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BE BRAVE – A film by DANIEL and ERIN NORTHCOTT   “Be Brave is a joyful invitation for us to honor the sacredness of life, to reconnect with nature and with each other. It would be a challenge to dream a myth more perfect for this moment on planet Earth, as we stand together at the crossroads and contemplate our options: reunite with nature or be consumed by it.”

Thirteen years ago, Daniel Northcott, barely 20 at the time, took to traveling the world in search of stories to reinforce a strong belief in society’s connectivity with not only each other, but with nature and the universe. He filmed nearly every step of that journey and planned to make the ultimate adventure film focussed on bringing people together. For each significant place he visited, Dan took a keepsake to remind and connect him with his travels; but in April of 2007, Dan was exploring a Mayan burial site and took a bone which was said to hold a possibly dangerous curse. Several months later, Dan began noticing serious and multiplying symptoms and by the time he returned to Vancouver, he was literally unrecognizable to his mom and sister.

“Dan and I had been talking for weeks before he came back, he had mentioned not feeling well, but I had no idea he was as sick as he was until I saw him at the airport.” I spoke to Erin Northcott, Daniel’s sister, over the holidays. “My mum didn’t recognize him. I said, ‘there he is’ and she said, ‘no, that’s not him.”

Dan was very quickly diagnosed with an aggressive form of leukemia found in his bones and after an intense three rounds of chemo, the doctor delivered the news that Dan’s prognosis was not much more than three months. But instead of putting his work on hold, he turned the camera back on and began to document his tumultuous battle to survive a devastating disease.

“Most of us just wanted the camera turned off” Erin explains, “we were used to him filming everything, so it wasn’t that, we just wanted him to relax, but Dan felt this was part of his journey, the story was taking a very unexpected turn and he wanted it all on tape, so we just agreed and let it go.” 

In 2009, Dan passed away leaving over 1000 hours of raw footage, a 40minute sketch of his intended film, and a wish that his sister, Erin, would complete his project and help in telling his story.

Daniel and Erin

“This is my dream, but only a taste of the bigger picture. There is a whole underlying vision, philosophy, goal and message behind these sketches. A lifetime of ideas that I would like you to see someday. The film I want to make in the future will speak every language, cross every country, all of time, and make the journey personal to anyone who who watches it. Please help me… I have scraped together every penny I’ve ever had to make these sketches an open invitation to this epic adventure. Join me and learn what you already know, once and for all; we are the same, we share the same origin, the same apparatus; flesh, bone, blood. Be brave, and help.”

“I wrote Dan a poem when he was in the hospital, he kept it by his bed; one of the lines in it read, ‘if the time comes when you need to dear brother, trust in me, place dreams in my hand.’ I just felt honored and that he’d made the right choice.” 

Since then, Erin has teamed up with Californian production company Elevate to bring Daniel’s dying wish to life in the form of a feature length documentary.

“The greatest challenge was getting the nerve to go out there and try to make this happen, and the second greatest challenge has been learning to let go and trust. It’s such a huge responsibility to carry forward someone’s dream that is no longer alive and able to advise you on what they want. I love my brother so much and that makes it easier as his dreams are now my dreams, but I’m not a filmmaker so I need to depend on others to carry forth his vision.”  

The story of Dan’s life is impressive, to say the least: a larger than life personality on a quest to capture the essence of human spirit and bring us closer together by way of honest storytelling. But it continues to verge on supernatural when you take into account Daniel’s possibly life changing decision in April of 2007 when he removed a sacred bone from a Mayan burial site. And while there is no way of proving whether or not the bone was responsible for his death, Erin and her family deeply respect the sacred lines crossed when the bone was taken.

“He was warned profusely not to take the bone,” Erin explains in a piece she wrote, “but he took it anyway. When asked why, he said, ‘to be forever linked to the Mayan world.’ In a way that’s why he collected most natural items: to keep the world and it’s history close to him. While part of him knew he shouldn’t take the bone, he felt the gods would understand. He also admitted to the natural human feeling of just wanting to test the boundaries of the known and unknown – he wanted to see what would happen.”

She and her family recently returned to Mexico to put the issue to rest and grant themselves some closure on the issue. They filmed their experience and plan to use it as the connective tissue in Daniel’s story.

Be Brave is the incredibly true, and larger than life story of Daniel Northcott, a unique filmmaker with an eye for colourful characters and the oneness we all share. It’s only fair that the legacy and film he leave behind is as spectacular as the lifetime it captures. Erin, along with the amazing team at Elevate are nearly there, but they still need your help. Daniel’s passion was people, and that’s who will make his film, Erin and Elevate are seeking support via the ever-popular crowdfunding platform, IndieGoGo. To make a contribution please visit the campaign site: http://www.indiegogo.com/Be-Brave

“I’d just like to mention how much it means to us each time someone joins us in helping to create Be Brave, each contribution, even if it’s just a dollar, makes the foundation that Be Brave is being built on that much stronger. We really want this to be a movie we the people make possible, we welcome everyone to join us and be a part of this adventure.” A message from Erin and the Be Brave team.

Yeats was wrong when he said “The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.” It’s nothing short of inspiring to look around at all the amazing projects our generation has taken on in the name of bettering ourselves and the world we inhabit. One that has shot to the forefront of a lot of Canadians (and specifically BCers) is the Enbridge and Kinder Morgan Pipeline, or more accurately, Canada’s Carbon Corridor and the dangerously invasive nature of extracting natural gas by way of hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking.”

Two concerned Vancouverites have taken to the big screen in an attempt to educate and invigorate people in the fight against the industrialization of Northern BC. Damien Gillis, and Fiona Rayher are the directors behind the upcoming documentary Fractured Land which tells the personal story of Caleb Behn. An eloquent First Nations Law student, Caleb is fighting the development of the natural gas industry in his home territories in northeast British Columbia. The film follows him to New Zealand while he finishes his last year of law school and learns from the Maori people about their own battle with the natural gas industry.

The team behind Fractured Land is multifaceted and uber talented: Damien Gillis gained attention after his 2009 documentary Farmed Salmon Exposed: The Global Reach of the Norwegian Salmon Farming Industry and hans’t stopped exposing the detrimental strength of corporate colonization of the world’s natural beauties. He is also the co-founder (alongside broadcast veteran, Rafe Mair) of the Common Sense Canadian, an online journal focussed on news and opinions surrounding natural resource and environmental issues. Fiona Rayher is a born and raised Vancouverite with a BA in PoliSci, a passion for social justice and and the Artistic Director of Gen Why Media. Together they’ve teamed up with passion project engines like Daniel Conrad (Accident by Design, and Seducing the Guard), Tara Mahoney (co-founder of Gen Why Media) and Hilary Henegar whose research and resulting article on fracking in BC became the rolling stone that is now Fractured Land.

I spoke with the face of the film, law student Caleb Behn about why now was the time for a film like this, and how this became such an important issue for not only him, but Canadians across the board.

“We are already behind. The potential consequences of these developments are largely unknown,” Caleb explains, “Climate change/ uncertainty is occurring and in the midst of all this a massive and unprecedented industrialization of the Carbon Corridor is taking place. Now there is motivation fueled by injustice, opportunity due to market flooding and IdleNoMore movements, resources such as social media and an important rationale concerning the potential risk of these developments, all coming together to form a space for significant change.”

Caleb attended University of Victoria Law School and obtained a Juris Doctor degree with the concentration in Environmental Law and Sustainability and feels his work as oil and gas officer for West Moberly First Nations is just as important as his involvement with Fractured Land; if not slightly less disheartening. “The problem is that when every single little fight you have to protect a ‘wildlife tree patch‘ or a SARA high-risk songbird habitat or a known berry patch favoured by an Elder is a loss that hurts your very soul. I witnessed the slow creeping death of my land, my culture and my people in those government processes and it broke my heart. So I decided to find better tools to engage with.” Enter Damien and Fiona, and their idea for Fractured Land.

A transmedia project, Fractured Land offers several platforms for audience members to become involved and feel empowered in the fight to save our beautiful province.

