Volunteers are at the heart of ReFrame, the documentary film festival that wouldn’t have started without them. With the opening night launch of the 15th anniversary festival just days away, ReFrame volunteers — both experienced and green — gathered at Showplace this past Sunday (January 20) to get ready for the big weekend.

Ferne Cristall has been there since the beginning, as a volunteer on the Collective and the Programming Committee. She took a moment to reflect on how the festival has changed over the past 15 years.

“It started very small, with no funding and no structure — as an idea,” she recalls. “A few crazy people wanted to bring films to town and we started doing that through another festival, the Travelling World Community Festival.”

Since 2005, ReFrame has been lighting up the darkest time of year with the best social justice documentaries from across Canada and around the world. ReFrame’s goal is to foster meaningful connections between audiences, filmmakers and artists, community partners, and neighbours.

Initially supported by the Kawartha World Issues Centre, ReFrame became independent over time, developed its structures, developed the board and committees — all while planning operations with no staff. Eventually funding came through and they were able to hire one main person. Krista English, who was a founder, led the organization as executive director for 14 years.

Now ReFrame employs three people, though not on permanent or full-time basis — yet. Amy Siegel was hired back in the summer of 2018 as the festival’s first Creative Director, alongside new Festival Director Jay Adam, who came on bpard during the festival last year.

This year, featuring over 70 films at three venues, with dozens of partners and sponsors, the running of the festival still depends on a dedicated team of volunteers. Collective and board members work year-round to ensure the festival runs smoothly. It takes months for Collective members and the Programming Committee to view and carefully select films, while board members raise funds and secure resources to ensure the future of the organization.

“I just want to say thank you to all of you who show up year after year and to those of you who work year-round,” board chair Julia Harrison said to the crowd gathered in the Nexicom Studio at Showplace on Sunday. “It’s also nice to see some new faces this year.”

Julie Otto is one of those new faces, volunteering at ReFrame for the first time this year. She has just moved back to Peterborough after working and living in the U.S. for 35 years. A documentary filmmaker herself, she saw the ReFrame flags on Water Street and reached out to get involved.

“It’s a good cause and I’m here to volunteer and meet people,” Julie says.

Her passion is documentary film and she’s really looking forward to “just to seeing everything! Every genre. Film and video bring things alive in a way that pictures can’t. It can move people and memory and emotion. I have a love of documentary films.”

VIDEO: Festival Volunteers — ReFrame 2019

Hoots and hollers filled the room on Sunday as volunteer coordinators Andrea Monos and Kathleen Shea Gehmair took to the podium to welcome the crowd to the 15th year of the festival. A short by Lester Alfonso played, showing every title to come with inspirational messages from ReFrame supporters and volunteers and the day’s orientation began.

Volunteers learned about their tasks, including:

• ushering crowds in and out of theatres before and after every film
• ensuring pass holders have first entry to the theatres before any rush seats are sold
• helping audience members exchange their online receipts for their festival passes at Showplace
• rotating shifts down to the fantastic food court in the lounge at Showplace
• directing donors with their envelopes to lobby drop boxes
• encouraging participation in audience surveys for critical feedback
• helping sell raffle tickets that ensure financial footing for next year

and the list goes on.

“Now this is really amazing,” says Ferne, “so many volunteers and so many different kinds.”

For her and for Collective and Board members, “we become location managers — to troubleshoot and oversee what needs to be done and where everybody has to be.”

Volunteer organizers are hosting filmmakers, introducing films, running question and answer periods, directing audiences to panel discussions and events out in the community, and assisting sponsors to introduce films.

For Ferne, getting to meet filmmakers and dig into films is what it’s all about. ReFrame captures the energy of people learning new things from talking to each other, hearing from panellists — everyone with the desire to improve the world.

“ReFrame is also a special model because of its sponsors and how they create community involvement,” she says. “Even if they don’t work on ReFrame, they feel like they are a part of it. They are a part of it.”

Ferne is looking forward to the screening of The Rest I Make Up. She said that it’s about a Cuban theatre person in New York who is learning to cope with dementia, working with a young filmmaker.

