Paul Houde de FM 98,5 disait: ‘un super film, qui donne envie de vieillir dans la délinquence.’ Et à Québec, une spectatrice m’a expliqué l’importance du message du film de façon tellement éloquente que je lui ai demandé de mettre ces commentaires par écrit. La parole est à Thérèse Voisard:

Thérèse Voisard

C’était la première fois que j’entendais parler de ce mouvement, qui allie l’humour à l’engagement social. Il s’agit, à mon avis, d’un mouvement qui gagne à être connu autant des personnes âgées que des plus jeunes.

….Ces dames peuvent s’autoriser un certain niveau de “délinquance” ou de désobéissance civile, qui ne serait pas toléré chez les jeunes. On n’utilisera pas de bâtons, de pistolets” taeser” ou autres contre des femmes de cet âge, au cours d’une manifestation”. alors que l’on hésitera pas à s’en servir contre des jeunes. De même on ne les jettera pas en prison et on ne les bousculera pas; ce que l’on hésitera pas à faire lorsqu’il s’agit de personnes plus jeunes. De plus, si elles peuvent déjouer et narguer la police, comme on l’a vu dans l’incroyable scène de canotage sur la Rivière des Outaouais, c’est grâce à leur sens de l’humour souvent beaucoup plus efficace que la violence. De même, leurs costumes très voyants leur assurent une visibilité à nulle autre pareille tandis que leurs chansons remplacent efficacement les cris de colères et les slogans agressifs. Leur âge leur assure aussi une crédibilité quant à la défense des valeurs nécessaires à la vie bonne. Elles en ont vu d’autres et savent d’expérience distinguer l’essentiel de l’illusoire sans que l’on puisse mettre leurs opinions sur le compte de l’inexpérience ou de la fougue irréfléchie de la jeunesse.

Ces impressionnantes “mémés” établissent sans contredit que ces avantages offerts par l’âge peuvent, comme le film le démontre si bien, être mis au service de la communauté.
Peut-être s’agit-il là du véritable rôle social des aînés.

Tous nos remerciements, pour ce magnifique film.

Thérèse Voisard

Launching French Granny film

Louise-Édith Hébert and Marguerite Bilodeau, photo Marie-Pierre Savard

Over the past two weeks, we launched my French-language film on the Raging Grannies and Mémés Déchaînées, Les super-mémés. It premiered on the 20th of March as closing film for the Human rights film festival in Montreal, at the Park Cinema, and we had another launch screening in Quebec City at the Musée de la Civilisation. The film was produced by Isabelle Couture at Films de l’Isle and is distributed by Vidéo-femmes, based in Quebec City. We were able to make the film thanks to the support of Canal Vie, and more precisely Line Richard, now at the French production branch at the NFB. For several years, Line was the only person in the television world who supported this project while it was turned down by numerous English-language broadcasters. It is very heartwarming, after all the difficulties we had finding the funding, to see that the film is very well received both by journalists and audiences. Radio Host Paul Houde at FM 98,5 said: ‘This is a super film which makes you feel like being more of a delinquent as you grow old.’

New directions 1: short film competitions on the web

Béthièle when she was five.

A documentary filmmaker in Canada today might be forgiven for being discouraged. The combined impact of the crisis of television, the more general economic crisis, and the Conservative government’s policies are having a devastating impact on our traditional sources of funding. There is definitely a ‘paradigm shift’ underway. New models of production and financing will surely emerge, but the transition is in many ways painful and the future uncertain. One way or the other I strongly believe there will still be a place and a role for documenting what goes on in society, and for making films which will contribute to public debate. And I would say, observing my own decision-making process so to speak, that I am in the process of finding new directions. In addition to one more traditional film project, I am beginning to explore multi-platform production ( more on that another day) and filmmaking for the web. In this process, I am learning a lot from my younger colleagues and not the least my interns.

I meant to participate in the short film competition about public service, organized by the CSN – deadline a few days ago. But my plans fell through due to the absolutely exceptional circumstance of no substantial snow fall in Montreal for almost a month. ( Last year we had four meters of snow !) Nonetheless, I extend my heartfelt thanks to the Société de Transport de Montréal and their employees who generously helped me prepare for a shoot which had to be put off to another year. On the other hand i will participate in the short film competition Roots, organized by RCI. This is a terrific idea, an initiative which will allow Canadian citizens from different background to tell their stories – or the stories of others, as you can already see on their web site. My contribution will be a video-letter to my daughter Béthièle who was born in Haiti and whose tenth birthday pretty much coincides with the competition deadline.

Thanks to Jessica Berglund for the help with this blog.

HAITI – IMAGES ET BESOINS URGENTS

Orphélins à Port-au-Prince. Photo: Marcello Casal Jr/ABr

Selon l’UNICEF, le tremblement de terre en Haiti a crée la situation la plus désastreuse pour les enfants de toute l’histoire de l’humanité. Il y a des dizaines de milliers d’orphélins parmi les centaines de milliers de personnes blessées et sans-abri.
Ayant une fille d’Haiti, ayant déjà visité des orphélinats en Haiti, cette situation me préoccupe grandement.
Il reste 5 jours pour faire des contributions qui seront ‘matchés’ par le gouvernement du Canada selon les critères plus bas – en plus d’être déductibles d’impôt évidemment.
Il va sans dire qu’avec les pluies qui s’en viennent en Haiti, toute contribution est d’une importance cruciale.

HAITI:

Pour être versé au Fonds d’aide aux victimes du séisme en Haïti, un don doit :

* être un don en argent ne dépassant pas 100 000 $;
* être fait par un particulier canadien;
* être fait à un organisme de bienfaisance enregistré qui reçoit des dons en réponse au séisme qui a frappé Haïti le 12 janvier
* être expressément réservé par de tels organismes à l’aide aux victimes du séisme;
* être fait entre le 12 janvier et le 12 février 2010.

Plusieurs cinéastes ont tourné des images des événements en Haiti et les rendent disponibles sur le web. A l’émission Dimanche magazine de Radio-Canada Akli Ait Abdallah racontait l’expérience des étudiants de la seule école de cinéma en Haiti – Ciné Institute, qui ont mis leurs images du tremblement de terre sur le l’internet.

Pour d’autres équipes voir notamment:

Inside disaster

Merci à Jessica Berglund pour l’aide avec ce blogue.