REEL CANADA Blog : Tags : documentary

We’re starting something new here on our blog...the REEL CANADA Film Club! Every Friday we’ll be highlighting one of the awesome Canadian films from our catalogue. Today we kick things off with SHARKWATER.

About SHARKWATER

For filmmaker Rob Stewart, exploring sharks began as an underwater adventure. What it turned into was a beautiful and dangerous life journey into the balance of life on earth.

Driven by passion fed from a lifelong fascination with sharks, Stewart debunks historical stereotypes and media depictions of sharks as bloodthirsty, man-eating monsters and reveals the reality of sharks as pillars in the evolution of the seas.

Filmed in visually stunning, high definition video, Sharkwater takes you into the most shark rich waters of the world, exposing the exploitation and corruption surrounding the world's shark populations in the marine reserves of Cocos Island, Costa Rica and the Galapagos Islands, Ecuador.

In an effort to protect sharks, Stewart teams up with renegade conservationist Paul Watson of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. Their unbelievable adventure together starts with a battle between the Sea Shepherd and shark poachers in Guatemala, resulting in pirate boat rammings, gunboat chases, mafia espionage, corrupt court systems and attempted murder charges, forcing them to flee for their lives.

Through it all, Stewart discovers these magnificent creatures have gone from predator to prey, and how despite surviving the earth's history of mass extinctions, they could easily be wiped out within a few years due to human greed.

Stewart's remarkable journey of courage and determination changes from a mission to save the world's sharks, into a fight for his life, and that of humankind.

SHARKWATER director/producer/writer Rob Stewart shares stories about his experience making SHARKWATER on George Stroumboulopolous Tonight:

About Rob Stewart

Rob Stewart is a Toronto native who got started on his way to making the successful film, Sharkwater, at the age of 13 when he began to experiment with underwater photography. Stewart has worked as chief photographer for the Canadian Wildlife Federation’s series of magazines and was an award-winning freelance journalist. Four years of filming and travel through 15 different countries resulted in his debut documentary, Sharkwater, which has won numerous awards at film festivals worldwide.

Rob Stewart has a new documentary, REVOLUTION, coming out on April 12, 2013! Check out the trailer for it below:

You can find SHARKWATER at your local independent video store or public library. 

SHARKWATER links: Website|Facebook|Twitter

Today marks our first-time event at Garden City Collegiate with a screening of Peter Raymont & Michele Hozer's documentary WEST WIND: THE VISION OF TOM THOMSON. With the assistance of REEL CANADA's Manitoba Coordinator & Facilitator, Terri Cherniack and Garden City Collegiate teacher, Catherine Flynn, 150 students will experience the visually stunning and thoughtful documentary followed by a Q&A with Peter Raymont and Nancy Lang via Skype. 

About the film:

Tom Thomson is one of Canada's most beloved painters. Described as our "greatest colourist" and "our Van Gogh", Thomson's vibrant interpretations of the nothern landscape are iconic representations of the Canadian soul.

On July 8, 1917, just as he was reaching ascendancy in his craft, Tom Thomson paddled across Canoe Lake and disappeared. His body was found floating in the lake 8 days later. The cause of his death remains a mystery. WEST WIND: THE VISION OF TOM THOMSON unravels many of the mysteries of this brilliant, beloved artist. 

Toronto audiences are world renowned for being supportive movie goers, and from April 26 to May 5, documentary makers descended upon the city to feel the love. Hot Docs, North America’s biggest documentary film festival, had its most successful year yet, and REEL CANADA staff were among the 165,000 who attended over the 10 days of the festival.

Documentaries make up a significant chunk of REEL CANADA’s catalogue, and with good reason: NANOOK OF THE NORTH (made in 1922 by Canadian Robert Flaherty) is considered to be the first documentary, and the term itself was coined by John Grierson, the first commissioner of the National Film Board of Canada. With that kind of history, it’s no surprise that Canadians have a strong reputation for producing great docs, and when programming a REEL CANADA festival, students often choose to watch them alongside more “mainstream” fiction films.

