'A kindness in the cold': 2 films screened at TIFF offer distinct views of Winnipeg

A record-breaking four Manitoba-produced features were given a place at the table at this year's Toronto International Film Festival, but only three are actually set in Winnipeg. 

Rumours, a satire from Winnipeggers Guy Maddin, Evan Johnson and Galen Johnson, is set in Germany and was filmed in Hungary. Matthew Rankin's Universal Language is set in Winnipeg, but an alternate-universe version of the city, where Louis Riel is on the common currency and the official languages are French and Farsi. 

That leaves two other visions of Winnipeg on display at TIFF, which opened on Sept. 5 and wraps up Sunday. Each film offers a bold and distinctive view of the city.

The Mother and the Bear, by Vancouver-based Chinese-Canadian filmmaker Johnny Ma, portrays a Winnipeg viewed through a beautiful fairy tale prism, through the story of a mother who comes to the city from Korea to check on her hospitalized daughter, rendered comatose after a spill on an icy sidewalk.

Aberdeen, by extreme contrast, is a gritty drama about the title character, a woman whose terrible choices come back to haunt her as she navigates bars, hotel rooms, government offices and drug dens in a desperate effort to prevent her grandchildren from entering foster care.

The Mother and the Bear represents an interesting melange: a magic-laced comedy fashioned by a Chinese-Canadian director with money from Canada and Chile, and featuring two Korean actors.

Topping it off: director Ma is based in Vancouver (and sometimes Mexico), so it seems especially peculiar that he would call The Mother and the Bear "a love letter to Winnipeg."

'A thank-you letter' for Winnipeg

"The original story that I wrote, that was based on a real person that I met, was actually set in Cincinnati," Ma said during a small after-party following the film's TIFF screening. "So when I started working with Chileans, they brought me to the Canadian partner.

"I thought that they were going to suggest Toronto, Calgary, Vancouver, and those cities, and I was thinking, 'That's not the story. It doesn't work there.'"

Fortunately, one of the producers on the film was frequent Guy Maddin collaborator Niv Fichman.

"And Niv said Winnipeg," Ma recalled. "I was about to fight him on it. But then I said, 'Wait, that is really interesting.'

"As a Canadian filmmaker, I've always been fascinated by Winnipeg filmmakers," Ma said. "Their art is so different than anything else that you can ever see in Canada or the world."

So he decided to "make it an adventure."

"I took this as an opportunity to learn about Winnipeg, and what I learned about it is that there is a kindness in the cold," Ma said.

He had good teachers. He spoke with Maddin (who has a brief cameo as a dog-walker).

"He is the godfather of the Winnipeg cinema for every one of us," Ma said. "I wanted him to be in the film in spirit."

Maddin's Rumours co-directors, the Johnson brothers, were also producers on the film.

Another filmmaker, Mike Maryniuk, "was, to me, my Winnipeg whisperer," Ma said.

While some of the visiting actors were startled by the cold of a winter shoot, Ma found it soothing.

"The winter is the time when you go within yourself in some weird way," Ma said. "I lost my father two years ago during the pandemic, so [when] I went to Winnipeg, it nurtured me.

"It was the most creative I've ever felt in Canada," he said. "So to me, the movie became a thank-you letter back to Winnipeg."

Aberdeen a personal story for Peguis director

Aberdeen, a hard-hitting drama, offers a far different view of the city.

It follows a woman (Gail Maurice from Night Raiders) from Peguis First Nation in southern Manitoba literally fighting to reclaim her identity after losing her ID. Occasionally sheltered from the abuses of the system by her two-spirit friend Alfred (Billy Merasty), she struggles to reconnect with her dying brother (Ryan Rajendra Black) and her own drug-addicted daughter.

The story is a personal one for writer-director Ryan Cooper, who is himself from Peguis First Nation and a graduate of the National Screen Institute's CBC New Indigenous Voices program.

He got help to realize it from co-director Eva Thomas, a member of Walpole Island First Nation in southwestern Ontario, who worked on Aberdeen between series gigs on Manitoba-filmed shows Acting Good and Don't Even.

The decision to co-direct was Thomas's.

"Ryan sent me the script, and I read it, I loved it," Thomas said. "And I sent him notes and he thought they were helpful."

Cooper asked Thomas if she would direct the film herself.

"She said, 'No, but I will direct it with you,'" said Cooper.

Thomas said it was important to her that Cooper be involved as a director, "because it's such a personal story to him."

Both have been to TIFF before — Thomas premiered her short film Redlights at the festival last year — but say they're thrilled to have their first feature at the festival.

"It's been wonderful. It's a dream come true," says Cooper. "I always came as part of a delegation, but never as a director-writer."

Giving 'voice to the voiceless'

While it's a tough film, Thomas says audiences at the premiere screening were engaged.

"We got a standing ovation, which is really nice," Thomas said. "And there were a lot of questions after the screening. People want to talk to you until they were pushed out. In the lobby, people were still coming up and talking to us."

She laughed as he recalled finding no refuge in the washroom.

"I was there for another 20 minutes," she said.

Thomas said encountering homeless people in Winnipeg galvanized her in the effort to get the film made.

"That's my driving force with Aberdeen. How do we create empathy and compassion for a person like Aberdeen?" Thomas said.

"People can go on a journey with her, and even though she starts off difficult and unlikable and challenging, you can understand," Thomas said. "Those aren't character flaws. She's a product of her trauma."

Cooper said it feels like the film is "giving voice to the voiceless."

"They don't understand where this trauma comes from. I want to give a voice to that and create an image of what it's like to break a cycle," he said.

"That was really important to me. Because I broke a cycle."