marten berkman

art, film, photography of the Earth              

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Film/Video

 

Completed Works

 

Please see also: Films in Development/Production

 

Glossary of abbreviations:

producer, director, artistic director, director of photography, camera, post production

 

All photography © marten berkman

 

 

 

 

 

Cascade de Lumière / Cascade of Light

(documentary / drama / experimental) 2007;

d,a,dop,c,pp

23:40

 

In the arctic, some adventures make the spirit dance.

 

A group of friends from an urban culture follow a river to the Arctic Ocean, to perpetual light and the spectacle of arctic life. In this land most in danger of being affected by global warming, they find the meaning of wilderness, and the price being paid for our industrialized lives. Here they discover how awareness, not crisis, must define our relationship with the rest of the natural world.

 

And how the greatest journey

is where the land takes us in ourselves.

 

 

 

 

 

Adrenaline Bach

(experimental short, National Film Board of Canada) 2007;

d,a,dop,c

6:30

 

Official selection, Montreal International Film Festival 2007

 

Adrenaline Bach is a visually stunning short film that features Tim Sellars, a triathlon athlete who trains among the forests, ridges and mists of Canada¹s boreal mountains. A meditation on the inter-connectedness of human nature and the natural world, the film is shot against the startlingly beautiful landscape of the Yukon Territory. Director Marten Berkman was the winner of the 2006 Yukon Northern Sights Short Film Competition.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tending Toward Silence

(dramatic short, written and directed by Arlin McFarlane) 2007 ;

dop,c,pp

8:00

 

A film which follows a woman's inner journey of the imagination, to find peace, dignity, and grace on her deathbed.

 

 

Winner, Emerging Film Maker Award, Dawson City International Short film Festival, Dawson City, Yukon

 

 

 

 

 

Last Stop for Miles

(dramatic short, written by Celia McBride, directed by Clara McBride) 2007; d,a,dop,c,pp

dop, c

6:00

 

In a small city north of 60, a woman named January hits the road and the bottle, running from a man and heading nowhere fast. A series of curious events begin to unfold forcing her to make an unexpected change in plans.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Three Rivers:wild waters, sacred places

(documentary short, Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society) 2004;

d,a,dop,c,pp

15:00

 

Honourable Mention, Environment category, WaterWalker Film Festival,  Ottawa 2005

Certificate of Merit, NatureScreen , World Wilderness Congress, Anchorage 2005

Additional Screenings: ReelHeART Film Fest (Toronto); Global Art Film Fest (Sacramento, Los Angeles, New York, San Juan, Rio de Janeiro) Reel Paddling Film Festival (Ottawa)

 

"Three Rivers is a lovely, important film about the sacred, creativity, and nature.  I often show it in my master classes on "Cinema and the Sacred", around the world."

 

-    Velcrow Ripper, director ScaredSacred

 

When a remote watershed in northern Canada is targeted for industrial development, Canadian artists travel here to raise awareness about this pristine wilderness. After a journey of adventure, hardship, and insight, the artists create works inspired by their voyage. Their work reflects the meaning they found in the wilderness, and asks questions about such meaning for global industrial culture.

 

 

 

 

 

Cascade of Light - short

(experimental) 2006

p,d,a,dop,c,pp

4:16

 

Cascade of Light follows a group of paddlers down a remote and wild river. In a section of whitewater, the river provides insight of an unexpected kind.

 

 

 

 

 

Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race

(dogumentary) 2006;

p,d,a,dop,c,pp

50:00

 

The Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race takes place each year between Alaska, USA and Yukon, Canada. In the depths of subarctic winter, at temperatures 47 degrees below zero, dog teams cover 1000 miles of frozen rivers and mountain passes to reach their destination. This journey of adventure, teamwork and dedication is only possible with one of the greatest forces we know, the bond between humans and their dogs.

 

 

 

 

 

Flowing Generations

(documentary, Elaine Alexie) 2005

dop, c

30:00

 

When Teetlit Gwich'in elders take youth down the Wind River in Canada's subarctic, they awaken an ancient relationship with the land, and kindle a new one for their people in the 21st century.

 

 

 

 

 

Yukon Quest 2004

(documentary short, Yukon Quest International) 2004;

p,d,a,dop,c,pp

9:00

 

Selection for Banff Mountain Film Festival World Tour 2004-2005;

Montreal International Adventure Film Fest 2005

 

Through images and music, a journey along the remotest and wildest international sled dog race in the world

 

 

Santa Lucia

(drama, Richard Lawrence) 2002;

dop,c

 

A young boy who confuses Christmas with his own birthday discovers sharing in his own way

 

 

Mothers Day

(drama, Richard Lawrence) 2004;

dop, c

Winner MITY Award, Dawson City International Short Film Festival 2005

One boy's gesture of love for his mother, rebutted by the violence at home, begins a journey of pain and ultimately redemption.

 

 

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Films in Development/Production

 

 

AppleMark

 

 

 

 

Klondike Saba

(documentary, Marie Carr/Marten Berkman)

d,a,dop,c,pp

 

In the dark of winter, north of sixty degrees latitude, eleven women practice an artform which at first seems completely out of context in their subarctic home. Yet as they perform, passion  and beauty transform the ordinary into the extraordinary, for performers and audience alike.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wild Waters, Sacred Places

(documentary, Marten Berkman, Elaine Alexie)

p,d,a,dop,c,pp

 

Wild Waters, Sacred Places is a feature-length documentary on the spiritual

cross roads faced by indigenous and urban peoples as we orphan ourselves from the rest of the natural world.

 

Presenting a paradigm shift from the duality of "environment vs industry", WWSP portrays why our industriousness belongs on the land. What WWSP also reveals is the part of our human nature that we have left out of our race to develop.

 

WWSP is about our emotion, passion, awe and inspiration in the natural world. It is about our spiritual capacity, and our membership in a vast community of living things.

It is about wonder, beauty, and the experiences that can never be placed in numbers and words. It is about art being as essential as science in understanding ourselves and our home. It is about nature, and that includes human nature, why we need to feel it, connect to it, and how.

 

Following an indigenous artist¹s transformative journey in the threatened wilderness of the Yukon becomes a catalyst for questioning the meaning of the sacred, and nature¹s place in it, for all of humanity. Traveling to indigenous sacred sites from the Himalayas to the Andes to Algonquin lands near Ottawa, meeting with artists, scientists, spiritual leaders, indigenous elders, indigenous youth, miners, politicians and many more, WWSP challenges our utilitarian view of the world and discovers how we can reconnect to the land in the 21st century and beyond.

 

For urban culture drunk on materialism, corporations deluded by economics, and indigenous cultures dissolving in the face of them both, WWSP asks an essential question as our human nature unravels the last wilderness on the planet:

what is our meaningful relationship with the rest of nature, and how does that blossom in an increasingly industrialized world?

 

 

Entre le ciel et la terre

(drama/choreography, Marten Berkman)

 

A visual poem, ³Entre le ciel et la terre² explores our immaterial and ineffable relationship with landscape through dance, music and light.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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