Meanwhile, last year the documentary won Best American Feature Film at the 2021 Quetzalcoatl International Indigenous Film Festival, which recognizes filmmakers who produce works that promote and honor native, indigenous and indigenous cultures around the world.
“For me, it’s very gratifying that people out there are happy with the movie,” French said. “When you’re making this kind of film, when you’re looking for a lot of input and opinions from people with a different worldview, a different culture, it can be a challenge. But from this we ended up with a more honest and comprehensive project.”
“And the responses that people gave in the film, they were aware that the environmental problems they are going through are not unique, but are happening all over the world,” he added. “That’s why the end of the film is dedicated to communities around the world who have the same problems. The fact is that most of the world does not have access to clean drinking water.”
Revisiting a 100-year-old documentary
Currently, French is on his next film project – A Century After Nanook, a remake of Nanook of the North, the 1922 silent film considered the first commercially successful documentary. Directed by Robert J. Flaherty, the film documented the daily struggles of an Inuk man and his family in the unforgiving Arctic landscape of Inukjuak, a small Inuit village on the eastern shore of Hudson Bay in northern Quebec.
The idea for the project came to French when he, Hermitt and Hutcheson were putting the finishing touches on “Land and Water Revisited” one night in October 2019. While tossing ideas around, French thought, “Why not revisit the most famous of all documentaries, ‘Nanook of the North?’”
As it happened, the film was coming up on its 100th anniversary. After French discovered that no one else was doing a similar project, he got to work, cold-calling members of the Inuit community and securing a $30,000 grant from the IEE.
He was due to go to Canada in the summer of 2020, but was stopped due to travel restrictions mandated by COVID-19. Undaunted, French sent cameras to members of the Inuit community and encouraged them to start the project themselves.
