Christopher Auchter

thecommentary.ca

The filmmaker Christopher Auchter discusses his new documentary The Stand, which debuts this week at the Vancouver International Film Festival, a feature-length film on the 1985 blockade by the Haida on Lyell Island, with Joseph Planta.

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Text of the introduction by Joseph Planta:

I am Planta: On the Line, in Vancouver, British Columbia, at TheCommentary.ca.

Christopher Auchter joins me again. The acclaimed filmmaker has a new film, a full-length feature that will debut this week at the Vancouver International Film Festival. In The Stand, Christopher with archival film and audio, takes the audience back to the fall of 1985 when a small group of Haida blockaded a dirt road on Lyell Island to demand that clear-cut logging stop as it’s been destroying salmon habitat and ravaging the old growth forests. There’s a lot of pressure exerted by the provincial and federal governments, as well as private logging interests, as the RCMP is called in to keep the peace and at times enforce various court orders. We see the court of public opinion form against the Haida, most vocally in the form of talk show host Jack Webster, who talks about the issue regularly on his highly rated BCTV morning program. I’ll ask Christopher about all the archival material he was able to draw upon. There’s radio interviews as well as high quality film shot from the perspective of the Haida, as well as the private logging firm contracted to work the forest. We see what it was like for the RCMP too, as the various points-of-view are featured throughout, almost-moment-to-moment. We see their conversations with the elders who take up the blockade, who also have to arrest them later on. We see Guujaaw on the front line, and how he communicates with others over a radio. Miles Richardson is featured in the film through his appearances with Webster and their vigorous debates, as is then-NDP MP Svend Robinson, also a lawyer, who’s on the front line. As the complex legal process plays out, the obtaining and enforcing of injunctions and the sort, we see what it’s like on the front lines and how with such dignity and grace what compels the Haida to take a stand. There’s a great character in the film, used as a sort of narrator that I’ll ask Chris about, Mouse Woman. Voiced by Delores Churchill, she adds some levity but also poignancy as we see throughout the film, as well as narrative information that provides further context to the events. It’s a powerful film, and one that tells necessary history considering what this critical moment provided as an inflection point for the future of land claims and Indigenous sovereignty. Christopher Auchter has appeared on the program twice to talk about his previous short films 2017’s The Mountains of SGaana, and 2019’s Now is the Time. Christopher Auchter wrote and directed, as well as animated The Stand, which is produced in association with Knowledge Network and the National Film Board of Canada. The film screens at the Vancouver International Film Festival this Thursday, 03 October 2024 at 8.45pm at SFU Woodwards, and Saturday, 05 October 2024 at International Village; at 3.15pm. Chris will be at both screenings. We taped this interview eleven days ago. Please welcome back to the Planta: On the Line program, Christopher Auchter; Mr. Auchter, good morning.

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