Vancouver is known as the location of choice for many service productions – but the homegrown filmmaking community is thriving. And the lifeblood of this resilient indigenous industry? Documentary.

Cari Green of Vancouver’s Nimpkish Wind Productions, chair until late last year of the B.C. chapter of the Canadian Independent Film Caucus, says, ‘We have an extraordinary number of documentary producers compared to the population. There has been a lot of support for documentary producers in this part of the world. The funding agencies have been very generous. Policy has conformed to the needs of documentary makers. There hasn’t always been enough to go around and there’s a lot more competition for public funds, but the agencies have been very good about consulting with our organization and others about how the industry might better grow.

‘Canadian production in general has leapt up another level in terms of sophistication and access to the market. The last five years have seen huge changes. A lot of us come from a single documentary – one a year or one every two or three years – to a much more viable model and we have seen the advent of series production,’ says Green.

‘We’ve seen a huge number of changes in the Canadian industry since we opened the CIFC. A lot of people are starting to do international coproductions with financing from outside Canada that will only help to increase the viability of the industry.’

Lynn Booth, chair of the CIFC B.C. chapter, the self-proclaimed ‘voice for documentary film in Canada,’ and producer/writer at Vancouver’s Make Believe Media, sees a thriving documentary industry all around her.

‘There is also an emerging independent feature film community here and it’s growing. But certainly Vancouver’s indigenous documentary community is one of the strongest and certainly the tightest among co-operatives,’ she says.

‘People come here from all over the country to be part of the community. There’s a lot of cross-fertilization of ideas and sharing of resources, it’s a very supportive and lively community. And more established filmmakers are always available to work with emerging ones. I don’t know why. It’s a very different climate. The society based in Vancouver is very different – people here are activists. It’s less industry-driven.’

Liz Shorten of British Columbia Film agrees: ‘There is a really vibrant community of documentary filmmakers [in Vancouver] and everyone’s always asking, ‘Why is that?’ A certain element of this is that being the West Coast, people are drawn by the psychic freedom, so there is that kind of radical exploration of ideas. There is a certain type of creative energy here.’

She offers another explanation: ‘Many filmmakers would rather cut their teeth on a documentary than a feature film or TV series with 20 times the budget.

‘People have cut their teeth in the realm of documentary filmmaking and we are now seeing people who can cross over and do drama. It’s been an entry point into the industry for many B.C. directors.’

Vancouver prodco Big Red Barn Entertainment to this point has been mostly involved in sketch comedy series Sucker Punch, but is making the move into documentary with the Haida art series Ravens and Eagles, produced in partnership with Urban Rez Productions.

‘It’s a great way to tell a story,’ says Big Red Barn’s Alexis Arthur. ‘It’s not necessarily as expensive as film can be. It’s a great way to get your teeth into something. You can get it created, get it posted, get it out, maybe build a series from it or do a one-off and see if it will fly.’

Flexibility is an important advantage of telling real-life stories.

‘It’s good for independent producers who can develop a bunch of projects with a variety of approaches and subjects which are still under the form of documentary,’ says Arthur. ‘You’re working within a genre, but you’re able to show many different creative spins if that’s how you choose to look at it. You can show all your talents in different ways.’

‘A lot of broadcasters say they would be interested in doing [a one-off] and seeing how it goes and building it into something else [such as a series]. With an independent producer you want to see what they can do first before investing everything in it,’ she says.

‘Documentary is kind of like an undercurrent, it doesn’t get the limelight. When people think of Vancouver they think of movies and big TV. The documentary makers, they’re in the back room but they’re definitely there, you just don’t see them and their work.’ *

-www.cifc.ca

-www.bcfilm.bc.ca