Oscar-nominated and Genie, Gemini and Emmy
Award-winning director, Sturla Gunnarsson, is one of Canada’s most talented and
internationally recognized filmmakers. From feature films such as Beowful & Grendel, starring Gerarad
Butler, to documentary-style projects, such as Force of Nature starring David Suzuki, Gunnarsson’s work and
passion for the Canadian film industry has not only garnered him a position as one of Canada’s most talented
filmmakers, but also a title as the National President of the Directors Guild of Canada. It’s no surprise then, that Gunnarsson’s newest
film, Gros Morne — one of thirteen films created for the Gemini-Award winning National Parks Project (NPP) — is a personal look at one of Canada’s most
beautiful national parks, accompanied by the presence of some of Canada’s most talented musicians. The NPP,
which was created by producers Ryan Noth, Joel McConvey and Geoff Morrison of FilmCAN NPP Films Inc., is an
innovative new media project that was designed to help celebrate Parks Canada’s 100th birthday this year.
Gunnarsson, who was one of 13 directors invited to create a film, gave Lifestyleran exclusive interview about his adventures filming in Newfoundland and Labrador’s
Gros Morne National Park.
What
were your thoughts when you were first approached with this project?
I
thought that the prospect of spending a week in Gros Morne Park was very appealing. I’ve filmed in
Newfoundland before and I found the landscape speaks to me, speaks to my heart, so you know Gros Morne had a
great appeal. Working with Melissa Auf Der Maur had a huge appeal. I thought it was a perfect match up being
that Gros Morne is kind of on the Viking shore just south of Atlantic meadows, where my ancestors first
arrived in North America and Melissa’s style, she’s kind of a pagan, heavy-metal kind of girl, so I thought
it was a good match up.
Did
you prepare a treatment for the film beforehand, or did you wait until you were actually in the park?
I
had a methodology, basically I wanted to film only at dawn or sunset and I decided to go film the dawn with
each of the musicians alone and sort of put them out on the landscape and invite them to respond to through
instrument. Then over the course of our time there, to see how and if their styles would fuse, because it’s a
very diverse group with Melissa and Jamie Fleming, who’s a blues man and Sam Shalabi who plays the oud, so I
thought it was entirely possible that they wouldn’t fuse as a unit, but if they did it would be pretty
interesting. My approach was to take them places and experience dawn with each of them and then bring them
all together for one big sunset.
What
was your reasoning for wanting to film only at sunrise or sunset?
Being in this business, so often you find yourself driving to set at sunrise and go,
‘It’s such a stunning moment right now, why aren’t we filming?’ And we very rarely get a chance to do that.
It’s a very magical moment, it’s really a half-hour window and it’s sort of when the whole word comes alive.
The birds begin to sing, you begin to feel the life around you, ambient light begins to appear, and then, the
sun breaks the horizon and [there’s] something incredibly spiritual and moving about it. We really rarely get
the chance to film at that time of the day because it requires you have to be very flexible to be able to do
that. Even half an hour after sunrise the light is beautiful but it’s not the same, it’s kind of picture
postcard beautiful as opposed to mystical beautiful. There’s something very mystical about dawn.
What
were some of your biggest obstacles working on this project?
Just getting up early enough. It was the summer solstice so in order to be where we
wanted to be for dawn we had to get up around 3:15 a.m., and then drive somewhere in the dark and then hike
in, but there were no big obstacles. It was just beautiful, it was just camping in the park with musicians
and responding to the landscape and being open to have the landscape speaking to you.
Did
you have a favourite moment during the trip?
I
think the last sunset when all of the players were together and Melissa, Jamie and Sam, we sort of, traveled
to a very remote piece of rock that was closed off and hard to get to and we could only get to if the sea
wasn’t too big it was quite challenging to get there and then we had to shuttle in the little inflatable
boats and we got there just as the sun was beginning to set and started playing and it was all their styles
had come together so beautifully, and then we went back to our campsite and ate a whole lot of cod.
Why
should Canadians take notice of the NPP?
Well it’s sort of a piece of experimental art… I think it’s beautiful, it’s like a
little love letter from a particular place. I guess if you want to get pretentious about it we could talk
about Canadians, how our identity as Canadians derives from place….Canadians don’t have any mythology agree
on, we don’t even agree on the significant moments of our history. We don’t even agree on what happened at
the Plains of Abraham for God’s sake, but we all have this kind of deep attachment to places and in the back
of minds, in the back of our consciousnesses, it’s this sense of wilderness out there. I think that that
speaks to the Canadian soul, so I suppose you could say that it’s a journey to the Canadian soul, but I would
prefer to say that it’s kind of like a nice little spliff.
To watch Gros Morne, visit nationalparksproject.ca. •
Photo Courtesy: Discovery
World HD