“It really gets you to think of the awareness of people who are learning to deal with dementia.”

Volunteer Tes Nasca took a moment to describe the VR (virtual reality) project Biidaaban: First Light that this year’s festival brings to festival pass holders.

“It’s a nine-minute, virtual reality experience of a futuristic Toronto where the lands have been reclaimed,” Tes explains. “It’s an example of Indigenous futurism.”

The VR experience is included in the festival pass and one-day passes, but timeslots are limited so registration is required in advance.

Nasca has been volunteering for ReFrame on the Collective and Programming Committee for four years, but has been coming to the festival for eight or nine years since arriving in town.

“It’s a really great way to bring people together at this cold time of year to learn and share and celebrate.”

Tes also recommends the film Gospel of Eureka, one that was a bit of a surprise this year. It’s a joyful film about a Bible Belt town in the U.S. that embraces both religious and drag pageantry.

Mbongeni Mtetwa (Mbo) is the vice-chair of the Board of Directors, but he also volunteered on the collective for four years and worked as a festival coordinator for a year. He has been a projectionist for the festival at Market Hall for his entire five years with the festival.

“I like it when people who sit in front of me recognize me and say ‘hey, you’re still here! Good to see you’re still here Mbo.’ You know where to find me because I’m always the projectionist at Market Hall.”

“I’ve tried not to look at the schedule this year,” Mbo says, because he’ll see all of the films at Market Hall. He’s looking forward to Youth Unstoppable on opening night because he will get to be with everybody.

“It’s always exciting to see youth come together,” he says. “People can grow up and become jaded; it’s nice when youth just do things because they haven’t grown up to be told that they can’t yet. I try to live my life this way.”

Volunteer coordinators Kathleen and Andrea say it’s a great group this year.

“Just the fact that some of them have been here every year and they keep coming back,” Kathleen says. “Though there are a lot of new faces this year, which is exciting.”

Being programmers as well, Kathleen and Andrea have seen all the films and a few titles come up that stand out for them.

“Minding the Gap, Biggest Little Farm, Water Warriors — The Cleaners is fantastic,” says Andrea, who also noted that it’s great to see more shorts in the program this year.

Kathleen volunteers often at other film festivals.

“ReFrame is a great atmosphere because people who love documentary film LOVE documentary film,” she says. “It’s a passion. It’s intimate at ReFrame.”

“New people are always surprised at how many people are here,” Andrea adds. “Theatres are full and restaurants are packed and that’s something at this time of year. ReFrame just brings people who are directly from this community together with filmmakers who come from around the world to see this amazing festival.”

Thursday opening night tickets and festival passes are available online at reframe.tickit.ca.

They can also be purchased in person (cash only) in Peterborough at the GreenUP Store (378 Aylmer St. N., 705-745-3238) and Watson & Lou (383 Water St., 705-775-7568), in Lakefield at Happenstance Books & Yarns (44 Queen St., 705-652-7535) and in Millbrook at Pastry Peddler (17 King St. E., 705-932-7333).

Horcrux. Hufflepuff. Muggle. Quidditch. Squib.

If you’ve been living in a cave since 1997, you might not recognize these words from Harry Potter, the series of seven fantasy novels by British writer J.K. Rowling that chronicles the lives of young wizard Harry Potter and his friends Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley, all students at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

But even if you don’t know the difference between a horcrux and a hufflepuff, you’ll still be entertained by the comic mayhem of Potted Potter: The Unauthorized Harry Experience – A Parody by Dan and Jeff.

The hit family-friendly show comes to Showplace Performance Centre in downtown Peterborough for two performances at 7 p.m. on Monday, March 11th and Tuesday, March 12th.

Suitable for children ages six and older, the production is performed in Monty Python-esque style by two actors who recap the plots of all seven Harry Potter books and perform as 360 characters — with one actor as Harry Potter and the other as all the remaining characters — in 70 minutes (without an intermission).

