Water Valley filmmaker Eppo Eerkes premiered not one, but two of his works on May 10 as a fundraiser for the Calgary Humane Society, the Calgary SPCA, and for victims of the wildfire happening in Fort McMurray.
“It originally was just for the Calgary Humane Society, which is a great cause. But coincidentally, the Fort McMurray fires happened. As surprising as it all was, it was an immediate thing for me like ‘What are we going to do?’” Eerkes explained.
“The day it happened I was thinking about the dogs, the cats, the horses, the pigs, all of the livestock ... People say there’s no loss of life, I say there was,” Eerkes said.
In partnership with Lemonade Pictures, an independent production company based out of Calgary, Eerkes initially decided to premiere a recent short film he directed titled Envy.
“It’s based on true experiences of children who actually had to survive on the streets of a given city, especially in Eastern Europe after the fall of communism. Russia, for instance, kind of fell into depression and no one had jobs and then the kids ended up on streets and so did the dogs,” Eerkes said.
The 38-minute film follows the journey of a young girl who is abandoned by her mother and is forced to survive on the streets. A pack of dogs act as her surrogate family as she struggles to fend for herself.
“There’s a lot of stories where the dogs actually ended up interacting with some children who were outcast from gangs of kids. So it’s loosely based on that but what if it happened here,” Eerkes explained.
The film was shot around Cremona, Water Valley and outside of Cochrane about a year and a half ago. The strong element of the bond between human beings and animals made it the perfect film to premiere for this event.
Then, on a whim, Eerkes decided to include another project of his company’s, Pounce TV, in the premiere – an hour-and-a-half documentary he made six years ago that had yet to be seen by the public.
Backed by American musician, actor and businessman Jimmy Buffett, and Danny Melville of Chukka Caribbean Adventures, Iglaguqtuq (He Smiles) follows the real-life journey of Newton Marshall, the first Jamaican dogsledder to race in the Iditarod, a 1,000-mile race across Alaska.
Described as “the godfather of the project” by Eerkes, Melville’s dream was to start a Jamaican dogsled team and have it compete in the Iditarod. Melville learned of Marshall and his tough upbringing and chose to sponsor him for this endeavour.
“Then Danny Melville started talking to Jimmy Buffett because they’re friends. So Jimmy agreed to meet Danny’s half – they did it together. Then I got a call a week before the Iditarod from Danny Melville, since I knew him before,” Eerkes explained.
Eerkes said initially they only asked him to go and “shoot some stills and video clips of Newton” but it quickly evolved into him filming an entire documentary.
The process to film the documentary was not an easy task for Eerkes. The race contains 25 checkpoints in rural communities that allow the participants and their dogs to rest.
Eerkes explained he would fly to each checkpoint in advance of Marshall and snowmobile back to his location to film him in action. He’d brave -30 C weather with just a sleeping bag and water in order to follow Marshall.
“When he came to Unalakleet, it was after his roughest time when he didn’t think he was going to make it anymore, he didn’t think he was going to finish the race. I followed him into that town and they gave him such a warm reception when he arrived there that it just filled him with this energy and he was smiling like crazy. So one of the elders just came up to him and said ‘iglaguqtuq’,” Eerkes said.
Eerkes explained that as soon as he learned that iglaguqtuq meant ‘he smiles’, he knew the title of the documentary. Soon after the film was completed, production complications arose and the documentary was “left on the shelf” so-to-speak.
“It came down to me and Danny talking and he said ‘You know what, let’s show this film and we’ll see where it goes from there,’” Eerkes said.
It comes as no surprise that Eerkes would use his films’ premiere to help animals and people in need considering the subjects of many of his projects.
“I seem to get myself involved with either children, guns, or animals in my films,” Eerkes explained.
Country musician Blake Reid introduced the film Envy. Erkes used Reid’s song, Windsong, as a sort of theme song for the film.
Also in attendance was Kevin Littlelight, a member of Tsuut’ina Nation and Eerkes friend, who introduced Iglaguqtuq (He Smiles). Littlelight also shared that he and Eerkes have partnered to shoot a documentary titled Chief Nation, which will follow the journey of a headdress and feature Prime Minister Justin Trudeau receiving his.
Overall, the premiere was a success with Eerkes and Lemonade Pictures raising $1,200 in ticket sales.
