Nettie Wild (Nettie Barry Canada Wild) [1] is a Canadian filmmaker with a focus on documentaries that highlight marginalized groups and discrimination that these groups face, including people in Canada and around the world. She has worked throughout her professional career as an actor, director, producer, and cameraperson.
Wild, full name Nettie Barry Canada Wild, [2] was born in New York City on May 18, 1952 to a British father and a Kitsilano mother. Their occupations were journalist and opera singer, respectively. [3] Wild's mother felt that Nettie sticking to her Canadian roots was important, hence the name, and one month after Wild was born, the family moved to Vancouver where Wild would live the majority of her life. [2]
While studying at the University of British Columbia, Wild gained a Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) with a major in creative writing along with a minor in film and theatre. [2] Alongside her studies, Wild co-founded Touchstone Theatre and Headlines Theatre with David Diamond, a fellow student. [3] Wild worked with the Touchstone Theatre in 1975-1976 and Headlines Theatre during 1980-1985. [2]
In 1991, she founded the Canada Wild Production with producer Betsy Carson. The production company was named in part after Wild's full name and reflects their general interest in Canadian based issues, despite making several films on more global issues. [2]
One of Wild's earliest documentaries was Right to Fight (1982) [2] which focused on the housing crisis that was taking place in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, which caused many people to have difficulty finding adequate housing or to live under the poverty line. [4] This issue was very close to Wild as she grew up in Vancouver. Despite this, the film was received poorly and did not gain the filmmaker critical acclaim. [4]
Wild would go on to make A Rustling of Leaves: Inside the Philippine Revolution (1988) after spending months in the Philippines, recording footage and interviewing individuals. [4] During her time in the country, one of Wild's interviews was with a local DJ broadcasting anti-guerrilla propaganda. After threats of violence from this individual, Wild would go on to interview the president of the Philippines who showed support for the DJ. [4] Wilds motivations behind this film was to show a look inside the revolution taking place in this country; shedding light on the situation, dispelling common Western myths about it, and advocating for support of the country. [4] This documentary would gain Wild notoriety and support for future endeavors.
A Place Called Chiapas (1998) is a documentary by Wild following the protests and revolts that took place in Chiapas, a rural state in Mexico, known for its high rates of poverty. [5] The events that are documented in this film take place after the signing of NAFTA (the North American Free Trade Agreement) and shows its immediate effects. This includes that it caused the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) to take over several towns and ranches in the area. [5] The group was led by Subcomandante Marcos and caused much chaos for the town, surrounding area, and the Mexican government. Wild focused her documentary on an outsider's perspective of the rebellion, and in that way the film became immensely successful. [6]
One of Wild's most successful films was Fix: The Story of an Addicted City (2002) which focused on the drug issue in Vancouver and the fight over whether safe injection sites should be constructed. [7] Wild, working as the co-producer and director of the documentary, wanted to show the issues plaguing her home town. The film followed the two sides of the fight over safe injection sites and how to remedy the drug issue killing hundreds of residents every year. The film would go on to become one of Wild's most acclaimed films and lead to governmental involvement. [7]
Wild was awarded the audience award for best documentary film at the 1998 AFI Fest for A Place Called Chiapas. She was given Genie Awards for Best Feature Length Documentary for both A Place Called Chiapas and Fix, and won two awards at the Berlin International Film Festival for A Rustling of Leaves.
At the 2016 Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival (HotDocs), Wild won the Best Canadian Feature Documentary Award for KONELĪNE: our land beautiful. [11]
At the 2016 Vancouver International Film Festival, Wild's film KONELĪNE: our land beautiful won the Women in Film and Television Artistic Merit Award, presented to a Canadian feature film at VIFF written and/or directed solely by a woman. [12]
Wild was awarded the 2023 Governor General's Award in Visual and Media Arts for Artistic Achievement. [13]
The Vancouver International Film Festival (VIFF) is an annual film festival held in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, for two weeks in late September and early October.
Alanis Obomsawin, is an Abenaki American-Canadian filmmaker, singer, artist, and activist primarily known for her documentary films. Born in New Hampshire, United States and raised primarily in Quebec, Canada, she has written and directed many National Film Board of Canada documentaries on First Nations issues. Obomsawin is a member of Film Fatales independent women filmmakers.
Mina Shum is an independent Canadian filmmaker. She is a writer and director of award-winning feature films, numerous shorts and has created site specific installations and theatre. Her features, Double Happiness and Long Life, Happiness & Prosperity both premiered in the US at the Sundance Film Festival and Double Happiness won the Wolfgang Staudte Prize for Best First Feature at the Berlin Film Festival and the Audience Award at Torino. She was director resident at the Canadian Film Centre in Toronto. She was also a member of an alternative rock band called Playdoh Republic.
A Place Called Chiapas is a 1998 Canadian documentary film of first-hand accounts of the Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional (EZLN) the and the lives of its soldiers and the people for whom they fight. Director Nettie Wild takes the viewer to rebel territory in the southeastern Mexican state of Chiapas, where the EZLN live and evade the Mexican Army.