It’s a fast-paced show featuring madcap improv, multiple costume changes, brilliant songs, dance numbers, ridiculous props, Hogwarts magic, and a live fire-breathing dragon. The performers even supervise the audience in a game of Quidditch (without the flying broomsticks).

While Potter fans both young and old will get the most out of the show, it will still be a hilarious evening out even if you’ve never read a single one of the books or seen one of the eight films based on the books (and, as a side benefit, you’ll receive a crash course in Potterdom). Children will be delighted by the Harry Potter references and parents will appreciate the in-jokes aimed at adults.

Potted Potter was originally created in the U.K. back in 2005 by former Children’s BBC hosts Daniel Clarkson and Jefferson Turner, who performed a 15-minute street show summarizing the first five Potter books for fans who were waiting in line for the midnight release of the sixth book.

VIDEO: Scenes from “Potted Potter” with Jefferson Turner & Daniel Clarkson

The street show proved to be so popular that it began touring the U.K. the following year, expanded into an hour-long performance recapping all seven books. In 2012, Potted Potter made its North American premiere in Toronto and then opened off-Broadway in New York City, returning again to Canada multiple times over the next six years.

Potted Potter has played to sold-out houses in the U.K., Australia and New Zealand, and across North America, receiving rave reviews from the Toronto Star, the Globe and Mail, the New York Times, Entertainment Weekly, The Guardian, and many more.

“Even if you don’t know your wand from a hole in the ground, I guarantee you’ll go positively potty over Potted Potter,” wrote theatre critic Richard Ouzounian in The Toronto Star following the show’s 2012 Toronto debut. “Muggle or master wizard, you’re going to love this show.”

Presented by Potted Productions and Starvox Entertainment, the current North American tour of Potted Potter starts James Percy as Harry Potter and Jesse Briton performing all the other characters from the books.

Tickets are $56 for adults and youth and $45 for children 12 and under, with VIP seats in the first three rows costing $75 (those sitting in the VIP seats will have an opportunity to participate in the show). Tickets are available now in person at the Showplace box office (290 George St. N., Peterborough), by phone at 705-742-7469, or online at www.showplace.org.

Note: the production employs haze, strobe lights, and loud noises.

Is it somehow possible that American essayist Ralph Emerson had Canadian musician, songwriter, artist and author Tom Wilson well in mind when he opined that life is all about the journey, not the destination?

Not likely, but that view has few better examples than what has transpired since Wilson discovered his Mohawk ancestry some six years ago, learning that his biological mother hailed from Kahnawake Mohawk Territory outside of Montreal. That’s quite a revelation for a man who grew up a Hamiltonian.

“I’m not a big, puffy, sweaty Irish guy … I’m actually a big, puffy, sweaty Mohawk,” declares Wilson, adding that discovery “has a filled a big void in my life” and, as such, has since greatly influenced his art in whatever form it’s presented.

That discovery was the impetus for Mohawk, Wilson’s fourth studio album as his psychedelic folk project Lee Harvey Osmond. Mohawk will be released on January 25th.

Wilson will perform songs from the new record — along with other tunes from the Osmond back catalogue and songs he’s written for Blackie and the Rodeo Kings — when he appears at Market Hall Performing Arts Centre (140 Charlotte St., Peterborough) on Friday, February 8th.

Tickets to the 8 p.m. concert, a Market Hall presentation sponsored by kawarthaNOW, cost $33 ($38 for cabaret-style seating), and are available now in person at the Market Hall box office, by phone at 705-749-1146, or online at markethall.org. An autographed viny copy of Mohawk is available for an additional $15.

VIDEO: “Mohawk” – Lee Harvey Osmond

To say there is a lot going on artistically in Wilson’s world at present would come close to qualifying as the mother of all understatements.

Besides the release of the 10-track Mohawk album, there’s also the buzz around his widely acclaimed 2017 autobiography Beautiful Scars: Steeltown Secrets, Mohawk Skywalkers and the Road Home, which details his discovery of his Mohawk heritage at age 53 (he’s now approaching 60) and how that changed the direction of his life.

There’s also Wilson’s visual art. He began painting in 1997 to help him quit drinking. His oil paintings, which feature bold shapes and colours with words (often lyrics from his songs) etched in fine detail in and around them.

Currently, he has a dozen large paintings and a dozen painted guitars on display in an exhibit titled Beautiful Scars: Mohawk Warriors, Hunters and Chiefs: The Art of Tom Wilson, running at the Art Gallery of Burlington until January 27th.

Ahead, a play also based on his tale of self-discovery will be work-shopped in March.

“Everything comes back to the story, a story about identity,” says Wilson, describing all his various projects as spokes on the wheel that is his life.

“This album that I’m bringing to Peterborough is the same thing. It’s focusing on the story of identity. It’s hopefully resonating with audiences in a different way than just banging on a guitar and turning your amp up. There’s a lot of joy in that but this is a little bit of a different approach in presenting my art.”

VIDEO: “Forty Light Years” – Lee Harvey Osmond

“I’ve been playing music and putting out records for 45 years. Writing the music is exhilarating, recording the music is exhilarating, performing the music is completely uplifting and joyous, but the idea of going out to promote a product is fucking boring. There’s no artistic merit in that.

“I appreciate an interview like this, but the idea of promoting one part of my artistic vision, it just doesn’t lie like that for me. I frustrate people. They’re like ‘We’ve got to promote this record’ and I’m like ‘No, we’ve got to promote what I’m doing artistically and part of that is this record.'”

Clearly, Wilson has nothing to prove to anyone. If his career ended tomorrow, there would be few, if any, regrets.

VIDEO: “Brown Shoe” – Junkhouse

In 1989, he co-founded the Hamilton-based alt-rock band Junkhouse, which produced Wilson-penned radio hits like “Out of My Head” and “Shine”, used for the soundtrack of the 1990s TV series Party of Five.

Seven years later, he enjoyed commercial and critical success as a member of roots-rock band Blackie and the Rodeo Kings, alongside Stephen Fearing and Colin Linden.

That band, which was originally formed to record a tribute album for the late Peterborough musician Willie P. Bennett, has since recorded nine albums, receiving multiple Juno nominations and a win in 2000 for Kings of Love.

VIDEO: “Lean on Your Peers” – Blackie and the Rodeo Kings

Then came his metamorphosis as Lee Harvey Osmond, which led to the recording of four studio albums, the latest being Mohawk.

“Mohawk fits perfectly with what I’m doing at this time and what’s on my mind,” Wilson says.

“Without being mystical or magical or cosmic, I found out (about my Mohawk heritage) at exactly the right time in my life. I was surrounded by love with kids and grandchildren. I had a good sense of where I belong. I wasn’t lost.”

“I found out that I was adopted and that my cousin was actually my mother and that I’m a Mohawk. If I had found out in my 30s, I probably would have drank myself into a corner or OD’d. I’ve been 19 years clean and sober. I have a good sense of what’s important to me in my life. Who knows what would have happened if I found out earlier in life? Maybe great things, but it’s not really a question I can entertain. I can’t indulge myself in it too much.”

Of one thing Wilson is convinced: “Without identity we have nothing to offer the world.” He adds it’s his hope that all are still searching.

“My God, if all the answers were found in what we’re taught in churches, and by corporations and by governments, we would all be very, very boring people. The inner search is way more interesting than me going back to Most Blessed Sacrament Roman Catholic Church in Hamilton and taking Communion.

“I don’t have anything against that. I’m just saying there’s a deeper journey. Without having a sense of who we are, of what it is we’re offering the world, we’re not really offering anything.”

The result of Wilson’s journey is as clear to him as it is revealing to his audience.

“The voice I now speak and sing with, and the colours that I use on my canvasses, they’re more brilliant and alive,” he assesses, taking pains to make certain the term ‘brilliant” isn’t being used to describe himself. He adds that whatever art form he practices, he considers each “important to my survival. I have to keep myself busy to stay healthy. They’re the spokes that hold the wheel together and the wheel gets me to where I want to go.”

