How Saying HECK YES! Can Land A Filmmaker In The Canadian Arctic.

Way back in 2006 I received an interesting email from a television producer in Italy. Her name was Federica. Federica emailed many Canadian producers looking for an internship that would allow her to work on her English. As it turns out, I was one of the only people (if not the only person) to respond with an immediate HECK YES! to Federica’s request. Federica took the adventure on, and she moved to Saint John to live with us for a number of months. (In fact, she was literally living at the “Hemmings House” when I incorporated my new company, Hemmings House Pictures Ltd.) Federica helped me solidify the name and brand of Hemmings House.

A few months after Federica returned to Turin, she was given the opportunity to produce a climate change documentary for the Italian national broadcaster, RAI. Federica asked me to direct and edit the film. Of course, I responded again with an immediate HECK YES! This was my introduction to Canada’s Arctic. We filmed in Nunavik in the late winter and spring of 2008. The Northern Inuit communities are incredible places. And as a filmmaker, I found the landscape particularly inspiring. 

Speaking with Inuit hunters, scientists, and elders, we learned that the first people to really experience the effects of climate change were the people living in the Arctic. Our film Melting Lands is a day in the life of the people experiencing climate change firsthand. 

Recently, I dug Melting Lands out of the Hemmings House archives. It was shot in standard definition, but the film still manages to powerfully capture the challenges facing a community struggling to adapt to their new environment.

Since Melting Lands, I have travelled back to the Arctic many times. And I have continued to work in the North — producing an award-winning short film about a grandfather passing important cultural knowledge down to his grandson, a commercial for an organic soap company, an industrial photo shoot for a tug boat company, a documentary film exploring truth and reconciliation during Canada 150, and a CBC documentary following a dog musher sledding from Churchill, Manitoba to Saint John, New Brunswick. 

Now, as I reflect on my adventures in the Arctic, I realize that saying HECK YES! has been worth the risk. Federica is proof of that. 

So what are you going to say HECK YES! to this week? 

Here is the link to watch the film 'Melting lands'