Eagle Lake talent screens film at Thunder Bay Festival

BY JON THOMPSON, THE ENTERPRISE (Lake of the Woods)

The whispered questions are starting to be spoken outloud: is a native film industry really beginning totake root in Northwestern Ontario?

With “Seeking Bimahdzwin”, a dramatic film based on native teen suicide, set to launch at Thunder Bay’s Bay Street Film Festival this weekend, Eagle Lake born Michelle Desrosier has stepped from the front lines tothe front of the camera.

Desrosier wrote the film and was then cast to play agroup therapist. It’s a role she found natural in writing the piece because social work is herprofession, even as life has dropped her right in the middle of Thunder Bay’s blossoming film scene. ” It was really exciting but it was also a scary process for me because you’re sharing a story that isvery close to your heart,” she says. “It touched my life in many ways and that’s a risk to share that with the public.”

Surprised that she could act well enough to take therole, her time now became consumed with shooting the film on top of the daily issues that arose from co-owning Thunderstone Pictures, who was co-producing Seeking [Bimaadiziiwin - sic]. “There’s so much more to making a film than people think. There’s a lot of work that goes into it. One of the group scenes would take us all day and all night to do then it’s a two minute shot in the film. It’s alot of hard, grueling work, doing it over again under the hot lights and a group of 16 behind the camera. You don’t think about it when you watch a film but there’s so much more going on than what you see.”

An aboriginal steering committee backed the project with a loose but very straight forward mandate. Their research on mental health concerns in First Nations communities led them to the issue of youth and teen suicide. Desrosier relied on her experience as a social worker with First Nations youth as well as her own life experience to write the screenplay.

“I don’t think there’s much in the film that hasn’t touched my life at some point in time. It looks at the residential school system, my grandfather was part ofthat. It looks at alcoholism, things that I’ve been touched by in one way or another throughout my life. “We dedicated the film to a brother of mine, Daniel. I lost him to suicide 12 years ago so that part of it touches me very personally. It’s also dedicated to First Nations youth whose lives have ended too soon. It’s not just a film. It’s so much more than that.”

The intent was for the film to serve as a treatment and education tool for First Nations youth in clinics or therapy sessions. With all the actors most of the crew hailing from between Winnipeg and Pays Plat, the focus would have regional appeal. Dr. Paul Mulzer, a psychiatrist with the Lakehead Psychiatric Hospital has even put in a proposal to do a manual for it to provide depth for the piece as a healing tool. However, due to the positive reaction at the press screening to its production quality, Thunderstone Pictures and Shebandowan Films may push beyond that potential.

“We’re looking into putting the film into festivals worldwide as well as broadcast potential. Applications are being made to fund eight more films and make it into a television series,” says her partner Dave Clement, the other co-owner of Thunderstone pictures who also co-produced and co-directed the film.

Local photographer Nadya Kwandibens from NorthwestA ngle was on the set conspiring to create much of the appearance of the film with the production team. The company website thunderstonepictures.com displays many of her photographs including those shown here.

From the Lake of the Woods Enterprise
Saturday, September 15, 2007