Month: March 2018
WIDC Feature Film Award winner, Marie Clements’ much-anticipated feature-length drama, Red Snow has begun principal photography in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories
WIDC Feature Film Award winner, Marie Clements’ much-anticipated feature-length drama, Red Snow has begun principal photography in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories
WIDC Feature Film Award winner, Marie Clements’ much-anticipated feature-length drama, Red Snow has begun principal photography in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: March 22nd, 2018, Vancouver, BC) Producers Marie Clements (MCM Inc.), Lael McCall (Principia Productions), Michelle Morris (Lily Pictures), and the Women In the Director’s Chair (WIDC) organizers announce the start of production on Marie Clements’ much-anticipated feature-length drama, Red Snow.
Principal photography began in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, March 20, 2018. The production then moves to the interior of BC, to complete principal photography by May 31st, 2018.
Clements is the writer, director, and majority producer on Red Snow. The team also includes executive producer, Carol Whiteman (Never Steady, Never Still), cinematographer Roger Vernon (The Mountain Between Us), production designer, Michael Diner (The Revenant), and sound designer, Craig Berkey (Darkest Hour, Tree of Life).
In a dramatic adventure that lays bare the land, blood ties, and two ancient cultures collide to set alight a future born of 10,000 words for snow, Red Snow begins when DYLAN (Asivak Koostachin, Cardinal), a Giwch’in soldier from the Canadian Arctic, is caught in an ambush in Kandahar, Afghanistan. His capture and interrogation by a Taliban Commander (Kane Mahon, The Breadwinner) releases a cache of memories connected to the love and death of his Inuit cousin, Asana (Miika Whiskeyjack, Blackstone), and binds him closer to a Pashtun family as they escape across treacherous landscapes and through a blizzard that becomes their key to survival. Red Snow also stars one of Canada’s most highly acclaimed actresses Tantoo Cardinal, Michelle Thrush and Steven Cree Molison, along with Mozhdah Jamalzadah, who CNN World touts as Afghanistan’s “Oprah”.
“There’s a misconception that Indigenous stories are unto themselves, that they are somehow separate from what we think as the Canadian experience when in fact this is the core of who we are, and who we have become,” says Red Snow writer/director/producer, Marie Clements. “There are so many barriers you literally forget that you are breaking them.”
Red Snow has received financial support from the CBC Breaking Barriers Film Fund, Telefilm Canada, The Harold Greenberg Fund, APTN, Creative B.C., the Northwest Territories Film Rebate program, and is a recipient of Canada Media Fund’s Aboriginal Convergent funding which, in part, will support the production of an online Book of Snow for website browsers to record words for snow in their languages around the world.
The film will be shot in Yellowknife, NWT, Kamloops, Whistler and Cache Creek, B.C. It will encompass four languages: Gwich’in, Inuvialuktun, Pashto and English.
“We’re thrilled to be working with Marie Clements and her producing partners Lael McCall and Michelle Morris on Red Snow. I was immediately drawn to this story that takes us on a journey from the Canadian Arctic to Khandahar,” says Mehernaz Lentin, Senior Director, CBC Breaking Barriers Film Fund. “I love that the Far North meets the Middle East, revealing the interconnectedness of these two global realities and tribal cultures, told from the POV of a First Nations soldier caught in a Taliban ambush. Marie has woven distinct characters that reveal the mythology of ancient cultures and the struggle for survival within their disparate landscapes.”
As Red Snow’s first-in funder, the WIDC Feature Film Award has backed Clements with a prize worth nearly $200,000 in in-kind services and rentals from some of Canada’s leading film industry companies, including Panavision Canada, William F. White International Inc., North Shore Studios, as well as executive producing services provided by Whiteman. See backgrounder for a full list of WIDC sponsors.
