This summer, DOXA, the Vancouver Documentary Film Festival and the NFB collaborated to bring together “CONNEXIONS 2008”. Connexions is the youth component of the DOXA film fest. Our World and CitizenShift of the NFB we were able to bring down four participants from Bella Coola that had previously participated in our workshops. DOXA helped to bring two new participants from Sechelt (Shishalh Nation) and brought in 3 mentors from the Capilano College Independent Indigenous Filmmaking Program (Greg Coyes, Justin MacGregor, Doreen Manuel) to help out with story development.
The 6 filmmakers spent 6 intensive days making short films made of videos, drawings, photos, and using green screens! Not only did they have to write, direct, shoot and star in their own films, they also learned how to edit, polish and put sound and music to their movies. (It’s amazing what you an accomplish in less than a week!) Once again they were encouraged to try to incorporate language where and if possible (this was a challenge due to the nature of the workshop – away from their communities & language experts).
Not only did the participants spend all day making films, they then went on to check out the documentaries screening at the festival in the evening. Our trustee Connexions coordinator, Meghna Haldar made sure we were fed and knew how to get where.
As all the Our World workshops end, this one finished on a high note with a premiere of the films at the closing night screening. The youth and their films were very well received. We hope that this will be the beginning of many more similar events and collaborations!
Check out some of the production blog on CitizenShift (http://citizen.nfb.ca/blogs/connexions)