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BY PIETA WOOLLEY
AS CHOSEN BY THE READERS OF QATHET LIVING
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8 November 2023 • qathetliving.ca
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ovember 8 will mark the world premiere of Texada, a 17-minute virtual reality documentary, directed by Claire Sanford and Josephine Anderson, at the International Documentary Film Festival in Amsterdam. The VR experience is produced by the National Film Board of Canada. Immersed in a 3D experience, film footage and animation take you on a 17-minute journey through geologic time. Lava flows. Rocks form. Mines appear. Limestone moves. Humans jump in the quarry. “It’s an attempt to show geologic time in a matter of seconds rather than millions of years,” said Josephine, who lives on Bowen Island. Claire, now 37, moved to Texada with her family when she was eight. Her father, Mike Sanford, became a long-time teacher at the Texada School. They lived in the Gillies Bay cabin her family built, adding to it until it became a home. “The school had about 150 kids when we moved there,” said Claire, explaining the rise and fall of the limestone quarries. “Then there was fewer than 20 students.” “The first thing that you see when you take the ferry to Texada is this big open quarry with this mass amount of gray rock,” she said, noting that limestone is in everything from toothpaste to steel. “Back in the day, you’d see conveyor belts running all the time and barges
in and out. We also saw what happens when these mines shut down.” Claire remembers the freedom, the wilderness, the dusty limestone breeze, and the sunsets that became ordinary backdrops to the extraordinary landscape. The qualities of the air and the light affected Claire’s moods; ultimately, immersion in Texada’s land and story helped guide her to her career: cinematography and documentary filmmaking. So did Brooks’ Media Arts 11, which put a video camera in her hands for the first time. Claire and Josephine gathered footage and interviews over two trips to the Island, one in 2016, and the other in February of 2022. In the six years between visits, VR technology morphed significantly – and it continues to change. Neither Claire nor Josephine is a gamer, although both see VR as a remarkable medium for documentary filmmaking – something they are helping to pioneer. “You’re on an animated landscape that’s morphing beneath your feet with massive rock protrusions shifting almost as if they’re made of a fluid material… it’s a very different type of experience than seeing something on a flat screen out in the distance.” If you have access to a VR headset, you can eventually experience the island in an entirely new way, for free. You can find a trailer and event updates now at www.nfb.ca/texada. || pieta@prliving.ca