And there are still places to go and things to do, for which he’s very thankful.

“I’m doing a handful of shows: Toronto, Montreal, Wakefield, Peterborough, Hamilton. That’s it. Then I get on a plane and go to Nashville to start a new Blackie and the Rodeo Kings record.

“Then I come back and I’m going to start an art project with the Indigenous writers Tanya Talaga (Seven Fallen Feathers) and Lee Maracle (Sojourner’s Truth and Other Stories, Ravensong). We’re planning on collaborating on my next art project.

“I want to co-ordinate working with other Indigenous writers to get their stories and their views and their concerns into my paintings. I’m a guy that is shaking hands with the culture that I’ve just been introduced to and that I’m a part of, so I’m kind of finding my way. I hope I have 20 more years on this planet to continue this search.”

As for the welcome he has received from the Indigenous community as his journey continues, Wilson has been left nothing short of in awe.

“The fact is I’m a fucking Indian. Nobody in the Indigenous community says ‘Well, how much Indian are you?’ My mother was Mohawk and French. My father was full-on Mohawk. I’m like 85 per cent Mohawk. It’s only the Canadian government that wants me to prove that. Nobody on my reserve wants me to prove that. Nobody across this country wants me to prove that.

“I’ve never been more welcomed by a community, and by a culture and a group of people, than I have been by the Indigenous community. And it’s an interesting place to be. I’ve been asked to be a part of Indigenous Days in Ottawa. I’ve been part of the Indigenous Music Awards. I’ve just been asked to be part of a longhouse ceremony that is exclusive only to the Mohawk culture.”

“I grew up in Hamilton, where it’s all about being used to doors shutting on us. Not being accepted and all that shit. Let’s get over it. Let’s get on with what it is we want to do. What you and I do is not harming anybody. Hopefully it’s only making this a better planet, so let’s not worry about what buddy next door thinks.”

Speaking to his upcoming Market Hall concert — he’ll be joined by several longtime friends and collaborators — Wilson says the city has always embraced his talent and his message, for which he remains grateful.

“I like Peterborough. I’ve been coming there for years. I used to get myself in quite a bit of trouble there. Now I don’t. It’s that simple.”

VIDEO: Tom Wilson reads from “Beautiful Scars”

And, as if he doesn’t have enough on his plate, Wilson is gearing up to write a second book.

“It’s going to continue where this book (Beautiful Scars) left off. I have a lot of brothers and sisters that I never knew and I want to write about their Mohawk identity growing up in Brooklyn, New York, and Jamaica.

“There’s a thing that’s in all of us and we don’t recognize it: blood memory. It’s the smell of something cooking that you recognize even though you’ve never smelled that food cooking before. Something you recognize in people but you don’t why you recognize it. Feelings that you have, or instincts that you have.

“That blood memory, for me, is coming from my Mohawk culture. For example, I’ve been painting for 25 years but only in the last six years have I had the right to claim I’m an Indigenous artist. I didn’t have the right to that claim prior, but it was coming from somewhere. Stuff comes out of us … we don’t really know why we’re doing it or where it’s coming from. I want to write about that blood memory.”

VIDEO: “Blue Moon Drive” – Lee Harvey Osmond

Noting he suffered a stroke around three months ago — “I’m not slowing down but I’ve been planning my moves a little more wisely” — Wilson says he’ll continue to explore his art in all its forms “until you’re coming to throw dirt on my grave.”

As for Emerson’s words of so long ago, Wilson isn’t putting too much stock in the message.

“I just like what’s going on here. I’m pretty happy about where I’m going. Actually, I’m pretty happy about where I am. I don’t know where the fuck I’m going.”

For more information on Wilson and his various projects, visit tomwilsononline.com.

On Saturday, February 2nd, the Peterborough Symphony Orchestra (PSO) will present “Classical Roots”, a concert at Showplace Performance Centre featuring celebrated Canadian cellist Stéphane Tétreault.