“Transmedia storytelling is basically “mixed media” for a Web 2.0 world. Using film, video, photos, graphics, social media, books, theater etc. It brings the audience closer to the subject and often imparts a sense of ownership. Instead of simply sitting in a darkened movie theater and taking in a story passively, you get to interact with the story – get to know its characters and subplots and the history that serves as its backdrop – and over a period of time.” Explains Hilary Henegar, Digital Media Strategist and Community Manager for the film.

“The whole project started as an article idea that Fiona pitched me when I was editor at GranvilleOnline.ca. After months of investigating and unpacking the hidden story behind BC’s enormous natural gas fracking industry, and then meeting Damien, the article became a film. Then, about 9 months ago, after hearing only small things here and there about the project, Fi and D approached me to do the social media for them. Then, after meeting Caleb and becoming more educated about the extent of the story – of the dysfunctional system it both supports and is a product of – the project took on a more spiritual bent for me; I can’t not do this. Contributing to this project is part of healing the fractures inside myself and is my contribution toward a future is more equitable and in balance with the totality of life on this planet.”

The final goal of the film is try to heal some of the fractures you see as a result of this all, both the literal fractures under the ground as well as the ones we’re seeing above ground.”     -Caleb Behn

In the past two years, the project has gathered a following of concerned citizens and movements like #IdleNoMore and the resistance outside Enbridge hearings being held in Vancouver and Victoria. And those concerned citizens have become active members of the Fractured Land community continuing the fight by supporting the multi-platformed project. “The mix of film, Facebook, live events, an e-newsletter and most recently, web video chats are helping us tell this story from a variety of angles and perspectives. And through the exchange of research, news, photos and videos with our audience (who are really more like members of our crew than passive viewers), the storytelling becomes collaborative – and our collaborators become our allies, evangelists, helpers and now financial backers.”

“We have been rewarded with interest and support and now IdleNoMore and the heating up Enbridge fight and likely changes in government at the provincial and federal level we are hopeful that our work will yield some results.” Caleb speaks hopefully about the project’s next phase. “We hope the movement will be one of inspiration, hope and optimism in the face of overwhelming odds.”

The team is grateful for the support the cyber-community has shown and is excited to be entering the next phase of filmmaking, but they still need your support, not only financially, but in getting their message out there and keeping the enthusiasm for the fight. “Besides donating through Paypal, the best way to support the project is to sign up for the newsletter and follow along on Facebook. We’ll be looking for collaborators on an on-going basis, and we’d love to be able to send calls out to our crew to help Caleb in his work. You never know when he’ll need a geologist, photographer, lawyer or eager volunteer willing to learn in exchange for canvassing! Ultimately, the crowdfunding campaign is an invitation to join us in this work to protect the land and the rights of the people to practice their traditional customs.”

Fractured Land’s IndieGoGo campaign ends at 11:59pm on January 18th. visit http://www.indiegogo.com/fracturedland to donate, or their website http://fracturedland.com/ to support and donate.

Hometown: Vancouver, BC Age: 5 Favorite Documentary: That’s like asking a parent to pick a favorite child (it’s always the baby) Dream Collaboration: Sundance In a new twist on an old tale, this week’s installment of The Reel Van is a profile slash hype-piece for the Projecting Change Film Fest. A unique take on the ol’ fashioned film fest, PCFF turns five this year and VIA is helping blow out the candles with founders Brady Dahmer & Lindsay Nahmiache.

While Brady Dahmer was living in Toronto, he frequented a screening series held on Sunday mornings which coupled a film, speaker and open discussion forum for the audience. Upon moving to Vancouver he searched high and low for a similar trifecta but continually came up empty handed. He eventually resigned himself to the fact that Vancouver simply didn’t offer this sort of viewing experience, that is, until he met Lindsay Nahmiache.

She invited him to a screening event the following week and much to his delight and surprise, it turned out to be a documentary followed by a speaker and open discussion of the topic covered. With the wind back in his proverbial sails, Brady immediately approached Lindsay and together they began working to foster what would become the annual Projecting Change Film Fest.

