Fairy Creek is not a documentary Jen Muranetz ever expected to make, and when she began, she had no idea what it would turn into.
“Fairy Creek is an urgent portrait of resistance, documenting an assembly of protestors organizing together despite varying backgrounds, ideologies and tactics,” reads the film’s description. “The rapture of a united eco-activist community, coinhabiting the Earth, dancing together and cherishing biodiversity.”
Prior to the film’s production, Muranetz was based in Vancouver, where she completed her last documentary, What About Our Future, which followed the youth climate strike movement. She had begun to lean more into stories that were environmentally driven but also centred on human stories.
When Muranetz heard about a group of protestors forming a blockade in the Fairy Creek watershed to protect the region’s old-growth forests, she had to check it out.
“I thought I would make maybe a 10- to 15-minute-long film,” Muranetz said. “I didn’t realize that it was going to become a feature at the beginning because it was quite small. There wasn’t a lot happening on the ground right away, but there was this energy that you could tell was happening at the blockade that I found interesting.”
Her film begins during the blockade's infancy in August 2020 – before the arrests, court injunctions and widespread media coverage that would capture one of Canada’s largest acts of civil disobedience.
When the injunction was approved and the RCMP’s arrival became imminent, Muranetz knew she couldn’t step away. She eventually formed a team, enlisting the help of other filmmakers, including Sepher Samimi, who joined as producer and director of photography.
“Once he and I started collaborating a lot more, that’s when we realized this film was larger than just a short film,” she said.
Without the structure of a typical film production – no funding, no schedule and no way to predict what might happen on any given day – