Monday, January 26, 2009

How the oilpatch was stirred up by the Academy Awards

The road to the Academy Awards is paved with black gold, it seems. At least in Alberta.

Downstream, a Canadian documentary about cancer rates among residents living south of the oil patch, was recently added to the longlist for an Oscar nomination. While the shortlist nominations did not include a nod to the film, its early recognition sent giddy shock waves through the film industry here, and a mess of panicked PR bungles through an enclave of corporate energy giants and government representatives.

The film behind the buzz is a 30 minute documentary revolving around Dr. John O’Connor, a physician living in Fort Chipewyan, Alberta. For six years, the doctor has been making a public fuss about rare forms of cancer in the small town, which he claims are linked to the toxic tailing ponds from nearby oil sands development. For his trouble he was charged with four counts of professional misconduct and forced to move far away from the community, to Nova Scotia. The charges have recently been dropped, the water from tailing ponds tested, and a second – but very slow – peer review study of the situation is currently underway by the Alberta Cancer Board.

The documentary has already been screened at select locations in California, and a slew of film festivals from around the globe will show a full-length version of the film next year. Although very few Canadian have yet to see it – including those interviewed for the film – rumors are flying fast and furious.

Last month, the first response from Alberta Minister of Culture Lindsay Blackett was that “it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense” to fund a film “that’s going to be negative” of the province. “If I’m going to invest money in a film, the whole idea is to show Alberta in a better light,” Blackett said during an on-camera interview with CBC. The Minister retracted his comments six days later, saying his comments were in response to a hypothetical question, and that “no censorship or creative oversight is on the table, and it won’t be in the future.”

But the damage had already been done.

Actors unions cried out. Skittish staffers of the Alberta Film Commission denied it ever happened. The Los Angeles Times reported that “it might be impossible to fund a film in the future that is critical of local government policies and programs” and a tribal council member for the Chipewyan First Nation, whose plight is explored in the film, told local indie magazine FFWD, “The Culture Minister is not supporting the general public of Fort Chipewyan. We pay our taxes too.”

The vilified Minister made amends with locals, but the sandstorm speaks to a much larger communications malfunction. The Oscar buzz arrived soon after a carefully crafted admission by Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP) that most Canadians don’t feel all warm and fuzzy about their work. That looks now to be a radical understatement. The same day Minister Blackett’s comments were made public, the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation requested a judicial review on the granting of oil sands leases from the province. And soon President Barak Obama will make his first official visit abroad to Canada, including a tour of the developments - America’s closest, and largest, supply of energy. For its part, CAPP is promising a “different conversation” – read: revved up public relations campaign - this year.

Leslie Iwerks, the film’s Los Angeles-based writer and director, says Americans are apathetic and ignorant of what their energy costs in human terms. “I understand that it’s big business and they need to feed the US appetite for oil,” she says of the industry, “But you see the environmental impact and the energy it takes to get at it, and it’s pretty eye-opening. It’s big government, it’s people not caring, it’s massive environmental destruction, it’s doctors getting charged with counts that aren’t necessarily true, and it’s a lot of unanswered questions. Those are the stories I want to tell, because it’s a story about human beings.”

"This product is being produced because there is a demand for it,” says Lorraine Royer, vice president of stakeholder relations at Global Public Affairs, whose clients include many big players in the oil patch, “The industry is well aware that continuous improvement is required, and an incredible investment occurs everyday to reduce that impact.”

What this film means for perceptions of the oils sands remains unclear, but those in the movie business are hoping this bit of drama will only help their industry.

“I don’t want there to be a backlash against Alberta film, that was my main concern,” Minister Blackett explains, “It’s knowledge-based and green and all those other good things. We want more Alberta films, more producers, more work in diverse industries here. Film captures our quality of life here, through our eyes. We can’t expect someone from Los Angeles or New York or Toronto to do that for us. We need the creative industries here. I made one mistake … I misspoke. You live, you learn.”

Published in National Post, January 23 2009 (<--click to see article online)

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