PCFF is Western Canada’s only environmental and social issue film festival, aiming to unite the community on global topics of cultural, environmental and social issues with stellar films and engaging speakers. We’re TedTalks meets film fest.

Going into their fifth year now, the Projecting Change Film Fest is a unique festival format designed to engage the audience with redoubtable and award-winning films and formidable speakers conducting discussions afterward.

“Since the beginning, PCFF has been about coupling films with speakers and dialogue, that’s been our mantra from the get-go.”

It’s no secret that in order to be involved in something simply for the reward-factor, you have to be invested and excited about it, but Brady and Lindsay take their enthusiasm to a whole new level. Backed by resumes that include international film production, occupying a seat on the TIFF board, and donating countless hours and efforts to social causes around the world, you couldn’t pick two more capable and willing people to develop a film fest aimed at putting the training wheels on environmental and cultural issues.

“I don’t consider myself an ‘activist’ per se, I just really want to know and understand these things happening around me, and I want to be educated in the decisions I’m making. I’m kind of a nerd when it comes to wanting to learn about new things, but this is all so important, it’s so great to see everyone else coming out to the festival as excited about the information as we are.”

“It’s really easy to go and watch a movie and get really inspired in the dark of a theater with powerful images and a great message, but when you leave the theater, it’s like it all dissipates. You’re left with this feeling of, ‘What do I do now? What’s my call to action?’ Whereas, if there’s a speaker afterwards and they say, ‘Hey, if you want to get involved in your own hometown, then here are some things you can try out.’ I can’t count the number of times people have come up to us after a screening or discussion and said that they had no idea how to access this world of change, but thanks to our festival, they feel like they have a starting point. That’s what this is all about for me.”

Each year bigger and better than the last, the founders are just as excited as ticket holders for the new crop of groundbreaking speakers and outstanding films, and there’s no better place to host such an event than right here in one of Canada’s socially conscious neighbourhoods.

“I couldn’t think of a better city for this festival, we have so many socially conscious people, and I’d be bold enough to say that we have the most socially conscious people in Canada, living within the confines of this beautiful city.”

But the duo makes it clear that this is not a niche event tailored for the bearded and bicyclists only, but rather a step to make eco-consciousness accessible to all.

“This is not a Birkenstock and granola event. We’re not tailoring ourselves to cater to the converted, by all means, we want them there because they’re huge proponents of what we stand for, but we’re trying to make sustainability accessible. Whether you’re in your twenties, thirties, forties, working, not working, we’re giving you the time and the access point to realize that little changes make a big difference.”

And turning five has meant leaps and bounds to the team behind PCFF but that doesn’t mean that they haven’t continued to set their sights on continued growth in the future.

“I love what we’ve built, but our tipping point for me, is when we get that critical mass catching on and in our sights that means a simultaneous online film fest in the next couple years. Because it can be near impossible to get films into countries for screenings, there’s all kinds of red tape, so we want to create an online platform that runs alongside the event and possible year-round, creating an online screening room on a donation basis.”

It’s an exciting time for people who have long felt that change would never come, and PCFF is a place to celebrate with the likeminded people of your community all that we’re capable of on the landscape of social issues. So join Brady, Lindsay, Katie, Sophia and the rest of the dedicated souls behind PCFF from April 16th -22nd at SFU Woodwards for six days of films and speakers that will engage and inspire even the most curmudgeonly of the disenchanted.

Tickets are still available for screenings (including the speaker to follow) online at www.projectingchange.ca/tickets and all proceeds go straight back into local initiatives.

Hometown: Montreal, Quebec Age: 61 Favorite Documentary: Corral Dream Collaboration: David Lean He might not be from Vancouver, or currently call the west coast home, but Stephen Low’s new film Rocky Mountain Express depicts the grueling construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway from Hope to Calgary, and I had the opportunity to talk to Stephen last week before the Vancouver screening to talk trains, his father’s career and why Hollywood is phony.

If Stephen Low had been in your class at film school, he would have been the Meredith Grey of film school. His father, Colin Low, was not only involved, he was heavily influential in the bourgeoning Canadian film landscape of the 50s and 60s and Stephen was often dragged along to hang out on location, much to his chagrin.

