TORONTO 鈥� When Wilfred Buck looks up at the sky, he sees Indigenous history and even his own story reflected back at him, as though it were all written in the stars.
Buck, the eponymous Cree elder at the centre of Lisa Jackson鈥檚 new documentary, is known as 鈥渢he star guy.鈥� He鈥檚 an astronomy expert and educator 鈥� with a jovial spirit and a rascally sense of humour 鈥� who has spent the last couple of decades gathering Indigenous knowledge that has been passed down orally across generations. He connects the dots 鈥� or rather the Cree, Anishinaabe and Lakota constellations 鈥� between modern science and ancestral tales, and teaches communities about these ties with help from an inflatable planetarium.
鈥淚t鈥檚 cosmology and world views,鈥� the 69-year-old Buck says over the phone from Winnipeg, where he resides, summing up what he has to offer.
鈥淎ny Indigenous culture 鈥� from all over the world 鈥� views their reality as a whole. Nothing's compartmentalized. Everything fits together. Everything has repercussions. Everything has connections. Everything has responsibilities.鈥�
鈥淲ilfred Buck鈥� director Jackson, a Toronto-based Anishinaabe filmmaker who is as cheery and wide-eyed about physics and the cosmos in a recent interview, says she was introduced to Buck鈥檚 work at an Indigenous astronomy presentation in 2017.
鈥淚 heard [the name] 鈥榃ilfred Buck鈥� and this voice in my head said: 鈥楽omebody has to make a film about [him],鈥欌�� Jackson says on a Zoom call from her Toronto home.
Jackson鈥檚 film adapts 鈥淚 Have Lived Four Lives,鈥� Buck鈥檚 harrowing and uplifting 2021 memoir.
In it, he recounts how his family was torn apart during the '60s Scoop, leaving him to fend for himself at a young age.
Buck, who is originally from Opaskwayak Cree Nation in Manitoba, survived addiction, systemic oppression and brushes with the justice system before becoming a keeper of Indigenous knowledge, passing wisdom that colonization tried to erase onto a new generation.
The film鈥檚 narration starts with an excerpt from Buck鈥檚 book that Jackson describes as 鈥渂eat poetry鈥� to kick off her doc鈥檚 鈥渞ock鈥檔鈥檙oll journey鈥�: 鈥淚 am of the fresh-out-of-the-bush, partly civilized, colonized, displaced, confused, angry people, trained and shamed by teachers, preachers, doctors, nurses, law enforcement officials, movies, radio, and television programs to be a pill-popping, hard drinking, self-loathing, easily impressed, angry, non-conformist, maladjusted, disaffected youth of the 鈥榙irty-Indian鈥� baby boomer generation.鈥�
Jackson describes her film 鈥� a co-production between the National Film Board and Jackson鈥檚 Door Number Three Productions 鈥� as a story about resisting colonization. It just happens to have 鈥渂ell bottoms in the bush,鈥� she says.
To recreate Buck鈥檚 journey, the good times and the bad, Jackson blends dramatic recreations shot on 16 mm film with archival NFB footage and era-appropriate home videos recorded by other families, which she would discover on YouTube. She also frequently returns to the present, using a hand-held camera to show Buck at work. He camps out with an audience, pointing at the sky, giving the elements personalities, telling stories about stars motivated by purpose and emotion, falling to Earth and becoming people.
鈥淓nergy, light, that is what we are,鈥� says Jackson.
鈥淭he reality is, so much of what we know in science now, the same things are being said in these stories.鈥�
She says Buck鈥檚 storytelling weaves together science, creativity and emotion in an enduring way to store knowledge and counter the 鈥淓uro-western鈥� instinct to compartmentalize.
鈥淓verything is separated. It's rational. It's measurable. It's, like, very cut and dried.鈥� The thing about Wilfred, his story and what he stands for, is he's saying, 鈥楴o, you cannot divide it all up and separate it out.鈥�
As a filmmaker, Jackson defies categorization while working across formats and genres.
Jackson鈥檚 first short, 2004鈥檚 鈥淪uckerfish,鈥� is a whimsical and emotional doc about her relationship with her mother, a residential school survivor. Her 2018 virtual reality project, 鈥淏iidaaban: First Light,鈥� places viewers in a downtown Toronto landscape that has been reclaimed by nature. Her Imax short 鈥淟ichen,鈥� which premiered in 2020 at the Sundance Film Festival, is a poetic nature doc about an organism with a resilience that subtly parallels that of Indigenous communities.
Stylistically, 鈥淲ilfred Buck鈥� is an amalgamation of Jackson鈥檚 past work. It鈥檚 a hybrid documentary where dramatic recreations bleed into archival footage and in-the-moment reportage. Buck鈥檚 personal history, which bears the trauma of colonialism, is interspersed with his efforts to reclaim Indigenous knowledge and identity.
鈥淚 saw in his story someone who returned to his roots,鈥� says Jackson.
鈥淭his film was an opportunity for me to explore that with someone who I still have great admiration for. We're kind of kindred spirits. He's a total joker and he's so down to earth but he also has this intellectual curiosity. I'm kind of a nerd and I'm an artist, both at the same time. We share those things.鈥�
鈥淲ilfred Buck鈥� opens May 17 in select theatres in Vancouver, Saskatoon and Regina and on May 24 at the Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema in Toronto.
Its festival run includes stops at the Yorkton Film Festival in Saskatchewan on May 23 and Whitehorse's Ad盲ka Cultural Festival on June 27.
鈥� Radheyan Simonpillai is a freelance writer based on Toronto.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 14, 2024.
Radheyan Simonpillai, The Canadian Press
