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We talk a lot about the local film scene when it welcomes Hollywood stars to town, whether that be Jon Hamm for American Hostage or Workaholics star Blake Anderson for curling flick Sticks and Stones.
But Winnipeg is also home to a thriving documentary scene, something the Documentary Organization of Canada is hoping to promote to a wider audience. To that end, in January, the organization officially launched the Manitoba Documentary Archive YouTube channel, a curated digital platform designed to preserve, promote and extend the life of docs created by Manitoba filmmakers.
An event to celebrate the launch — held at the Park Theatre on a freezing January night — welcomed members of the Free Press patron program (you can sign up here to contribute to our journalism and become a patron), and representatives and fans of the local documentary scene to watch a sampling of the fine films being made in the province.
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The three-film program truly showed the breadth of filmmaking talent in the province, with starkly different takes on diverse subjects.
Tammy Marlowe Johnson’s Perogy is a joyful and informative look at the humble Ukrainian dumpling that also touches on Manitoba history, and the way food brings family together and strengthens cultural ties. Noam Gonick’s charming Hirsch takes a totally different tack; it’s a weird and wonderfully oblique film about John Hirsch, the founder of the Manitoba Theatre Centre, who put Winnipeg’s theatre scene on the map.
Finally, A Tennis Story, directed by Tyler Caron, is a character study that follows two older guys who meet every day, from April to November, to lob a tennis ball back and forth on a local court; it’s a quirky and oddly moving portrait of an unusual friendship.
The archive currently hosts 15 films and the channel has more than 2,200 subscribers from all over the world. You can subscribe on YouTube; filmmakers can also submit their own work for inclusion.
And speaking of locally produced docs, on Sunday at 7:30 p.m. at the Gas Station Arts Centre, there will be a screening of Everest Dark, a new film 10 years in the making about a Sherpa’s fraught return to the peak of Everest, produced by Manitoba’s Merit Motion Pictures. Tickets are $20.
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