4 years after Colten Pratt disappeared, get to know him through a film by his cousin

Four years after his cousin disappeared in Winnipeg, Sage Daniels wants people to know about Colten Pratt's personality: cheeky, sarcastic, sweet and quirky — anything but a number.

"I don't like to think of Colten as a statistic," Daniels said Monday. "I like to think of him as a human being."

Tuesday marks four years since Pratt went missing in Winnipeg on Nov. 6, 2014. He was 26 at the time, last seen seen leaving Winnipeg's Marlborough Hotel in the downtown area around 9:30 p.m. on Nov. 6, 2014.

He was also possibly spotted at a bus shelter on Main Street near Redwood Avenue in the early morning hours of Nov. 7.

That December, Daniels — a producer at film group Code Breaker Films — said the idea came to make a film about his cousin, focusing on Pratt himself as a person. The 25-minute film, My Boy, premiered this summer.

"It's the story about getting to know him, as a person and a human being, rather than a statistic," Daniels said.

In the news coverage following Pratt's disappearance, and in other stories about other missing Indigenous men, Daniels said he has seen a too-common focus on statistics and numbers rather than individuals, as well as cruel, racist comments left by some readers.

"I didn't agree with any of that and I needed to show to the world, from my perspective at least, as his cousin, who he was," Daniels said.

A story about a mother and son

Pratt and Daniels were best friends throughout childhood, attending the same elementary, middle and high schools.

Pratt, originally from Long Plain First Nation, was living in the St. Vital area at the time of his disappearance.

Pratt had faced adversity in his life — people didn't understand his two-spirit identity and he encountered racism as well, Daniel said, adding Pratt turned to alcohol to deal with the pain caused by those experiences and others. 

"In the end, I think society failed him in that regard," he said.

Winnipeg police said Monday the investigation into Pratt's disappearance is active and ongoing.

In making the film about his cousin, Daniels said it was sometimes a struggle to maintain his own composure. He said his fellow filmmakers, Sonya Ballantyne and Luther Alexander, supported him through the process.

The film's principal speaker is Lydia Daniels, Colten Pratt's mother. Her voice and relationship with Pratt is the heart of the film, Daniels said. 

"A lot of people really understand what we were trying to do with the film, and that we were trying to tell a story without being a true crime documentary. We weren't trying to do that," he said. "We were trying to tell a story about a mother and her son."

'People connect with the film'

Since its summer debut in Ottawa's Asinabka film festival, the film has also been shown at the Reel Pride film festival and the imagineNATIVE Film and Media Arts Festival.

Daniels said hearing from audiences afterwards been eye-opening for him as a filmmaker.

"A lot of people connect with the film because they know someone who is murdered or missing, be they male or female, and they understand what it's like to go through this kind of experience," he said.

One of the key messages Daniels hopes people take from the film is that "everyone deserves to come home."

"Also, that someone out there knows," he said.

"Someone out there knows where Colten is and so we just want that one person to come forward and at least tell us where we can find him."

With files from Robin Summerfield and Aidan Geary