- People of a Feather. Director Joel Heath. Vancity Theatre March 2-5. Director in attendance for 6: 30 p.m. screening tonight. For more information on the film visit peopleofafeather.com.
HE was a PhD student carrying a camera in a small town in Nunavut, hoping to capture the first underwater footage of diving eider birds.
Seven winters passed, and almost without thinking about it Joel Heath had immersed himself in the Sanikiluaq community and his doctorate project became the feature documentary People of a Feather.
The movie, named best B.C. film by the Vancouver Film Critics Circle, is scheduled to screen at Vancity Theatre starting tonight.
Heath spent two winters tracking hunting eider with underwater video, and when his friends approved of his efforts, Heath's vision started to crystallize.
"We decided, 'Why just show it to the community? Let's try and make something to show the world,'" Heath recalls of his idea to make a feature film. "I spent seven winters, but the first two were kind of for my thesis. You might call them pre-production."
The documentary's subjects were used to the sight of Heath with a camera on his shoulder, and that familiarity gives the film a relaxed intimacy.
"If I'd gone to the community to make a film, it would've been an entirely different thing, but because I started up there, and it was something we decided to do together, it was kind of unprecedented access," Heath says. "I had a camera in my hand from the first day I was up there, people are really comfortable with that. So even when I was in their house with their family or when I was hanging out with the guys in their shacks or whatever it might be, I was kind of a fly on the wall."
While Heath is the film's director, he shares a creator credit with the Sanikiluaq community, and several residents worked on the film.
Heath follows a woman as she lines her coat with eider feathers, and his camera turns frantic as he employs a cinéma vérité approach to document a young man's first winter as a hunter.
"A lot of times we only had one chance to do a take," he says.
Heath uses time-lapse photography to capture the changes in the ice that wraps around Sanikiluaq in the winter like a snow-white snake. Spending two-month stretches camping on the ice, Heath began to learn about the Sanikiluaq culture while avoiding thin ice by literally following in the footsteps of his guide.
Despite the remote location, Heath is not the first filmmaker to trek on that ice. People of a Feather is something of a spiritual sequel to Robert Flaherty's lost documentary about the region.
"He started to make a film in this community and then he dropped a cigarette in the negatives and they all went up in flames," Heath says.
That tumbling cigarette ash and the fire it caused compelled Heath to stage re-enactments of last century's daily life in Sanikiluaq based on the recollections of elders.
As Heath studied the diminishing sheath of ice on the land, his story grew.
"Out of that story comes the story about how hydroelectric projects are affecting the marine ecosystem," he says.
The hydroelectric projects dump warm, fresh water in a sea ice habitat, according to Heath.
"The Inuit actually think that is having a bigger difference on sea ice ecosystems than climate change."
By 2007, everything seemed to be working against Heath.
"It was also a very, very challenging winter. Partly from a filmmaking side but also partly because I wasn't a student anymore and I had to learn how to kind of be an Inuk, and learn about the ice, and learn how to test the ice with a harpoon myself. I think that was a big challenge, but also one of the most rewarding things."
Heath suffered a nasty frostbite, but he says the Inuit taught him to dress, to walk, and how to breath through a very narrow slit.
"I was actually being taught how to live on the land by Inuit," he says. "I think I learned more from Inuit than I learned from academics."
Arriving at a tiny apartment in 2010, Heath recruited editor Evan Warner to help him sculpt his mountain of footage.
"His apartment's like literally one room, pretty much," Warner recalls, describing a space cramped with computer, hard drives, and piles of footage.
Warner says he initially expected to work for a maximum of two weeks, just long enough to cut a compelling trailer for Heath.
"The beauty of that. . . wasn't something I'd seen before," Warner says, recalling the first time he saw images from the film.
Over a span of 18 months, Heath, Warner, and editor Jocelyne Chaput debated the balance of science and story and successfully whittled 250 hours of footage into a cohesive, 90-minute feature.
"It was overwhelming at first," Warner says. "You need to be able to see the footage with fresh eyes for as long as possible because as soon as you lose that, then you're in trouble," Warner says. "Joel had been working with the footage for 10 years. . . there were times when he didn't realize that the audience didn't understand something because he knew it so well."
It was Heath's approach that propelled Warner to take part in crafting the film.
"The biggest thing for me. . . was his respect for what he was doing and his respect and involvement in the community," Warner says.
The film debuted in Sanikiluaq, and Heath recalls hoping for silence.
"If people don't say anything, that's a good thing, because if they don't like it, they'll definitely tell you," he remembers being advised.
His fears turned out to be unfounded, and the film was greeted with rousing applause.
"That's how we knew we'd made something the community was proud of that we could take to the rest of the world," Heath says.
"I hope it creates an awareness of the pros and cons of hydro power and how even sustainable energy has its flaws," Warner says.
While the issues are at the forefront in Canada, Warner says because the movie deals with dams and water, it's a universal story.
"Primarily it's a cultural film," Heath says. "Showing people what life is like in the Arctic, trying to de-mystify a few things about modern life, and just show the relationship between the people, the birds, and the sea ice."
Despite spending five years shooting in the limited daylight offered by the Nunavut winter, Heath has no regrets.
"If I could make another film like this and it took five years, it'd be worth it."
