Award-winning youth filmmaker Morningstar rooted in Eagle Lake First Nation
By Kelly Anne Smith
NORTH BAY—Youth filmmaker Morningstar Derosier from Eagle Lake First Nation is hoping to involve community members in her future filmmaking.
Morningstar won The Ellen Monaque Award for Best Youth Work at the ImagineNative Film and Media Arts Festival for A World of Our Own. It came with a $500 cash award sponsored by RBC & Humber College Aboriginal Resource Centre.
Reflecting on the award she received in late October, Morningstar had no idea her film was even a contender amongst global entries. She went to ImagineNative Film Festival for the weekend with nine students with The First People’s Centre at Canadore College and two other students from the Digital Cinematography program.
“I was showing my film. It played Saturday night, five-thirty at night at the TIFF Lightbox which was super cool.”
Morningstar had no idea what was about to happen.
“As I was driving back to North Bay, I got a call from my mom. She was asking why I wasn’t staying for the awards ceremony. I was saying I had no other way to get back and that I had to get back to school and start working on stuff.”
That night was the awards ceremony.
“I saw it online through a live stream. My film, without me knowing, won. It was nice to get some recognition. ”
The soon-to-be-22-year-old is proud of herself and of the work of her classmates who were a lot of help. She commends cinematographer Ben Faria for having a lot of creative input.
“I’m happy with the end product. It turned into something beautiful and told from the heart.”
Morningstar talks about A World of Our Own as a sci-fi romance.
“It’s about a young woman. Her name is Lauren. She finds herself feeling isolated in a world that is dominated by technology. It’s set in the future and everybody has chips implanted in them that makes them see everything. She finds that technology separates people rather than bring them together, so she feels lonely in this world. Then she meets another young woman named Lily who took the chip out of her own body because she is a bit of a rebel who thought the system was negatively impacting society. Lauren was really inspired by her.”
Morningstar has lived in North Bay for close to three years. She lived in Toronto for two years before that and grew up in Eagle Lake First Nation in Treaty 3 territory and in Thunder Bay.
Making films was not her original direction.
“I was in Toronto studying art but I missed nature. I missed the north, so I moved to North Bay.”
Now Morningstar is riding the so-called ‘new wave of Indigenous film makers’. Her parents have been wonderful influencers. Her mother Michele Derosier is a writer, co-producer, co-director, of a recently released feature film, Angelique’s Isle. It was crafted by northern film makers from North Bay, Sudbury, Sault Ste. Marie, and Thunder Bay.
Her father Dave Clement helped lens on Angeliques’s Isle as second unit director of photography and produced. He also happens to be a digital cinematography professor in the School of Media, Design and Dramatic Arts at Canadore College.
Thinking about her future has her looking around the prop room that we’re in.
“I’ll be spending a lot of time in here,” she notes. “Second year I did the film that just played at ImagineNative. I wrote and directed a twenty-minute script/twenty minute film for our final year. Three scripts get chosen, everyone has to write a script. We go in front of a panel of jury members. We pitch our script. They chose three scripts to go into production. They did that last year so we already shot two films and on Friday we finished mine. It was a seven day shoot in total and it was out in the snow. It’s a survival/end of the world story of about a girl trapped travelling through the forest to find her father after the world has ended.”
“Next semester is all editing and by most likely April, all of our films will be finished. Then we have a showcase at Galaxy Cinema where all three of our films will be up on the big screen. People from the community are welcome to come watch. It’s going to be a lot of fun,” continues Morningstar. “Then after that, I have script idea I want to work on. And I have a couple of opportunities to help on films. So, it’s basically a film future for me. It’s very exciting. It’s a great time to be here making films right now.”
Her First Nation is included in her plans for the future.
“I guess for all of my ideas for scripts, I’ve always wanted it to be rooted in my Indigenous identity. I’ve wanted Indigenous characters. I’ve wanted it to be part of some reserve. I want to keep working with Indigenous film makers.”
“The feature script that I want to write, I want to actually shoot it on my reserve. And hopefully get people from my community to be a part of it. Film making is fun and I love it and I want to involve my community. It would be great if they could be part of it because it’s a great experience.”
The beauty of her community is calling her back.
“The nature is beautiful. We have a really beautiful lake. I want to show that beauty. I want to film it for people who are not from our reserve to see it and think, wow, that’s a beautiful place.”
Talking about what motivates her, Morningstar says she is inspired and influenced by environmentalism.
“I am super strongly connected to my roots, my reserve. After winning the award, I got a lot of support from my reserve congratulating me.”
The young film maker is thankful for Canadore’s Digital Cinematography program and for all the support.
“I am grateful for my family and my classmates. They are all a bunch of hard workers. It’s great to have this community of like-minded people who just want to make cool films. It’s a nice creative space for us. Now that I’m realizing that I really love film, I’m really grateful for these opportunities.”