Films from Fredericton
Published Tuesday November 3rd, 2009
History: Cultural works about city by provincial filmmakers will be screened at Silver Wave Film Festival this week
When Tony Merzetti joined the New Brunswick Filmmakers' Co-operative in 1983, it was a shadow of its current self.
Membership was small, and mostly local.
"We didn't really have a connection with filmmakers in any other cities," Merzetti, the co-op's executive director, says.
A Saint John native, he moved to Fredericton specifically to join the co-op, which celebrates its 30 anniversary this year.
"It was my way of breaking into film without having any experience."
Founded in 1979, the co-op was run out of a York Street office in those days. Merzetti and other film buffs would meet there to chat about film or assemble in the boardroom for a screening.
"Maybe 15 people would gather on a Sunday afternoon to watch films," Merzetti says.
"It was all very casual. There wasn't a whole lot going on. At that time there was no film festival, there was no screening series, per se."
The co-op has come a long way. It's membership has bloomed to 250 members across the province, and its equipment resources have likewise grown.
When Merzetti joined, it was time-consuming and expensive to make even a short. Filmmakers would have to go to Toronto for three or four days to have the sound mixed in a studio that charged $150-$200 an hour.
Just a handful of projects were completed each year. This year, the co-op supported the production of 28 films.
The first film Merzetti worked on after he joined the co-op was a 30-second vignette, one of a series of shorts made in honour of New Brunswick's bicentennial celebrations that aired nationally on CBC Television.
Merzetti thought back on the project last year, as the co-op's anniversary loomed and the City of Fredericton was busy getting an application together for designation as a Cultural Capital of Canada.
"I always thought it was a neat thing to have cultural and historical things captured on film," he says.
Merzetti's proposal to commission a series of shorts about Fredericton was submitted as part of the Cultural Capitals application. In March, it received confirmation of $49,000 of funding from the Department of Canadian Heritage.
About 20 filmmakers across the province submitted ideas. Ten were accepted, and seven are completed and will be screened at the ninth annual Silver Wave Film Festival, which kicks off Thursday and runs until Sunday in Fredericton. A trailer for a special effects-heavy work that is still in production will also be shown.
The topics range from the annual Festival of Lights at St. Mary's First Nation at Christmas to Evelyn's Beauty Salon, a downtown hairdresser who has been in business for more than 50 years, to the history of Chestnut Canoes. Merzetti wrote and directed a film about Francis Sherman, "Fredericton's forgotten poet."
When the films are all complete, Merzetti would like the City of Fredericton to stream them on its website. He also wants to compile a DVD of the works. The filmmakers retain copyright, and are free to shop them to other festivals or networks.
Together, they are a historical, cultural record of Fredericton.
"Some of the stories, you may find a short story or a book that includes some information about them, but in this case, having a film made about it will sort of immortalize it," Merzetti says. "These films, afterwards, will be there for people to watch for years to come."
The story-telling styles range from dramatic recreations to animation.
Martin Sabattis made the animated Gabe Acquin, about the founder of St. Mary's First Nation. In the mid-1860s, the respected guide and hunter met the Prince of Wales in front of Government House. He showed the young prince the St. John River, and the two went hunting together.
Later, the prince invited Acquin to London, where he set up a wigwam and took people canoeing behind Buckingham Palace.
Sabattis, who is from the Kingsclear First Nation, had heard the story many times.
"All the native people talk about it," he says, "about this Gabe guy who went to England."
He researched the story at the library, then spent four months on the three-and-a-half minute film, sketching out the storyboard and doing hundreds of drawings for the film, as well as the sound effects and narration.
"It's long, tedious work," he says.
Filmmaker BronweN focused on more recent history. Her 18-minute dramatic short A Saturday Affair is about Bena and Indra Patel, an immigrant couple who "changed the way we ate on Saturday mornings."
A long-time fan of the Patels' products (when she lived away, her parents would greet her at the airport with a bag of their samosas), BronweN recalled her father telling her that where the Patels set up their stall in 1975, they couldn't give the samosas away.
Ethnic food wasn't widely available in those days. Some people - BronweN's father included - thought the savoury pastries would be too hot. Once he tasted one, though, he was hooked. By the time the Patels closed their stall a couple of years ago, it was likely the busiest in the market.
"So my dad's interaction with the Patels was a microcosm of the wider experience they had," she says.
Her film is a celebration of multiculturalism through food, she says. "We have come such a long way in 30 short years."
Now, the market includes Greek, Lebanese, Thai and other ethnic vendors.
"There's lots of stuff that wouldn't be there if it wasn't for the Patels."
Some films feature famous folks from outside of Fredericton. In his 13-minute-long historical reenactment, The Apostles of Beauty, Glendon McKinney used an 1882 visit by Oscar Wilde to explore the contribution Fredericton poet Charles G.D. Roberts made to developing a regional and national cultural voice.
Following Wilde's one-hour lecture on decor, he and the 23-year-old Roberts talked into the night over gin and beer they scrounged up in the dry city.
The script is based on newspaper reports, letters and Wilde's lecture.
The film is highly stylized, the set built to resemble a Victorian portrait parlour with minimal props and a black background, "so it really pushes the characters and words to the front of the screen," McKinney says.
McKinney, who grew up in Lower Jemseg but lived away from the province for a long time, is amazed at the "gold mine" of history in the province and its narrative potential.
Like Roberts, he thinks it is important to tell one's own stories.
"We're talking about ourselves. You can't expect Hollywood to come here and make pictures that are about us," he says.
"I think self-recognition is so important because it's self-confidence, as well. This is who we are - and who we were."
The Cultural Capital Films will be screened Friday, 7 p.m., at Le Centre communautaire Sainte-Anne Theatre. A 30th anniversary gala party will follow at the James Joyce Pub at 9:30 p.m. Tickets, $9/adult, $8/students and seniors, available at the door, or in advance at the Film Co-op office, 732 Charlotte Street. Visit http://swfilmfest.com for a full schedule.
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