The seventh-annual Reel North Film Festival is set for this weekend, with evening screenings on Nov. 5 and Nov. 6 and an afternoon screening Nov. 7 - and one of this year's biggest attractions is the premiere of a new documentary with strong Northern connections.
"It's a microcosm of what happened all throughout a period of time," says Greg Zbitnew, director of Grand Rapids. "There's not too many people making films about Northern Manitoba."
Grand Rapids is a 75-minute documentary about, as the title might suggest, the community of Grand Rapids, specifically the strong and sudden impact on the community by the construction of a hydro generating station. It looks at life in Grand Rapids before the project, and how swiftly it changed once the station came online in 1965. "It happened overnight, but the impact of it has lingered over the past 50 years," explains Zbitnew.
Zbitnew is intimately familiar with Grand Rapids, and the North in general, having attended Frontier Collegiate in Cranberry Portage. Other students at that school were from Grand Rapids, and it was through them that Zbitnew learned of the changes in their community. His life took him away from Manitoba for over two decades, but the story of Grand Rapids lingered in the back of his mind, and he has finally found a way to tell it.
In addition, Zbitnew is a familiar face to regular connoisseurs of Reel North, as it was also the venue for the premiere of his previous film, Muskeg Special - another documentary, this one marking 1979's 50th anniversary of completion of the rail line from The Pas to Churchill - in 2008. "They were anxious to have me come back to show this one," he says.
Though Zbitnew is billing the Reel North screening as the world premiere, the documentary has already been seen by a small and partial audience - the same people in Grand Rapids who let him into their lives to make the film were treated to a showing in early October. "Everyone really appreciated it," Zbitnew says. "People came up to me with tears in their eyes."
"It's not political," explains Zbitnew. "I wanted to minimize that as much as possible and just talk about the change of lifestyle. Everyone can gain something from this film."
Zbitnew will be in Thompson for the premiere, and will also have DVDs of the film for anybody interested in a permanent copy.
Grand Rapids was a one-man production from start to finish. "I enjoy working independently because I get to do whatever I want," Zbitnew admits, adding that he has received funding from the Manitoba Arts Council.
Zbitnew is striking it out through Northern Manitoba on his own for his next project as well. "I want to do a series of short films, each film focusing on a different personality," he says. "All sorts of people doing all sorts of things." Each film would be around 12 minutes in length, telling the story of one interesting Norman, and Zbitnew foresees the potential to package a few stories together and sell them as a TV series. "People in the southern part of the province don't really think that much about the North," he says. "There's lots of interesting stories."
