Northern dream inspires incredible homecoming
Spinal cord injury took Maggie Sofea from home but filmmaking brought her back to the land
BARBARA TURNBULL When Maggie Sofea was 11 years old, she hit her head on a boulder diving into shallow water at remote campsite in northern Ontario and became quadriplegic.
The accident forced the aboriginal teenager and her parents to leave their home in Summer Beaver, on the remote First Nations reserve, for Thunder Bay and treatment.
Last year, Sofea, now 24 and a film production student at Confederation College in Thunder Bay, returned to her home and the isolated campsite for the first time.
This homecoming is the subject of her first documentary Ordinary Woman, Extraordinary Dreams, which screens at Toronto’s Hot Docs Cinema Sept. 30 at 6 p.m.
“I wanted to reflect on that place which changed my whole life,” Sofea says in a telephone interview from Thunder Bay. “(The trip) brought me a lot of memories of living with my family and relatives. That gives me hope to live on.”
The film documents Sofea’s spinal cord injury, and the challenges she faced both emotionally and physically in her quest to return to her birthplace.
“Logistics were extraordinary,” says Jim Hyder, the collaborating director on the documentary.
The group, which included four caregivers and a co-ordinator from the Spinal Cord Injury Ontario, had to charter a plane and an all-terrain wheelchair to reach their destination.
Sofea’s documentary calls attention to the challenges faced by those living with physical disabilities in these First Nations communities.
“After facing all the challenges to get here, with the help of the people who care about me and support me, I know I can accomplish anything in the world.” MAGGIE SOFEA
It also follows a lost aboriginal girl and watches as she heals wounds from her past and reclaims her cultural identity. Sofea’s accident is the central but not the only tragedy exposed in the documentary. During her absence from Summer Beaver, seven cousins have taken their own lives, including the one who pulled her out of the water. The film offers emotional tributes to those people as well as a memorial for a group killed in a small plane crash. Spinal Cord Injury Ontario set up a Thunder Bay branch five years ago for people like Sofea, says CEO Bill Adair. The organization has helped Sofea pursue her education and live independently. It also helped make the journey possible, with a previsit to Summer Beaver to come up with a travel itinerary, Adair says. Sofea hopes to make the visit an annual event. She wants to serve as a role model to others, and make documentaries to help her community. “I know now that I can come back here and be here with my family on the land I miss so much,” Sofea narrates in the film. “After facing all the challenges to get here, with the help of the people who care about me and support me, I know I can accomplish anything in the world.”
The 90-minute film will be followed by a discussion with Sofea and Hyder. Tickets are $15 plus HST and can be ordered online through brownpapertickets.com/event/456261 or contact: tickets@skyworksfoundation.org or call: 416-536-6581.