Ojibwe filmmaker returns to Winnipeg’s North End to tell story of hope and healing

Ojibwe filmmaker Jeremy Torrie is at the helm of a re-envisioning of the 1994 movie Once Were Warriors over a decade after acquiring the option rights to the film.

Torrie’s currently filming Many Wounds, which draws from his experience growing up in Winnipeg’s North End, and features a predominantly Indigenous cast.

The original Once Were Warriors tells the story of a New Zealand family who are descendants of Maori warriors as they grapple with a violent father and the problems that come with being treated like outcasts in society, according to its IMDB page.

The film is shown in classrooms across New Zealand as a learning tool, Torrie said, and he hopes Many Wounds will have the same impact in Canada and even the U.S.

“Yes there are difficult subjects here … suicide is a part of it, domestic violence, alcoholism, all of those things are very real,” he said on set in Point Douglas. “This is an authentic story and I didn’t want to shy away from that.”

“Everyone we’ve talked to at a grassroots level, particularly the women, they’re very, very supportive of this because of the fact that so many of our community lives it on a daily basis, even today,” said Torrie. “We’ve gotta overcome that.”

White Bear Films producer Tanya Brunel said the film follows a young Indigenous man named Mashka living in the North End who’s growing up with intergenerational trauma, and around violence, gangs and substance abuse.

Brunel said Mashka is on a path to perpetuating those cycles, but meets an elder while in a youth detention centre who offers him teachings and becomes a role model for “healthier masculinity.”

“That sets him on a path to end that cycle of violence,” said Brunel. “And that’s what our film is about, is all about the hope and healing and what our young men need to do to stand up and break those cycles.”

‘I want us to break the cycle:’ Torrie

Elements of Torrie’s own lived experiences growing up in Winnipeg are woven into Mashka’s story. Witnessing violence and sexual assault while living in fear made Torrie feel like Mashka growing up, he said. Those experiences and feelings were something he honed in on to develop Mashka’s character.

But forty years later, he still gets choked up thinking about those times, and said he’s found himself feeling triggered while filming. In order for him and many others to heal, Torrie said it’s important to talk about it and find the strength and courage to do so.

“That’s what I want to get out of this, I want us to break the cycle because it takes generations to be in a happy, healthy environment and a place where our spiritual self, our mental self and our cultural self, they’re all one,” he said.

“And because of what has happened over multiple generations, that has broken down and we’ve got to put that back together.”

Working within community

In order to deal with some of the heavy nature of the film’s material, Brunel said there’s been an elder and trauma counselor on set every day as a support for both Indigenous and non-Indigenous cast and crew.

She said an elder also came in and did a pipe ceremony with the cast and crew at the beginning of production. Another elder came in and smudged and offered a blessing as well.

“It was really important for us to incorporate our values and our culture into filmmaking, which I think you don’t see very often,” said Brunel, who is Métis.

Bear Clan Patrol has also been involved helping out with the film.

“We’re coming into the North End community, we wanted to work within community-based relationships,” she said.

Brunel said they’re hoping to finish filming by the end of March, and look to get Many Wounds into some major film festivals. After that, it will have a theatrical release.

While Many Wounds does deal with heavy subject matter, Torrie wants viewers to leave with hope by film’s end.

“This type of story and the subject matter impacts everybody, right? It crosses every cultural and societal boundary,” he said. “So for us, we’d like to be able to bring this story to the world and to share it with everyone so that they can feel something and connect with us, rather than saying ‘Hey … oh this is an Indigenous story or it’s a BIPOC story.'”

“It’s a story and every one of us, no matter what our skin colour is, can connect with it in some way because we’ve told an authentic story that touches people in the heart.”