“I remember it being boring. For a little kid, being stuck for hours while they set up lights and cameras and everything, that’s not where I wanted to be; and I certainly wasn’t keen on becoming a filmmaker after getting the taste that I did growing up.”

Despite his waning interest, Stephen gained a world class education in documentary filmmaking before heading to university and pursuing a more conventional education in Political Science at Lakehead University in Thunder Bay. He paid his way through an undergrad by working summers on the railway in Northern Ontario, strengthening an already powerful appetite he had for steam engines. But it wasn’t until grunt work ran its course and Low found his passion for all things new and exciting that making movies presented itself as a possible career choice again.

“It wasn’t until I grew up and saw more of the world that I decided I was interested in making movies. I was looking for something other than labour opportunities, and I had all these ideas for films that I wanted to make. I was unemployed, sitting on a park bench in Montreal and I read an article in the Globe and Mail about a Canadian airplane company that had sold all these planes that weren’t built. So I reached into my pocket, pulled out a quarter and called up Canada Air and when the young PR guy answered I just blurted out “You guys need to make a film about this!” He had no idea what he was getting into but he said “Sure, c’mon by.” And from there it was just one things after another.”

This stroke of luck wasn’t Low’s first attempt at working in film, though. He’d been on several sets for big budget Hollywood films working with esteemed directors like Terrence Malik, but hated the pecking order and bloated self-worth of people in the business of pretending.

“I realized that I liked real people rather than actors, that was about it. I wanted to work with the people that these stories based on real events were written about, and to do that, I had to get away from fiction film and go back to documentaries. I wanted to use the license that filmmaking {and journalism} gives you, if you call someone up and tell them that you’re making a film with the NFB (National Film Board), all of a sudden you’re in the door. It’s like having a skeleton key. I mean, because of filmmaking I’ve been to the bottom of the ocean, flown in fighter jets, seen the sunken Titanic; James Cameron hasn’t even done that! And I know that my friends and colleagues, while they may not be famous, are the real deal, they’re the people famous actors will play in the made for TV movies; and I prefer it that way.”

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Hometown: Sante Fe, New Mexico Age: 22 Favorite Documentary: Fog of War Dream Collaboration: Christopher Nolan Tavi Parusel arrived on the first day of Capilano’s Documentary Film Program as the youngest student in our class but immediately impressed his peers and instructors with his grand ideas of making the world a better place through his art. Since graduating in the summer of 2009, Tavi has worked on a research ship up the coast of British Columbia, travelled to India to document the Kumbha Mela and most recently walked over 900km of the Camino de Santiago in Northern Spain.

At just 22 years old, I can not only say that this impressive lad is a good friend of mine, but also a constant reminder of what it means to live a life dedicated to your art. I had the distinct pleasure of sitting down with him last week to discuss what he’s worked on since crossing the stage at Capilano (* Tavi actually wasn’t present for our commencement because he was already working as a Videographer for Living Oceans, aboard their research ship headed for Haida Gawaii).

How did you come to be interested in documentaries?
When I was younger I used to love watching documentaries; I loved seeing all these interesting stories that were real, I mean you didn’t have to go to fiction to see a good film, these were true stories. But, I guess it was my grade twelve year of high school. I mean, I had always been interested in film and had grown up acting, so the interest in film as an art form was always there; but documentaries didn’t enter the picture until I had to do a year long project involving a presentation of an artistic component. I had taken on religion as my topic and for my artistic component I did a documentary looking at the overlapping of different (and often feuding) religions. So that really got the ball rolling in terms of getting interested in pursuing documentary filmmaking beyond the project, and after I graduated, I went straight to Capilano and haven’t really looked back since.

What is it you like about documentary as a story form?
Sharing an experience with people who may have never seen or experienced it otherwise. I think that’s what is so great about documentaries; we can go to these crazy places and meet these people who are completely different from us, yet we can relate because we’re all people. There’s a sense of bringing people together and making a great big world feel a little bit smaller, that I really like about making (and watching) docs. I can show you this part of the world, and through film, we can share in this experience that only a few people would have otherwise had. We’re all so different and unique and each person has all these different stories to tell, and documentaries give us the opportunity to tell them, or at least begin to tell them.

