Premiere of ‘Run’ draws large audience

An old light green truck drives along a dirt road on the Saskatchewan prairies, as a narrator – a young Native girl – describes her conflicted relationship with her mother.

This was the opening scene of ‘Run’, a film telling the story of a young Native teen called Ashley Littletent, who spends the summer with her grandparents while her lawyer mother takes a trip to Chicago.

The movie was shot on a Saskatchewan farm during the summer of 2008, by film partners Tom Simms and Chris Funk who both live in Saskatoon where Simms teaches high school students at Nutana Collegiate and Funk runs his own film company.

“I wrote the original play that the movie is based on three years ago at Nutana,” said Simms, explaining that he co-wrote the screenplay version along with Funk.

“Having taught at Nutana in the last six years, I’ve met a lot of those characters that are in the film. They’ve walked into my life and they left a real impression on me,” he said, adding a lot of First Nations people he has met are funny, have a great sense of humor and love to tease.

“That was kind of Joseph’s character, the guy who played the moshum (Cree for grandpa). He joked all the time,” Simms said.

He added that the public’s reaction was really fascinating and the film was really big-looking once the final edits and music were complete.

“It seemed to really move people,” he said. “We found (viewer) stories that just fascinated us.”

This was particularly evident during the Q & A’s at the theatre, where people would talk about being extremely moved.

“It was almost like they were asking for advice because the film brought out what was going on in their own lives,” he said.

Simms started working with Funk when they made a feature film documentary on football in Saskatchewan called ‘Seasons of Dreams’. They started talking about what to do next, and considered doing further with Simm’s stage play, ‘Run’.

“We started writing a screenplay and just went from there,” Funk said. “I’d say definitely the shooting experience was the most interesting part because it was so fast — we shot the whole film in 16 days— and it was two weeks of intense work,” Funk said.

There was also an interesting twist around using the name Littletent in the script when one of the actors recognized it.

“(Actor) Joseph Naytowhow, he knew the Littletent clan,” said Funk. “He and Tom had to go out and… go to some sort of Aboriginal ceremony to get the blessing from the Littletents to use their name.” They found out there were a lot of Littletent’s around the province.

The Métis actress they chose for the lead role, Ariel Yurach, was in Simm’s drama class at Nutana, when he decided to try to cast her in the movie.

“He realized that stage acting wasn’t really her strength because her acting was so subtle but it was very effective,” Funk said. Simms did a screen test with Yurach and recognized her talent in playing emotional scenes. Both Funk and Simms agree that Yurach did a really good job playing the lead character who is of both First Nations and Caucasian ancestry.

“It’s basically a middle class family with an Aboriginal grandfather and a Caucasian grandmother,” Funk explained. “They live in a non-First Nations area. ”

“Tom felt pretty strongly that he didn’t want negative clichés and wanted to tell a positive story. So that’s the direction we went,” Funk added.

Naytowhow plays Ashley’s grandpa, “Joseph Littletent. His own character is not the typical elderly Indian man often portrayed on the big screen.

“It’s not your stereotypical chief or wise old man on screen. More human and more part of society,” Naytowhow said. “It’s not far from how I am as a person, in some ways.”

He said he was glad when Simms chose him to carry out the role.

“I was just a grandpa who had First Nation background that’s why I had the sage burning in the barn and that sort of thing. So I knew a little bit about that part of my culture,” he said about his character.

Naytowhow recalls the most difficult part of shooting the film.

“Pinching my wife’s butt,” he laughs referring to a scene with actress Julie Janzen, who played Ashley’s grandma. “Because it’s physical contact. With your own partner it’s very natural, but when it’s another actor you’re kind of shy. Ö Thank goodness they didn’t do a lovemaking scene – that would have been uncomfortable,” he added.
Although Naytowhow has acted on stage in the past, he said being on-screen was a different experience.

“Everything is so exposed, everything is so graphic. The size of the screen and then your image, it’s a nuance, you can see it,” he said. “The acting has to be pretty good to evoke emotion.”

Naytowhow added that movies such as ‘Run’, focusing on Aboriginal people, often educate mainstream society so opinions aren’t based on stereotypes.

“It still happens. We’re just trying to come out of our misery and that’s what I find with this movie. We’re trying to help people recognize that we’re human and we honour our traditions, he said.

“We’re made to look very good on there. Not to look like we’re walking down the street staggering… putting needles in our arms,” he said. “We come out strong in there, we come out looking good.”

‘Run’ was submitted to film festivals around the world and shown at Hollywood’s International Family Film Festival in March. It will be screened at the Saskatoon Flicks, International Youth Film Festival from May 12-15. An update on further screenings can be found at www.fivestones.com.