Jacquelyn is a Cape Breton Island-based award-winning filmmaker. Her film “In the Waves” premiered at Visions du Réel and was theatrically released at TIFF’s Cinematheque. Mills has been an editor, sound designer and cinematographer at the National Film Board of Canada, as well as for other internationally acclaimed films.
“Geographies of Solitude” is screening at the 2022 Hot Docs Canadian International Film Festival, which is taking place April 28-May 8. Find more information on the fest’s website.
W&H: Describe the film for us in your own words.
JM: “Geographies of Solitude” is an immersion into the rich ecosystem of Sable Island and the life of Zoe Lucas, a naturalist and environmentalist who has lived over 40 years on this remote sliver of land in the Northwest Atlantic Ocean.
W&H: What drew you to this story?
JM: I first saw this film when I was four years of age, while watching the news with my grandmother. The story was about a woman who lived and worked in a remote area of the Northwest Atlantic. Sable Island was described to be a crescent-shaped area of sand that is home to wild horses and seals.
This legend stuck with me, and I met Zoe Lucas 30 years later. It was the mythology that brought her to me, but it was all the other things that captured my attention and led me to make this film.
W&H: What do you want people to think about after they watch the film?
JM: This film explores one woman’s lifelong dedication to protecting our natural world. I don’t know what the solution is to our environmental crisis, but it breaks my heart that the world is in the state it’s in environmentally.
If we can experience what is sacred in nature, and the wonder of the natural world, I believe we would have “less taste for destruction,” as Rachel Carson would say. That’s why I made this film — to work with our current reality. Can we honor places? Can this inspire us to treat places with reverence?
W&H: What was the biggest challenge in making the film?
JM: It is worth noting the physical demands of walking across the island on foot and carrying heavy film gear. I filmed in wind, rain, fog, snow, and sand conditions. I didn’t put pressure on myself to move fast.
I was limited to only 10 minutes per day because I was using 16mm film. This allowed me to fully experience the island’s realities before filming. They were so rich that they outweighed any challenges I faced.
W&H: How did you get your film funded? Let us know how you got the film produced.
JM: This film was funded with Sundance Documentary Fund, Canada Council for the Arts, and Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec.
W&H: What inspired you to become a filmmaker?
JM: The combination of many art forms in cinema is what first attracted me to the medium. The creation of images, painting with shadow and light, creating montage, and exploring storytelling methods through expressive soundscapes. The combination of these elements in a cinematic expression creates an unique alchemy that transports you into a different emotional experience.
Documentary film in particular allows for an immediate response to the spontaneous, startling realities of the moment — realities that convey the fragile nature of existence. Cinema can be used to explore the wonder and complexity of human consciousness.
W&H: What’s the best and worst advice you’ve received?
JM: A piece of advice I still remember is from my dad: Most people give up after the last 10%.
W&H: What advice do you have for other women directors?
JM: Don’t give up at the last 10 percent.
W&H: Name your favorite woman-directed film and why.
JM: I love you All of Sofia Bohdanowicz’s films; she is a fierce artist with an impressive body of work. Her vision and talent are admirable.
W&H: How are you adjusting to life during the COVID-19 pandemic? Are you creative? If so, how?
JM: The pandemic’s beginning coincided with the editing stage of this film. It allowed me to finish the film slowly and thoughtfully.
W&H: The film industry has a long history of underrepresenting people of color onscreen and behind the scenes and reinforcing — and creating — negative stereotypes. What are your suggestions for making Hollywood and/or the doc industry more inclusive?
JM: It is important to ask ourselves how to be inclusive, responsible, conscious participants in the world — through film and otherwise. We must start somewhere. Eventually, it will be easy to create artist works that include the widest range of human experiences.
Source: Women And Hollywood