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Hometown: St. John’s, Newfoundland Age: 35 Favorite Documentary: Koyaanisquatsi, Lost in La Mancha Dream Collaboration: Carl Sagan Usually you’d have to wait another week for the next installment of The Reel Vancouver but when I learned of this next director (and his film’s impending Vancouver debut) I couldn’t wait to share his story with my favorite fan-couverites. So, coming to you a whole week early is my interview with the fascinating Joel Heath and review of his film People of a Feather.

But first, a little history…
The Belcher Islands (in South East Hudson’s Bay) were considered largely undiscovered by the modern world until Robert Flaherty began prospecting what would later become Flaherty Island and what had long been home to the Sanikiluaq community of Inuit people. Flaherty had taken with him a hand-cranked motion picture camera, and after observing the Inuit people and their traditions he decided to film them, hoping to share their stories with the rest of the world. (For those of you who already know the story of Nanook of the North this next bit will just be a refresher.)

Flaherty returned to Toronto with copious amounts of footage – 70 000 feet of film to be exact – and sat down to begin the tedious act of manually editing when the nitrate from the film combined with an ill-placed cigarette caused the entire stockpile to literally go up in smoke.

Devastated, he decided to return to Hudson’s Bay prepared, and in 1920 did just that. Only this time, he cast a “typical” Inuit family and had them reenact scenes he knew he had lost in the original footage. This would bring criticism from the community for years to come (an argument still rages on on whether or not Flaherty, a man known as the Grandfather of Documentary Film, deserves the title, and whether or not Nanook of the North should be considered a true documentary), but Flaherty achieved what he had set out to do: bring the stories and traditions of the Inuit people to the new world of 1920’s Canada.

Nearly 100 years later another young man was sent to the Belcher Islands with film equipment, this time in the hopes of gaining a better understanding of how the changing sea ice effected the Eider birds’ ability to survive the winter months. The outcome, however, is the same: Joel’s film People of a Feather is a breathtaking look at Inuit life today and 100 years ago, sharing a story of struggling to adapt to a quickly changing world, and a startling message to the rest of us that turning our backs on issues as seemingly “trivial” as the Eider bird population is going to come back to haunt us sooner (and louder) than we think.

I had the great privilege to sit down with Joel and talk about his film, working alongside the traditional community of Inuit people, and how we can turn despair into hope for the future.

You weren’t a filmmaker before this project so what is your background? And how did you end up deciding to make a film from a research project?
My background is actually in Biology. I started on the Belcher Islands as a research student and I was working with the community to understand the massive die offs of the Eider bird. But I think that ended up being a major strength of the film, you know, that I didn’t head up there with the intention of making a film. It was something that came naturally out of the research and my close work with the community, and we eventually decided to do it together. I was already filming to observe the ducks, and using the time lapse equipment to study the ice formations and so it was just the next step in what we were already doing.

At first we were just really excited to have a bunch of great underwater footage of the birds diving beneath the ice to feed, which is something the people in the community have never seen, so we decided to put something together to show them what we were watching all day. That ended up going so much better than we thought, so we knew from there that this was something we wanted to show more people and teach the rest of Canada and the World what was happening in the Arctic. From there we just kept thinking bigger and bigger and bigger…

There’s obviously a lot of Robert Flaherty to be seen in the film, did you have that in mind once you had decided to make the film, and did you study documentaries to prepare?
I definitely did a lot of research, especially on Flaherty because of the similarities between our stories. I tried to learn more about him and his films, and he was certainly a big part of the motivation for doing the flashbacks. But like I said, I always thought one of my greatest strengths during this process was my lack of influences from other documentaries. I just knew that I wanted to show the juxtaposition of the past and present and let the Eider serve as the through line that connected it all. I wanted to show that by learning how we’ve changed, we can better adapt to an uncertain future.

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