Seeing ourselves through a different lens

St. Boniface

Norwood Flats

South Transcona

New audiences are getting to see some of the best documentaries made in Manitoba thanks to the launch of a new channel on YouTube.

The Manitoba Documentary Archive has been created by DOC Manitoba, an organization which represents professional documentary filmmakers in the province, to showcase locally created work to audiences across the globe.

Jeff Newman, founder and president of St. Boniface-based Nüman Films and a DOC Manitoba board member, said the archive gives filmmakers the chance to present their creations to broader audiences, while also prolonging the lives of their respective projects.

“The archive started because, as a documentary filmmaker myself, many of us have made films over the years locally, such as MTS Stories From Home, that had their run and now they’re sitting on shelves or hard drives collecting dust,” Newman said, noting that the initiative is being supported by provincial funding agency Manitoba Film & Music, local industry association On Screen Manitoba, as well as DOC Manitoba.

“We wanted to create something bigger, an archive, by reaching out to other filmmakers and creating a hub to share with a worldwide audience. We released a beta version in November to try things out, and we had some success. For lack of a better term, we went viral,” he said.

Newman, who lives in Norwood Flats, said the channel has garnered more than 2,100 subscribers. At press time, Manitoba Documentary Archive had amassed 190,528 views.

A large portion of these views were of Ballet Girls — a three-part documentary series by Merit Jensen Carr and Vonnie Von Helmolt which was released in 2006 and chronicles the trials and tribulations of kids auditioning for the Royal Winnipeg Ballet.

“This an example of a film getting a second life, as a great piece of work by Winnipeg filmmakers is showcased. The fact the views increased so quickly highlighted the channel’s potential and our mission to become a hub, where anyone, anywhere in the world can access these Winnipeg stories. It’s a win-win,” Newman said.

“It’s a cool new opportunity to bring eyeballs upon Winnipeg and raise awareness about what we can do in our community. It’s great to be establishing a global audience and have people able to see Winnipeg through a different lens.”

Von Helmolt, a filmmaker and producer, said she is thrilled to see Ballet Girls back in the spotlight and reaching such large audiences again.

“We started shooting with the auditions at dance schools,” said Von Helmolt, who lives in South Transcona. “We followed their auditions, we followed the successful ones, and we followed their hopes and dreams.”

Von Helmolt said the crew essentially had 100 per cent access to the dancers during the shoot — which was highly supervised and included cameras in dorms — and captured some intense, no-holds-barred footage.

“We did our homework and research, and I knew quite a bit about what was going on in Canadian ballet,” she said.

“We amassed a mountain of footage, hundreds of hours, which you can do when you’re shooting video. It wasn’t an obtrusive crew, and it all came together in a wonderful way,” she said, noting the series ran on Bravo for three or four years.

Von Helmolt hopes the documentary archive continues to gain traction and said any money made from the initiative will be put back into the local filmmaking community — a process that’s still being ironed out.

“This is such a great idea. I haven’t been this thrilled for a long time,” she said, noting her gratitude to everyone involved with the project and her love of working and collaborating with Jensen Carr.

Visit docorg.ca/chapter/doc-manitoba to learn more about Doc Manitoba.

Visit YouTube.com/@MBDocArchive to view the archive.