Web: http://www.redsnow.ca/ | Twitter: https://twitter.com/redsnowfilm/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/redsnowfilm/ | #RedSnow
Backgrounder
Marie Clements – has ignited her brand of artistry within a variety of mediums including film, TV radio, new media and live performance. Clements’ most recent screen project, the musical documentary The Road Forward,premiered at Hot Docs and opened the 2017 DOXA Documentary Film Festival. An NFB production, The Road Forward connects a pivotal moment in Canada’s civil rights history—the beginnings of Indian Nationalism in the 1930s—with the powerful momentum of First Nations activism today. A multi-award-winner for her previous work, Clements’ films have screened at Cannes, TIFF, VIFF, Whistler Film Festival, American Indian Film Festival and imagineNATIVE Film festival, and aired on APTN. MCM is an independent media production company owned and operated by Clements specializing in the development, creation and production of innovative works of media that explore an Aboriginal and intercultural reality.
CBC Breaking Barriers Film Fund – CBC Breaking Barriers Film Fund supports the production of English-language feature films led by Canadian female and diverse filmmakers. Our criteria is to fund projects where the key creatives – writer, director and/or lead producer – are Canadian women, Indigenous persons, visible minorities or persons with a disability who have had at least one feature film showcased at a recognized film festival. Eligible projects must have a final draft screenplay, achieve at least six out of 10 CAVCO points and not already be in production. There are no application deadlines. We encourage applications to be submitted when they are creatively ready. There are no application deadlines rather applications should be submitted when they are creatively ready.
WIDC – Founded in 1997, Women In the Director’s Chair (WIDC) offers mentorship, project development and production awards for Canadian women screen directors. With more than 230 award-winning director alumnae across Canada, over the last twenty-one years WIDC has elevated the voices of a generation of women screen directors.
The WIDC Feature Film Award is supported by Bell Media’s Harold Greenberg Fund, Panavision Canada, MELS Studios, William F. White International, Keslow Camera Film and Digital, Sim, Encore Vancouver, Technicolor Toronto, Skylab Vancouver, White Hart Post Productions, North Shore Studios, The Bridge Studios, Vancouver Film Studios, The Research House Clearance Services Inc., Descriptive Video Works, Front Row Insurance. Since 2009, the WIDC Feature Film Award has supported the completion of six multiple award-winning feature-length films by Canadian women directors including Katrin Bowen (Amazon Falls), Lulu Keating (Lucille’s Ball), Ana Valine (Sitting On the Edge of Marlene), Siobhan Devine (The Birdwatcher), and Jordan Canning (Suck It Up). Kathleen Hepburn’s Never Steady, Never Still has earned multiple festival awards, four Vancouver Film Critics Circle awards, eight Canadian Screen Award nominations and is distributed by Thunderbird Releasing in Canada and the UK, and LevelK in the U.S.
WIDC is also supported by ACTRA National, TELUS STORYHIVE, Creative BC, Actra Fraternal Benefit Society,UBCP/ACTRA, Stohn Hay Caffazzo Dembrowski Rishmond LLP, Independent Production Fund, ACTRA Alberta, and enjoys community collaborations with Whistler Film Festival, St John’s International Film Festival, Female Eye Film Festival, Vancouver International Women In Film Festival, 1st Weekend Club, Canada Screens, Crazy 8’s.
Web: https://www.widc.ca | Twitter: https://twitter.com/widc_ca
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/widc.ca | #WIDC
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Feature-Length Film Red Snow Shoots in Dettah
Feature-Length Film Red Snow Shoots in Dettah
March 27, 2018
Large cameras, film crew, translators and a Director’s tent dotted the community of Dettah as Red Snow, the latest film production to land in the Northwest Territories (NWT), shot scenes last week.
The feature-length film, written and directed by Marie Clements, tells the story of Dylan, a Gwich’in soldier from the Northwest Territories, who is caught in an ambush in Afghanistan. His interrogation by a Taliban commander releases a cache of memories connected to the love and death of his Inuit cousin, Asana, and binds him closer to a Pashtun family as they escape across treacherous landscapes.
