Filmmakers’ first foray into fiction bares all in Manitoba

Two years after shooting a movie in the wilds near Lac du Bonnet, co-directors James McLellan and Alexandre (Sasha) Trudeau finally unveiled the dramatic feature Hair of the Bear last Thursday in Toronto, with Alexandre’s brother Justin Trudeau on hand to celebrate the première in advance of its opening Friday. (The former prime minister even made a joke about the good/evil brother dynamic in the film’s designated antagonists.)

While a little political star power never hurts a première, the film itself is not explicitly political. It’s a gritty survival story in which a troubled teen (Malia Baker, The Baby-Sitters Club), suffering social anxiety, is sent to live with her outdoorsman grandfather (Roy Dupuis, Rumours) where his survival lessons prove to be invaluable in the face of an outside threat.

It’s a scripted feature debut for both directors, who met while doing officer training in CTC Gagetown in New Brunswick in 1996.

The launch went well, says Winnipeg producer Juliette Hagopian, who was in attendance.

“I’m happy to see people enjoy films that are made by individuals who are taking a chance at creating their first feature. James and Sasha did a great job,” Hagopian says.

As in the film, the relationship between the filmmakers was formed under pressure, and turned fruitful.

“We shared a barrack, and a lot of laughter through the incredible tribulations of basic officer training. And we stayed fast friends,” Trudeau says.

Trudeau is the one who pursued film first.

“We were both black sheep in the military context, but James stayed in the military for years after and I went to go produce documentary films,” Trudeau says.

The film’s heroine represents issues McLellan witnessed first-hand in the three decades teaching high school. (He currently teaches a film production course at Oak Park High School in Charleswood.)

“It was probably about six years ago that it just came in a wave where just all these kids started cutting up their arms and scratching themselves and obviously missing a lot of school,” he recalls.

“It was quite noticeable, after 25 years, to see the trend just kind of explode through these issues of debilitating anxiety.”

Trudeau’s documentaries have dealt with big global issues, including the W5 documentary Embedded in Iraq in 2003, and The Fence (2004), a film about two families on either side of Israel/Palestinian territories around the West Bank.

“All my films are geopolitical,” Trudeau asserts.

“They are mostly character-based … human beings reflecting on human beings and what they’re facing in a war zone. It is not that far off from focusing on this teenager who’s in a personal crisis that in this story becomes a very dramatic crisis for her with external elements. She’s fighting for her life both in an internal way and an external way.

“So there’s parallels there to things I saw and did in the past, but I think it’s really a human story above all else.”

Trudeau says he would call himself a humanist filmmaker when it comes to his documentaries; that sentiment also applies to his debut feature.

“This is very much a humanist (film), looking at what makes us who we are, how we deal with extreme pressures, how we get to know ourselves when under incredible pressure, and how we find ways to survive in situations that were unimaginable to us before.”

Co-director James McLellan, producer Juliette Hagopian and actor Jonathan Lawrence will be in attendance at tonight’s 6:15 p.m. and 9:15 screenings of Hair of the Bear at Grant Park Cinemas.

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