REEL CANADA Blog : Tags : filmmaking

Iron Road Producer Raymond Massey answering questions via Skype

The students of the Markham region were pumped up for a day of Canadian film!

 
A diverse crowd of more than 500 ESL students from Middlefield HS, Markville SS, Miliken Mills HS, and Thornlea SS packed the Markham Theatre to capacity on the morning of May 15th excited and eager to see IRON ROAD, a film about the story of Chinese migrant workers on the Canadian Pacific Railway. Roars of laughter and screams of excitement came from the crowd throughout the film; it was like nothing I had ever seen at a REEL CANADA screening.

Following the film, the students had a fantastic Q & A with Raymond Massey, one of three producers of IRON ROAD. The students had a lot of questions on everything from what locations in China and British Columbia were used, the difficulties of shooting certain scenes, to plot elements like why a love story was used to tell a piece of history.  It was obvious that Raymond was really enjoying the enthusiasm of the students as they asked about the involvement of Chinese Canadian people in the film and about the business of filmmaking.

Following an amazing morning screening, a couple classes had to return to the “real world” while the rest of the students stayed for another fantastic screening:  Michael McGowan’s ONE WEEK, which featured a      Q & A with star Liane Balaban. Liane joined us via Skype from the comfort of her back yard garden in LA.

The students were thoroughly engaged, asking astute questions about decisions Liane’s character makes in the film. It really showed me how involved the students were and how much they got out of the screening. The students of Markham region got really excited when it was mentioned Liane did some voice work for the popular video game Assassins Creed. Apparently there are a lot of gamers in the Markham region!
 

All in all, our first event in Markham at the Markham Theatre was a complete success. The crew at the theatre, everyone from the tech guys and ushers to the theatre manager, were amazing to work with and we look forward to returning next season and bringing more Canadian films to Markham!

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.

Students in a film class at Stonewall Collegiate Institute in Stonewall, MB will be treated to a special screening of the short documentary MEMERE METISSE on today with filmmaker (and documentary subject!) Janelle Wookey in attendance to answer their questions. The film is a heartwarming family tale of Janelle's journey to try to get her grandmother to acknowledge her Metis heritage. Students will get the opportunity to discuss Canadian and Aboriginal identity as well as the craft of filmmaking with the talented young filmmaker.  

This event will be our first in the province of Manitoba, and while we're coming back next week for a 400+ student event in Winnipeg, we're still pretty pumped about getting our feet wet in Manitoba with Stonewall Collegiate - all thanks to the efforts of our teacher contact there, Cathy Redman-Chalmers, who contacted us about bringing a filmmaker into her classroom, and made it all happen. 

REEL CANADA's 'Manitoba maven', Terri Cherniack, will be running this event (it's her first time, too). Janelle is a veteran of the program - she came to Sudbury with us for a screening of MÉMÉRE MÉTISSE in 2010.

Our third annual Cineplex day with the Peel District School Board will be taking place on today at the SilverCity Brampton. Over 650 secondary school students from across the Peel DSB will participate, selecting from three feature film screenings in the morning and three in the afternoon. AM films include THE ROCKET (with NHL publisher and hockey mega-expert Dan Diamond in attendance), ONE WEEK, preceded by some comedy shorts by Adam Brodie and Dave Derewlany (with the always hilarious Adam & Dave in attendance) and SHARKWATER (with eco-warrior and filmmaker Emily Hunter in attendance, who's been setting students on fire with her enthusiasm and passion throughout REEL CANADA's seventh season, making stops on our national tour in Montague PEI, Montreal QC, and soon, Winnipeg MB).

In the afternoon, students will watch the zombie comedy FIDO, preceded by the short film EVELYN: THE CUTEST EVIL DEAD GIRL (with star Nadia Litz in attendance), the documentary PROM NIGHT IN MISSISSIPPI (with producer Patricia Aquino in attendance), and IRON ROAD. 

This event kicks off the "Ontario leg" of our national tour, which will include one more large Cineplex Day in Toronto on the 18th, and six other Do-It-Yourself festivals between now and mid-May.