Language plays a large role in the film, with actors speaking four languages: Gwich’in, Inuvialuit, English and Pashto.
The riveting story is one that Clements has been working on for some time. Three years ago, Clements travelled to Yellowknife and discussed the project with Jay Bulckaert and Pablo Saravanja (Artless Collective(link is external)) over a dinner of muskox and spaghetti.
“There is no place Red Snow could have been filmed than the NWT. There’s a uniqueness here to the land and people. A kind of brilliant survival that is built in the bones. By not only bringing together a diverse cast from Canada and the world, we brought together film communities. We borrowed hats and mitts, we literally walked in each other’s boots to tell this story. There’s a misconception that Indigenous stories are unto themselves…that they are somehow separate from what we think as the Canadian experience when in fact this is the core of who we are, and who we have become,” says Clements.
Red Snow Producer Michelle Morris, NWT Film Commissioner Camilla MacEachern, Red Snow Writer & Director Marie Clements, and Minister Wally Schumann smile on the set of Red Snow in Dettah.
Local Industry on Set
There was a noticeable local presence on the Red Snow set in Dettah.
NWT filmmaker Jen Walden and Minister Schumann take a selfie on set.
Noted NWT filmmaker, Jen Walden(link is external), was selected out of 244 applicants nation-wide to be one of six recipients of the Academy Apprenticeship for Women Directors. The prestigious recognition provides her with the opportunity to shadow Clements on the set of Red Snow.
Leela Gilday(link is external) and Reneltta Arluk were hired as actors in the film,and will play Asana’s aunts.
Jay Bulckaert and Pablo Saravanja were hired as Line Producers and are assisting with drone video footage and special effects. For Bulckaert, this included breathing life into a stuffed bear through a tube to give it the realism required.
CJ Eggenberger, who helped produce the NWT Film Commission’s first commercial, was hired as B camera, First Assistant.
Keith Robertson, who made his directoral debut on his film BAIT!, which was screened at the Cannes Film Festival in 2017, was hired in the Locations Department.
Related Stories:
A Wrinkle in Time Comes to Yellowknife
NWT Film Profile Rises with Dead North Successes
Lilian Elias was hired as the Inuvialuit Cultural Advisor and William Firth was hired as the Gwich’in Cultural Advisor.
In addition, several other actors came from the NWT.
Economic Benefits for the NWT
Red Snow, which received support from the GNWT’s NWT Film Rebate Program(link is external), spent five days filming in the NWT, resulting in over $350,000 in economic benefits in the form of catering, flights, accommodation, snowmobile rentals, winter clothing rentals, and using houses in Dettah (both interior and exterior) for filming, and further funds spent on local hires.
The NWT Film Rebate Program was launched in 2015 and has since committed roughly $280,000 to seven productions. To date, these productions spent over $800,000 in the NWT with a total economic impact of about $1.8 million stemming from those investments. These figures do not include Red Snow.
The NWT as a Film Destination
Red Snow Producer, Michelle Morris, says that it was important to come to the NWT for filming to keep the story authentic and capture the landscape and language.
“It is such a privilege to be in here and share this part of Canada with the world. Its unique culture, language and people are an integral part of the story of Red Snow. We aimed to represent that authentically by bringing cultural advisors and cast from areas across NWT to shoot in Dettah and Yellowknife. In preparation, we have travelled to NWT four times with several crew before shooting so we could truly understand the land and community and how to practically weave our story into it. It has taken several years to get to this point but with the support of funders like CBC’s Breaking Barriers, Telefilm Canada, the CMF Aboriginal Convergent Fund, Women in the Director’s Chair, and of course the NWT Film Commission, we’re finally capturing the story on camera, and with great hope and intent, represent NWT in the beautiful light it deserves.”
The film is expected to be released theatrically in 2019 and will eventually be broadcast on CBC and APTN. It will be the first time CBC will air a film in Gwich’in and Inuvialuit in primetime.