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Program expected to encourage film production in other languages

The producer of North America’s first Gaelic language film is hopeful a few more people will be interested in creating a similar work thanks to a program that assists non-English filmmakers.

Nona MacDermid was involved in the making of “The Wake of Calum MacLeod,” just over 10 years ago which went on to be nominated for a Genie award and was submitted to film festivals around the world.

Now she’d like to see another film created that could have the same impact and perhaps even go further, thanks to a program that mentors filmmakers who create in languages other than English.

“The program itself is under the direction of the Atlantic Filmmakers Co-operative so they, about 18 months ago, put in a request for funding under the program Canada 150 and the design of the mentorship that they wanted to deliver was to take five language communities that are not generally able to create their own films and help them learn the craft of filmmaking so that they can tell stories for their audiences through the language of film.”

The program is called Languages of Nova Scotia and celebrates filmmaking efforts in Gaelic, Farsi, French, Maritime Sign Language and Mi’kmaq.

The Atlantic Filmmakers Cooperative presented weekend workshops across Nova Scotia last fall including two in Cape Breton, the Gaelic one at the Gaelic College in St. Anns and the Mi’kmaq one at Allison Bernard Memorial High School in Eskasoni.

MacDermid describes what happened at the Gaelic workshop.

“In that session we held some mini courses and we talked about creating a story, we also covered things like character development, and lighting and sound, location and also a little bit about camera operation,” said MacDermid.

“We crammed all of that into one day and then overnight they worked on their short story idea and then the next morning on Sunday we got up and everyone hit the streets and went filming their idea in teams of four and there were four teams so then by 4 o’clock everyone had to be back with their film … we did a few edits and then we screened four Gaelic films. And they were probably two to three minutes long each.”

Now Languages of Nova Scotia is holding another call for applications to the second phase of the program where one filmmaker from each of the five languages will be chosen to receive more intensive film training and mentorship so they can create a short film in their respective language.

MacDermid says those taking part will receive a full week of training along with travel and accommodations paid for and from there, with mentorship, they will be expected to produce a three-to-five-minute film of a quality that could be submitted to film festivals.

While the initial sessions may have had a dozen or more people participating, only one will receive the more advanced training but chances are good the remainder of the initial session could also participate in the making of the film. All the participants are encouraged to apply to the second phase of the program.

“There’s such a growth in the young Gaelic speaking population in Cape Breton, we have really a great opportunity now to get more people involved in Gaelic filmmaking and start doing some projects on our own to get people trained,” said MacDermid.

“Anyone in that group (or any of the other language groups) can submit an application by March 5 and the application would then be reviewed by a jury, be interviewed and one candidate would be selected to go forward for training.”

Anyone interested in knowing more about Phase 2, can contact the Languages of Nova Scotia coordinator at languages@afcoop. ca for more information.