Classical Roots will take the audience through Romantic and contemporary music that is strongly influenced by music of the past, with Stéphane Tétreault performing Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Variations on a Rococo Theme for cello and orchestra. The concert will also feature Johannes Brahms’ Symphony No. 2. and Marjan Mozetich’s Steps to Ecstasy.

Stéphane Tétreault holds a Master’s Degree in Music Performance from the University of Montreal and was a student of the late cellist and conductor Yuli Turovsky for more than 10 years.

Stéphane recently received the 2018 Maureen Forrester Next Generation Award in recognition of “his sensitivities with music, his enviable technique, and his considerable communication skills.” This is only the second time the medallion has been awarded. He was the first ever Soloist-in-Residence of the Orchestre Métropolitain de Montréal, and has played with the Philadelphia and London Philharmonic Orchestras.

“Stéphane Tétreault is one of the most exciting young soloists to emerge from Canada in recent years,” says PSO Music Director & Conductor, Michael Newnham. “Comments about Mr. Tétreault’s marriage of technique and passion have come our way. We are very fortunate to be able to present him with the PSO in February with one of the gems of the Romantic cello repertoire, Tchaikovsky’s Variations on a Rococo Theme.”

While regarded as the composer representing the apogee of the 19th century Romantic period (circa 1830 to 1900), Tchaikovsky possessed a deep affection for music of the 18th century Classical period (circa 1750 to 1830) — particularly that of Mozart and Haydn, the former of whom Tchaikovsky referred to as a “musical Christ.”

Uniquely, however, the theme in Variations on a Rococo Theme does not actually emulate the musical style of the Rococo period but is more a nostalgic declaration to it.

“When you hear the theme played, you get the impression,” says Stéphane. “A Rococo tapestry is extremely detailed, a Rococo carving is defined, and that is translated itself to music: phrases are shorter, they round up as a Rococo detail would.

“Thereafter, as the variations progress, we get more and more into what Tchaikovsky’s voice was (still with a classical influence): heart on sleeve, openly expressing emotion — extremely dramatic, touching, moving.”

Following a short orchestral introduction, a solo cello states the theme. Stéphane will be playing the 1707 “Countess of Stainlein, Ex-Paganini” Stradivarius cello, once owned by Nicolò Paganini and most recently by Bernard Greenhouse.

It was originally purchased and loaned to Stéphane by benefactor and patron of the arts Jacqueline Desmarais, who passed away March 2018 at the age of 89, and is now on generous loan by her daughter Mrs. Sophie Desmarais.

AUDIO: “Variations on a Rococo Theme – Variation III : Andante sostenuto” by Tchaikovsky performed by Stéphane Tétreault

Valued at $6 million, it is not the monetary value that makes this cello so important to Stéphane but, rather, its unique character and easy personality.

“It has its own soul,” he says. “At some point they develop that … it has been in the hands of many great cellists.”

He says he is “thankful” that it is not temperamental, but very understanding, as these instruments can be hard to get to answer or react to temperature or humidity. While he states that it is not a difficult cello to play, the key is to get its sound out as naturally as possible.

“Its open rich tone projects really well in a hall, so there is no need to force out the sound,” Stéphane says. “It sounds pretty, naturally.”

The performance of Tchaikovsky’s work will be complemented by Brahms’ invigorating Symphony No. 2, which Maestro Newnham describes as “one of the most serene and beautiful symphonies that I know.”

“This a brilliant pairing of two great Romantic works,” Stéphane adds. “Brahms’ work is a huge adventure, heartbreaking. They do work well together given that Tchaikovsky’s is a huge celebration at the end — a compare and contrast.”

Concert ticket holders are invited to attend “Meet the Maestro,” a popular behind-the-music pre-concert talk with Maestro Newnham at 6:40 p.m. in the Showplace theatre.

Concert tickets for Classical Roots are $20, $39 and $49 for adults, and $10 for students. Tickets are available at the Showplace box office (290 George St. N, Peterborough), by phone at 705-742-7469, or online at showplace.org.

This story has been written by Susan Oliver on behalf of the Peterborough Symphony Orchestra.