Passage

This screening took place on Saturday, October 25, 2014 at 6:00 pmYukon Arts Centre

John Walker’s groundbreaking revisionist hybrid documentary re-writes the history of Hudson Bay Company explorer John Rae, the Victorian vilification of Inuit people and the false representation of John Franklin as the discoverer of the Northwest Passage. The tale of Sir John Franklin’s failed Arctic expedition and the maligned Inuit portrayed as Cannibals by Charles Dickens was hailed by The Toronto Star as, "one of the great triumphs in Canadian documentary film history." With Passage, filmmaker John Walker employs an innovative approach to structuring the incredible multilayered story of John Rae and brings it to vibrant life. Using a unique blend of dramatic action, and behind-the-scenes documentary footage, Walker pulls back the curtain on his own research into Rae's life and that of his actors, as they determine how to portray the characters and scenes in the film. The line between real and dramatic begins to blur as we move closer and closer to the film's cilimax, a stunning face-to-face meeting between Charles Dickens's great-great grandson and Tagak Curley, an honoured Inuit statesman who challenges the fraudulent history. In one moment, Walker vaults the story from the past into the present and we are witness to history in the making. Set in the actual locations of Rae's journey, from his boyhood home in the remote Orkney Islands off Scotland's north coast to the epic landscape of his Arctic expeditions to the boardroom of the British Royal Navy - the centre of power of the British Empire, Passage is a story of incredible sacrifice, stunning distortion of the truth and single-minded obsession. It challenges the way we look at history. Tickets: $11 YFS members&seniors/ $12 non-members/$6 senoirs