Not all movies filmed in Greater Sudbury tell a story so Canadian, it resonates across the country. Yet this is true of Indian Horse, the new film based on the award-winning novel by Richard Wagamese that debuts nationwide today.
The film opened April 13 across Canada, including in Sudbury.
Viewers everywhere will find themselves in our shared national history, while those in Nickel City can expect to see familiar downtown buildings and the Copper Cliff superstack, while neighbours from Wikwemikong First Nation make big-screen debuts.
Indian Horse tells the story of Saul Indian Horse, who is described by Wagamese in his book as "a northern Ojibway." As with many people in this country, a young Saul finds himself enamoured with hockey. While falling in love with the sport, the child who inevitably becomes a man must also learn to love himself; this process is complicated by the emotional, spiritual and cultural effects of being forced to attend residential school.
Indian Horse has arrived at a unique time in the nation's consciousness, to say the least. While families across the country came together this week to grieve with the teams and players impacted by the Humboldt tragedy, serendipity or something darker would have it that Saul Indian Horse comes at this time as if to say, 'The game means everything to me, too'.
In an interview with the Calgary Herald in February 2012, Wagamese said he just "wanted to write a hockey novel," and that early conceptions of the book were "...very much a 'Shoeless-joe-does-hockey' kind of story, with a residential school as a very, very nebulous kind of background."
Only later in his process did Wagamese write more starkly about residential schools, something he searched out through survivors who shared their stories with him and to whom he gives thanks in the acknowledgements of his book.
The love of the game deepens and expands in the life and heart of Saul Indian Horse until he can no longer separate it from the sad parts of his story. This is not unlike what has been witnessed in Canada this week: collectively, it is fair to say the great things that hockey brings to our lives that have been loved so deeply, we find its joys are able to touch where we are able to hurt, as well.
Director Stephen Campanelli shot many of the film's hockey scenes in arenas located in Lively and Capreol. Prior to directing, Campanelli spent 23 years by the side of actor/director Clint Eastwood. As a steadicam operator, his collaborations and skills are recognizable in Oscar-winning films such as Million Dollar Baby and Mystic River, as well as the Oscar nominated films Bridges of Madison County, Flags of our Fathers, and Letters from Iwo Jima.
Sudbury.com wanted to know what Nickel City residents can expect to see on the other side of this expert eye.
"Sudbury will see a lot of Sudbury," Campanelli said.
Many outdoor scenes were shot in the North, while most school scenes were filmed in Peterborough. Movie-goers can expect to see the film's actors and actresses canoeing through Killarney; one of the most recognizable stills from the film was snapped close to the Copper Cliff smokestack. In that photo, young Saul (played by first-time actor 11-year-old Sladen Peltier) is hiding under a tree beside his grandmother, Naomi, who is played by fellow big-screen newcomer, Edna Manitowabi.
Shoulder to shoulder, the elder and the child made a connection that brought them close in a meaningful way.
"The whole filming process, when everything was going on, Edna and Sladen spent many hours together; a lot of the heavy scenes were between the two of them," said Sladen's mother, Katelin Gillis, from their home in Ottawa.
"There's that one picture where they're laying under the trees. They were laid there for probably about an hour and she (Edna) was telling her story, to educate Sladen. At the end of the day he told me that (listening to) her sharing her story made him feel better about why they were doing it."
Manitowabi herself is a residential school survivor. In later conversations, the two actors realized they are related. Peltier lives in Ottawa, but his family comes from Wikwemikong First Nation; Manitowabi also comes from Wikwemikong and now lives there and in the Peterborough area, as well.
Peltier and Manitowabi shared more than scenes, geography and film credits; they found commonality in what might have been personal stories, had they not opened themselves up to sharing. Indian Horse had power to bring them together, and Campanelli said he hopes the film unites the audience, as well.
"Richard's work brought us together, Indigenous and non-Indigenous,” he said in an interview Wednesday. “It's a human story and I think that's what Clint (Eastwood) saw in it: he saw it was a human story and he was shocked when I showed him the movie last year, before it was finished.
"I wanted to get his opinion and he just said, 'Wow, this is such a good movie, it's so powerful.' He was shocked and he said, 'How did this happen in Canada? No one knows about this,' and I said, 'Exactly.'"
Campanelli said he's honoured to have been accepted for the task of telling Wagamese's story on film. Sadly, the author passed before the film was finished.
"Richard knew I was connected to Clint and that was one of the reasons that he gave me his blessing as director,” Campanelli said. “He said, 'You know, one of the greatest storytellers we have is Clint Eastwood' so he says, 'The fact you've worked with him alone vouches for you.'"
Following a sigh not long after that remark, the director said the author's death is a "loss not just for Canada, but a loss for the entire world. The books that he had written are so beautiful, such good stories."
In a week when many Canadians think of both loss and hockey, there's wisdom to be found in the story of Indian Horse. At the bottom of page 205 in the novel, Richard Wagamese wrote: "I let myself mourn."
A difficult task to be sure, but this is one made easier when we do it together.
