Shane Belcourt

Born in Ottawa with Métis in his blood, Shane Belcourt injects both his heritage and Canadian pride into the films he creates. Like many directors, Belcourt began his career creating short films. He directed two critically acclaimed shorts entitled The Squeeze Box (a film-noir style movie about a hitman who hires an accordion player to play at every kill) and Pookums (based on a true story about how life in a big city can be unpredictable at the best of times). For most of his films, Belcourt chooses to wear the hat of writer, director, producer and cinematographer.

As a jack-of-all-trades, Belcourt is also a musician, releasing a total of four CD's in his lifetime. Belcourt's first album was the product of his former band Woodrow, to which he followed up with three more CD's with his one-time solo project, The Shane Anthony Band. When Belcourt is not busy making award winning music and films, he takes time to teach filmmaking workshops to Aboriginal youth and youth at risk.

Who or what has been your greatest inspiration?

Without question, like every other person that loves the world of the arts, other amazingly accomplished artists and their work form a huge well of "wow, that was amazing, I hope I have that fearlessness and study in me to accomplish something like that." But to be honest, when I'm actually making the art I'm not nor have I ever thought about "them".

I think about the people I'm making the project with, does it work for them, will it surprise them, and I think about the project itself. When the muse runs off and you are IN that moment creating, that's a real buzz, and you come out of that wanting to get back there. It is its own inspiration...and absolute frustration when it doesn't let you back in and you got to keep knocking at the door in desperation.

You have been involved with shorts, docs and feature films; how have all those experiences differed from one another?

Here I go again .... they have had different little particular differences - people's faces, what they said, how it impacted me, what I learned from each little moment, etc ... details. But making movies to me is making movies, it's all the same. What is the story? Who are the characters? What's the point of telling this story, why am I telling it? You dive in knowing exactly what the answers are to those questions (I haven't, but have read others have), or (you) just have feelings about those things, and want to pursue this project. You really want an opportunity to have a dialogue, with yourself, and work with other human beings, trying to experience something you love - making movies and telling stories.

What was the inspiration behind Tkaronto, your first feature film?

One, to make a feature film. Maybe I should say that was the impetuous. I really just wanted to make a feature film, I want to experience what is was like to make one. Akin to a writer saying, "short stories have been a blast and poetry is always engaging but I want to torture myself and make a novel."

So, you take that hope to make a feature film one day, and then you add timing in life to turn that hope into something desperate and somehow it all got done. In my case, my wife was pregnant with our first child and I could only take all our line of credit money for something "artistic" before the kid was born, otherwise it just comes off as selfish and neglectful. As for the inspiration behind the content in Tkaronto, it was a very personal film that I thought about five people would resonate with (my family), and for others it would feel like too much of a personal therapy session.

That said, I knew that the debate and struggle to understand one's identity, as a mixed heritage person or an Aboriginal person, would resonate with others if I was as honest about my fears, doubts, and confusions. They mirror other people like me that I met and talked to and worked with over the years in the Aboriginal arts and politics scene.

Tkaronto was very well received. How did you react to the support and coverage that it gained?

Like a deer caught in headlights.

Let me get this straight? You (get to) do something you love to do, something that is very personal, something that is really about your growth, your experience, learning and working with other artists that inspire you and make you question your assumptions and push you to new artistic levels. ALL of this is seemingly so small and personal and AMAZING ... And THEN you to travel around and show the film and have the opportunity to share the work with an audience? How do you sign up for that again and again and again?

It didn't make sense to me but I absolutely loved every moment of it ... and feared and continue to fear that someone is going to pull the rug out from under me tell me the movie sucks, I suck as filmmaker, and it's all been an elaborate joke.

I'm currently reading "how to believe in one's self for Dummy's" ... ask me this question again in a couple years .

How does making music differ from making films?

Music is MUCH more immediate on a constant level. Pick up the guitar and play. Go. In film you get a lot of that as well, but it's not as readily available (you need people and money to some degree) and you got to mess it up with business/paperwork stuff. A professional musician may comment that the paperwork/business stuff is also a part of making music but for me I could NOT get into business mode with music ever...thus...

Do you think that you'll ever release another CD?

I'm unabashed in my hopes that my two year old daughter will be an amazing musician. The culmination of generations of music dreamers in my family and she'll hire me for her first record to play some guitar or something...that said, currently, she always tells me "no guitar, dad" as she presses a button on her Elmo doll and sings along to the Sesame Street theme.

Do you think that you'll remain in Canada?

This was one of the early questions my wife asked me when we started dating and the answer is still the same: when the phone rings and they want you because you've earned it, you go (in the movie business the "they" is pretty obvious). That said, I have a family now and that changes everything.

And let's be frank, I was trying desperately to dazzle this hot chick that was way out of my league, fooling her into thinking that I was A) going places and B) won't be that long of a commitment, so why not take the risk of falling in love with me. Then when A proved false, B came back to kick her in the butt, but she was hooked on me by that point, so it worked out in the end (better ask her that though).

Oh, one last thing, and I'm not saying this because it's Olympic fever; I absolutely love being Canadian, growing up in Canada, and living in Toronto ... a good test for this is when you return from abroad and walk up to the wicket and pull out your passport and see the flag on the customs official's jacket. I'm always smiling like an idiot ... "home" is all I'm thinking.

Can you tell me about any of the projects that you are currently working on?

No...not the features anyway as all are unprotected ideas at this point.

I can tell you that I'm going to try to make as many short films as I can this year because I bought a Canon 7D and now it's too damn simple to get a great image and make some movies. Just want to have some fun with the medium - you can check them out on my Vimeo page.