Documentary Field Notes and Flashpoints

This is about a film which was nominated in three categories at the recent Rencontres internatinales du documentaire de Montreal, and which I saw at Cinema Parallèle the other day. Very much à propos, as the Copenhagen climate change conference enters the real negotiating stage. The film, H2Oil by Shannon Walsh (Loaded Pictures), is about the incredibly wasteful and polluting oil sands industry in Northern Alberta and its impact on both people and the environment. It struck me how similar this film is to my own first films, somewhere midway between a journalistic ‘dossier noir’ and a dramatically structured film. The footage of the tar sands is depressingly impressive, and some of the characters are excellent, including a doctor who shows real civil courage and some very touching aboriginal people from the most affected community, Fort Chipewayan.

I asked Shannon a couple of questions.

Shannon Walsh, the director of H2Oil.

· This is a huge subject which one would think would attract a lot of television journalists and filmmakers – have there been other films?

I was really shocked that there weren’t really any feature length films on the subject. There had been a doc aired on CBC called “Tar Sands: The Selling of Alberta” while we were still filming, and there were a couple of pro-industry pieces that had been done, but there really wasn’t much. I felt a lot of responsibility to try to tell the story in as complete a way as I could without losing the human dimension because so many people I met had no idea what was happening in the tar sands.

· And how did you get the funding to do yours in what I presume to be a competitive context?

I think we were in the first wave of projects coming through on the subject looking for funds, but to be honest it is such a complex and difficult subject to tackle. With the help of some supportive initial private funding we made our first trips out to Alberta and put together a short demo that I think reflected the film we wanted to make. That demo I think was a big part of how we set ourselves apart and were able to show that we could handle the subject matter with a sensitive approach.

· Excellent animation, how did you work on that?

I really wanted to find a way to get across some of the tough informative details in a fun and engaging way. I loved the work James Braithwaite had done on “I Met the Walrus” and I thought it would work for H2Oil, so we got in touch with him to see if he was interested. James brought in the excellent animators Dale Hayward and Sylvie Trouve, and we brainstormed together around the content I wanted to put in each of the three animations. I had basic points of what I felt needed to be put together in the animations then I set about writing the scripts. James did the initial drawings and Dale and Sylvie brought them to life. We met several times to tighten and revise the sequences, as the initial drafts became more formal drawings, and were finally. It was amazing working with such talented, smart creative people who really understood what I wanted to do.

· Which were your biggest challenges?

There were a lot of challenges: Getting access to the government and industry. Trying to tell a rounded story that still got to the heart of the issues. Weaving all these very complex technical details, and making an argument without being didactic and losing the human story….END.

RCI, the International arm of the CBC, has announced a competition called Roots, calling for videos under 8 minutes. Sounds like a good challenge ! Rest here: http://roots.rcinet.ca/

Thanks to Jessica Berglund for the help with this post.

During the Rencontres Internationales du documentaire de Montréal which just ended, I saw a number of really excellent documentaries. Over the next few weeks I’ll tell you about a couple of them, not just because of their qualities as films but because they are making a difference, having a real impact. To start with, here is a Swedish film which I already saw in Stockholm a few months ago, Bananas!*, by Fredrik Gertten.

It tells the outrageous story of the banana plantation workers in Nicaragua and Honduras who have been made sterile by exposure to the pesticide DBCP (which goes under several brand names including Nemagon) and the flamboyant L.A. lawuer Juan ‘Accidentes’ Dominguez who takes their defense. He does so without any funding, at his own expense, choosing a group of only 12 workers as a test case. The film has real suspense, following the ups and downs of the legal case. I was at the edge of my seat, dying to see how the law suit was going to end. Well shot, well edited, and with judicious use of archives and court room footage, this is a really important film.

The film has its suspense, and so did the release of the film. Dole, the company running the plantations, put enormous pressure on the filmmakers and the L.A. film festival where the film premiered last June. The company managed to have the film removed from competition, but didn’t manage to have the screenings canceled. It then sued the filmmakers, surely a grave public relations mistake. There was an uproar among documentary filmmakers, and the producers filed an anti-SLAPP motion in the U.S. (A SLAPP is a ‘strategic lawsuit against public participation’ intended not to right a wrong but to force the defendants to spend more time and money than they can afford….) What also made a difference was the reaction in Sweden, where the main medical journal (Läkartidningen) examined the health impacts of DBCP, the federation of Journalists and the Swedish Film Institute condemned the law suit as a threat to freedom of expression, the hamburger chain MAX and major supermarket chains like ICA put their relationship with Dole into question. All this pressure led to Dole withdrawing the law suit on Oct. I5th.
You can read a detailed chronology of all these developments on the Bananas!* web site, complete with the director’s twitter messages.

Thanks to Jessica Berglund for help with this post.