Good for the goose

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This article was published 06/09/2023 (765 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Canada geese are called cobra chickens for a reason.

A new Winnipeg nature documentary, however, goes beyond the honking and hissing to share a more dignified picture of the ubiquitous fauna.

Modern Goose makes its world première at the Toronto International Film Festival this week — a first for filmmaker Karsten Wall.

“I really didn’t think it was going to get in; I was expecting a much smaller première,” he says of the film’s selection for the festival’s Short Cuts program. “I’m pretty excited — nervous and excited.”

Wall, 39, was born in Saskatoon and has spent much of his career in Winnipeg working as a film editor. Modern Goose is his second self-directed production; the first was an award-winning Bell Fibe TV series, The Seven Wonders of Manitoba.

Making nature documentaries is a relatively new interest that started when the grouse crossed the road.

“I was in a bit of a rut,” Wall says. “I was looking for a new hobby that would make me happy and give me a sense of adventure and then I filmed a little grouse crossing the road (near Tulabi Falls) … and it filled me with joy.”

The idea for Modern Goose stemmed from that experience. Wall was keen to film more wildlife but, without a high-flying budget, he turned his lens on the animals in his own backyard. The iconic, and often vilified, Canada goose seemed like the perfect candidate.

“As soon as I started doing a little bit of research about geese I learned that they have some pretty amazing abilities and they’re quite misunderstood,” he says. “I see them as an animal that has adapted really well to the modern world, but has still kept true to their natural instincts.”

The 22-minute documentary explores the complicated plight of wildlife in an urban environment. The city is both an inhospitable wasteland and a fertile oasis.

Filmed during a spring-to-fall season in and around Winnipeg, Modern Goose shows the birds preening in local parks and nesting in parking lots — to the delight and disdain of the humans around them. They occupy trash-filled rivers and thrive off garbage scraps.

And although they’re able to navigate using the Earth’s magnetic field, they regularly struggle to traverse busy roadways. (The film includes a digital re-creation of a goose getting hit by a vehicle.)

“Despite all the pros and cons of living in the city, the geese have all the bread in the world to eat and they still migrate,” Wall says. “I found that was a kind of comforting and triumphant message: that there are things out there that are bigger than what humans have created, and geese represent that in their small way.”

Taking a different tack than many nature docs, Wall decided to forgo narration, opting instead for a sparse, atmospheric soundscape created by Andy Rudolph, Kelsey Braun, Bret Parenteau and Christine Fellows. Paired with tight, cinematic shots, the resulting film allows the subjects to speak for themselves without anthropomorphization.

It was a challenging creative decision.

“It was very tricky because at a certain point, I didn’t really know what the story was,” Wall says. “(Often) there’s music and there’s narration both telling you how you’re supposed to feel in the moment. And it’s very effective when it works well, but I wanted to see if I could get to those places without that.”

Modern Goose is a National Film Board of Canada production. While there are currently no plans for a local première, the film will be made available on the organization’s website (nfb.ca) in 2024.

eva.wasney@winnipegfreepress.com

Twitter: @evawasney