European Premiere showing at the 2nd Explorers Film Festival: Mark Terry, Chair of the Explorers Film Festival has confirmed that the film, On the Trail of the Far Fur Country which may very well contain elements of the first documentary ever made shall be screened at the Explorers Museum, Charleville Castle in Ireland next June. With footage found in the British Film Institute Archives - much of it still in its unprocessed negative format - a team of Canadian filmmakers from Five Doors Film exhaustively re-assembled this footage bringing to life images never before seen of the Canadian Arctic and its people from 1919. Believe it or not, the Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) was approaching its 250th year in business that year! Incorporated on May 2, 1670, it is the oldest, still operating, company in the English-speaking world. For their landmark birthday, the HBC spared no cost. A written history of the company was released, with a gramophone recording of that history. They commissioned The Beaver magazine to actively chronicle the company’s workings in the North—The Beaver would become the oldest and most important history magazine in the country, only recently changing its name to Canada’s History. As well as publications, celebrations were planned across Canada, and in London, England. The biggest gathering was slated for Winnipeg, the company’s Canadian headquarters. The main attraction would be the release of a feature film that depicted the Hudson’s Bay Company history, as well as its current activities across Canada’s North. To accomplish the task of filming the North, the Company bought a film company in New York, and made plans for a crew to head to Canada. The film would be called The Romance of the Far Fur Country. It premiered on May 23, 1920, at Winnipegs illustrious Allen Theatre. Advertisements boasted that the viewer could “travel over 2,000 miles through the North, sitting in the Allen Theatre.” By the end of the 1920s, audiences were turning their attention to the talkies, wanting more than just moving pictures. Soon after the Great Depression hit in the 1930s, barely a decade after The Romance of the Far Fur Country was filmed, the footage from the epic Hudson’s Bay Company film disappeared from public view, the canisters of nitrate film stock were packed away by the HBC in an archive in London for safe keeping— but lost to the world. No complete print of The Romance of the Far Fur Country exists. But thankfully, there exists fragments that make up the whole, which have been stored securely for over half a century at the British Film Institute Archive. What is more, the diaries kept by the film crew members have also been preserved, albeit on the other side of the Atlantic, in the HBC archives in Winnipeg. With the footage, and the notes, it is possible to resurrect the film to its original two hour run time, returning The Romance of the Far Fur Country to its former glory in a version now titled On the Trail of the Far Fur Country. Here is a trailer of the film showcasing the surprisingly well-preserved footage from 1919: https://youtube/watch?v=a_sSH5ZQI3k Films submitted for inclusion in the Explorers Film Festival do not necessarily represent the views of TEC
Posted on: Tue, 11 Nov 2014 15:35:03 +0000
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