Film reviews: At Whistler Film Festival, eco-warriors and women in film
Fairy Creek and Resident Orca follow impassioned fights, while NiiMisSak: Sisters In Film celebrates Indigenous impacts onscreen
Resident Orca.
Fairy Creek.
Whistler Film Festival runs from December 4 to 8 at various venues
AS WHISTLER FILM FESTIVAL kicks off this week, it has a strong component of socio-politically charged documentaries.
Below, two new offerings that capture the tensions and complexities of protecting the natural forces of the West Coast, and a third that looks at a pending “Golden Age” for filmmaking by Indigenous women:
Fairy Creek
Fairy Creek
December 7 at 3:45 pm at Village 8, with director Jen Muranetz and producer Sepehr Samimi in attendance
The 2020-21 protests against the logging of old-growth forests in southern Vancouver Island’s Fairy Creek are considered the largest act of disobedience in Canadian history. And in this new documentary making its West Coast premiere at Whistler, filmmaker Jen Muranetz and her crew had insider access to capture them from all angles: from the ground-level blockades, campsites, mini-raves, and communal kitchens; from sweeping overhead drone shots over the emerald canopy; and from high in the treetops where protesters famously camped out on platforms to protect the biggest cedars. At the height of the conflict (amid pandemic madness), logging company Teal Jones Cedar filed for a court injunction against the blockade, and more than 1,000 were arrested. The film starts in the serene quiet of the old-growth forest that lives up to its name, with massive, mossy trees, birdsong punctuating the calm; then the roar of chainsaws rip through the silence. A simple case of right and wrong? What this compelling documentary goes on to show is how torturously complicated the issue became—and remains today. We learn that less than three percent of B.C.’s old-growth forest eco-systems remain—ancient stands and biodiversity chains that are clearly irreplaceable. For the millions the logging company stood to make from Fairy Creek, millions were also spent arresting people: wait until you witness RCMP helicopters brought in to take down the treetop protesters. Further complicating issues was the division between settler protesters and young Indigenous activists, but also division within the Pacheedaht First Nation: its ruling council asserts land sovereignty and the right to make decisions on logging at Fairy Creek, but Elder Bill Jones welcomes protesters. Late premier John Horgan would eventually announce a two-year deferment of logging, after a request from the Pacheedaht, Ditidaht, and Huu-ay-aht First Nations (one that’s been extended by the B.C. government until February 2025). But the camera team travels with devastated protesters to the clearcuts that were logged while the fighting raged; some of its most dramatic earlier footage shows the great green giants being felled, one by one, in a matter of minutes. Fairy Creek captures the conflict with a nonjudgmental eye (though the Pacheedaht First Nation chose not to give its full side on film). The doc’s strength is in giving us a direct, behind-the-barricades look at who the people fighting in the forest were, and in the case of protest leaders, what some of the emotional fallout was. It offers no easy answers—just uncomfortable questions about whether the protests were worth it, and about how forces can ever come together to protect B.C. forests. It’s going to spark discussion, and that’s probably a good thing. •JS
Resident Orca
December 6 at 4:45 pm at Rainbow Theatre, with directors Sarah Sharkey Pearce and Simon Schneider, along with special guests, in attendance
Resident Orca follows the path of a baby whale, from its traumatic capture in 1971 in the Salish Sea to five decades in the North America’s smallest marine-park pool—up to a recent impassioned, sometimes surreal, push to return it home to the waters where its 91-year-old mother still swims. Sarah Sharkey Pearce and Simon Schneider’s documentary often captures the fight to free Miami Seaquarium’s “Lolita” (or Sk’aliCh’elh-tenaut) in high-tension real time as events unfold. The documentary, making its B.C. premiere at Whistler, begins with the backstory, complete with archival footage and witness accounts of the capture of 50 South Resident “killer whales”—now endangered with only 75 left in the wild—in the 1960s and ’70s off north Puget Sound. A single survivor, Lolita, remains—and now matriarchal leaders Squil-le-he-le, Raynell Morris and Tah-Mahs, Ellie Kinley of the Lummi Nation want to return her to live out her last years out in the sea. In a meaningful connection, they liken the kidnapping of the whale to their people being sent to boarding schools. Pearce and Schneider trace the orca’s trajectory as a performer at the Miami marine park, in an era when families would flock to watch whales there (and here in Vancouver) perform tricks in tiny pools. The matriarchs make unlikely alliances, including with a former Lolita Seaquarium trainer, an NFL football team owner, and orca experts, to try to free the whale. Throughout, in some of the film’s most harrowing footage, the crew repeatedly flies a drone over the small, oval pool, a silent eye on a whale that is sometimes circling monotonously, sometimes receiving hidden emergency triage, as ownership changes and crowds aren’t around. A compelling look at the way attitudes have shifted, and like Fairy Creek above, at the lengths some are willing to go for environmental causes. •JS
NiiMisSak: Sisters In Film
December 6 at Village 8 at 2:30 pm, with director Jules Koostachin in attendance
Of the 42 percent of women who identify as directors in Canada, only one percent are Indigenous. The stat from the Women in View report is one that Indigenous director Jules Koostachin shares in her new documentary, NiiMisSak:Sisters In Film. The compelling release explores the significance of Indigenous women in film, people like her who are making changes in the historically homogeneous industry. Bookending the doc are interviews with trailblazing living legend Alanis Obomsawin, who, at age 91, has made 57 films. (Talk about inspiring. “I was scared of nobody,” Obomsawin says. “I keep on moving mountains—that’s what I do.”) Shot in Montreal and Vancouver (with plenty of picturesque local scenes), NiiMisSak:Sisters In Film shines a light on so many up-and-coming female Indigenous filmmakers, including Kira Doxtator, Tristin Greyeyes, Asia Youngman, and Kayah George; there are also interviews with Jessie Anthony and Marie Clements. They all share their perspectives on the importance of telling their own stories and including Indigenous protocol in the production process. Much more needs to be done to get more Indigenous women behind the lens, but NiiMisSak:Sisters In Film provides an uplifting insight into the positive changes that are taking place. •GJ 
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