A Cree theatre director, playwright and essayist hailing from Poundmaker First Nation has teamed up with two Cannes International Film Festival winners to create a film uncovering 60 years of Saskatchewan Cree history.
Floyd Favel will be co-producing a 90-minute drama entitled Sweet Cherry Wine with Zacharius Kunuk and Norman Cohn of Kingulliit Productions. The story, written by Favel, features an aging woman telling the stories that shaped her life, starting from her childhood in the 1940s - a multi-layered story of love, heartbreak and racist violence that will be told in Cree, with subtitles for those who don't speak Cree.
Sweet Cherry Wine will be shot in the Battlefords area, says Favel.
The project is one of three receiving funding contributions from the Canadian Media Fund. Of the total $1.6 million available for aboriginal programming, $400,000 is earmarked for Favel's project, including an accompanying interactive website. The Canada Media Fund fosters, develops, finances and promotes the production of Canadian content and applications for all audiovisual media platforms.
Favel says auditions for Sweet Cherry Wine will be held locally over the winter. They will be looking for extras as well as some of the main characters.
They will also be looking for locations. They will need to find outdoor locations that are quiet and free from elements that conflict with the period of the story. They will also be looking for a town, or towns, to serve as a set representing the 1940s and '50s.
Shooting is to take place between June of 2014 and March of 2015, with scenes in the film taking place in summer and in winter.
Favel will be working with Kunuk and Cohn of Montreal and their production company Kingulliit Productions. Director Kunuk and cinematographer/producer Cohn are the team behind Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner, the first feature film ever to be written, directed and acted entirely in the Inuit language. It was the Caméra d'Or winner for best first film at the Cannes International Film Festival in 2001. It also won Best Canadian Feature Film at the Toronto International Film Festival the same year.
Any project involving Kunuk and Cohn will automatically get international attention, says Favel, owing to their international awards and nominations. Sweet Cherry Wine will result in the promotion of this area of Saskatchewan, he said, and he expects the project to inject up to $1 million into the local economy.
Favel has a diverse catalogue of accomplishments as a director, performer, choreographer and writer. His company, Takwakin Cultural Initiatives, as well as producing shows, has hosted cultural workshops for youth. His film company Miyawata Films is devoted to developing films that promote Indigenous cultures and languages. Recently, his film company, in partnership with Kunuk Cohn Productions, finished filming the controversial play Antigone, a Cree adaptation of the Greek classic.
Favel studied theatre at the Tukak Teatret of Denmark and at the Centro di Lavoro di Grotowski in Italy. Currently Favel's theatre essays and ideas on the development of a unique theatre process based on indigenous traditions are being collected for a book.
He is presently teaching at Concordia University in Montreal, working with students on a drama entitled Attawapiskat Is No Exception.