But don’t be fooled – the docs in our catalogue are not of the preachy, somber, “good for you” variety. They range from the funny, enlightening and stereotype-smashing REEL INJUN to the harrowing and heart-wrenching SHAKE HANDS WITH THE DEVIL. At Hot Docs, there were nearly 40 shorts and features by Canadian doc-makers (including some classics by veterans Michel Brault, recipient of an Outstanding Achievement Award, and John Kastner, this year’s subject of Focus On a retrospective) -- the staff managed to see most of what was on offer, and we hope to be able to include some of them in our catalogue one day. 

Above: RC's Winnipeg representative Terri Cherniack (left) and executive director Jack Blum (right) flank guest filmmaker and Eco-warrior Emily Hunter.

After something of a “soft opening” last week in Stonewall, we blew into Manitoba with a more robust event at River East Collegiate:  six films, six hundred kids.  Organized almost entirely by a couple of great teachers, Pat Chellack and Anita Kumar, the films were chosen along certain thematic lines – social justice, sustainability, global poverty.

This was because River East is a “UNESCO School”, which is something I didn’t know existed until I went there.  Apparently there are some 9,000 UNESCO schools in 180 countries around the world, from primary to high school, vocational and teachers colleges.  They are all especially dedicated to promoting peace, democracy, human rights, sustainable development, and intercultural learning.

 Anita Kumar and Pat Chellack

Anita Kumar is relatively new at River East, but she’s been a UNESCO teacher from day one, at the middle school that preceded this posting and as an organizer of conferences and other extra-curricular projects.  She was eager to have REEL CANADA return to Winnipeg for a special conference that is happening there next December, involving teachers and students from across Canada, Israel and Germany.  (Really.)

River East partners with Free the Children and Habitat for Humanity, and, to name just one of its many initiatives, its students have raised $14,000 to build a school in Sierra Leone.

It was great to plug Canadian film into the mix. 

Social-issue docs like SHARKWATER, THE CORPORATION, SHAKE HANDS WITH THE DEVIL, and PROM NIGHT IN MISSISSIPPI made for great jumping-off points for discussions of sustainability, capitalism, genocide and racism.  Eco-warrior and REEL CANADA superstar Emily Hunter came in person to get the kids fired up about what they themselves could do to change the world for the better.  And Peter Raymont joined us via Skype to talk about the challenges of accompanying General Romeo Dallaire on his return to Rwanda ten years after the genocide shocked the world.

Equally exciting was to witness the creativity of these teachers as they got their students looking beneath the surface of films like THE ROCKET and MAMBO ITALIANO to explore the themes of social justice around which each of those films revolve.  For THE ROCKET they were helped by the Skype appearance of Dan Diamond, Canada’s foremost hockey authority, who speaks with such insight into the meaning of the Richard Riots of the 50’s.

All in all it was a perfect blend of film fun and serious purpose and we were pleased to support River East in its association with UNESCO.

REEL CANADA festivals come in all shapes and sizes.  Sometimes we take over an entire high school for a whole day and show six films to 1,000 kids in three different venues, sometimes it’s just a few classes in the auditorium on a given afternoon.

REEL CANADA snuck quietly into Manitoba for the first time yesterday, with a pocket-sized event in the town of Stonewall, about 45 minutes outside of Winnipeg.  At the request of teacher Cathy Redman-Chalmers, and with the help of our new Manitoba coordinator Terri Cherniack, we arranged for a local filmmaker to come and speak to her media class about filmmaking.

Filmmaker Janelle Wookey and her grandmother

The director was the incredibly charming Janelle Wookey who brought her documentary MÉMÉRE MÉTISSE.  The film chronicles her playful but determined efforts to persuade her grandmother to acknowledge and embrace their Metis ancestry.  With its combination of sincerity, simplicity and do-it-yourself inventiveness, it was a perfect film to show a class of young aspirants to the film industry.  As an added treat, Janelle actually brought along Memere, her beloved grandmother!

Janelle was impressed with the number and quality of the questions:  Why did she choose her grandmother as a subject?  How did she get started as a filmmaker?  What has happened with the film since its premier?  How did the film change her and how did it change her grandmother?  As an added surprise, there was a CBC crew on hand making a film about Janelle!  They were drawn into the encounter when the students started asking them questions as well.

One screening, one classroom, one dynamic interaction with some young Canadian storytellers.  The REEL CANADA First National Tour marches on.