Manfred Becker is a German-Canadian documentary independent filmmaker and film editor. His work often explores personal stories behind current or historical issues.
Haida Modern is a 2019 Canadian documentary film about the art and activism of Haida artist Robert Davidson. The film was directed by Charles Wilkinson, filmed, produced and edited by Wilkinson and Tina Schliessler and executive produced by Kevin Eastwood. It premiered at the 2019 Vancouver International Film Festival.
Everything Will Be is a 2014 documentary film about the changing face of Vancouver's Chinatown, directed by Julia Kwan and produced by David Christensen for the National Film Board of Canada. Everything Will Be was the first documentary film for Kwan, whose first feature Eve and the Fire Horse was a fictional comic account of growing up Chinese in Vancouver.
Elle-Máijá Apiniskim Tailfeathers is a Blackfoot and Sámi filmmaker, actor, and producer from the Kainai First Nation in Canada. She has won several accolades for her film work, including multiple Canadian Screen Awards.
Charles Wilkinson is a Canadian documentary filmmaker and film and television director. He is best known for making documentaries that touch on environmental issues. These include Haida Modern, Vancouver: No Fixed Address, Haida Gwaii: On the Edge of the World, Oil Sands Karaoke, and Peace Out. All five films premiered at Hot Docs International Documentary Festival, and have gone on to win awards at Hot Docs, the Vancouver International Film Festival, le Festival International du Film sur l'Art - Artfifa, the DGC Awards, the Leo Awards and the Yorkton Film Festival. Before moving into documentaries, Wilkinson worked for many years in dramatic television series and on feature films. His directing credits include such TV series as The Highlander, The Immortal, So Weird, Dead Man's Gun, Road to Avonlea and The Beachcombers, the feature films My Kind of Town, Max, Blood Clan and Breach of Trust, and the TV movie Heart of the Storm. As a preteen, he was one of the original performers in the Calgary Safety Roundup, paired with his brother Billy as kid cowboy singers. "We sang both kinds - country and western."
Haida Gwaii: On the Edge of the World is a 2015 Canadian feature documentary film directed by Charles Wilkinson, and produced by Charles Wilkinson, Tina Schliessler, and Kevin Eastwood for the Knowledge Network. The film premiered on April 28, 2015 at the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival where it won the award for Best Canadian Feature Documentary.
Fractured Land is a 2015 Canadian feature documentary film directed by Fiona Rayher and Damien Gillis, profiling the Dené activist Caleb Behn as he goes through law school and builds a movement around greater awareness of hydraulic fracturing (fracking) on First Nations lands.
Spirit Unforgettable is a 2016 Canadian documentary film, which premiered at the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival in 2016. Directed by Pete McCormack, the film profiles the Canadian folk rock band Spirit of the West in preparation for a 2015 concert at Massey Hall, as part of their farewell tour following lead singer John Mann's diagnosis with early-onset Alzheimer's disease, interspersing the story of his diagnosis and the band's preparations for the concert with a portrait of their overall history.
Koneline: Our Land Beautiful is a 2016 Canadian documentary film, directed by Nettie Wild and produced by Betsy Carson. The film explores the different lives of the Tahltan First Nations located in northern British Columbia. Through an objective lens, the audience experiences different perspectives from natives, miners, hunters, linesmen, geologists and tourists in Telegraph Creek. "Koneline" means "our land beautiful" in the Tahltan language.
Fix: The Story of an Addicted City is a Canadian documentary film, directed by Nettie Wild and released in 2003. The film centres on Vancouver's campaign to launch Insite, North America's first legal supervised injection site for injection drug users.
Suzanne Crocker is a Canadian documentary filmmaker from Dawson City, Yukon. She is most noted for her films All the Time in the World (2014), which won the award for Most Popular Canadian Documentary at the 2014 Vancouver International Film Festival, and First We Eat, which was one of the winners of the Audience Award at the 2020 Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival.
A Rustling of Leaves: Inside the Philippine Revolution is a 1988 Canadian documentary by Nettie Wild about the political upheaval in the Philippines following the fall of Ferdinand Marcos and the People Power Revolution.
The Klabona Keepers is a Canadian documentary film, directed by Tamo Campos and Jasper Snow-Rosen and released in 2022. The film is a profile of the Tahltan First Nation's successful activist campaign against industrial development that would have impacted the Sacred Headwaters, or Klabona, in northern British Columbia.
Kathleen Jayme is a Canadian documentary filmmaker from Vancouver, British Columbia. She is most noted for the films Finding Big Country and The Grizzlie Truth, which examine the history of the ill-fated Vancouver Grizzlies of the National Basketball Association.
Mystic Ball is a Canadian documentary film, directed by Greg Hamilton and released in 2006. The film profiles the Burmese sport of chinlone.
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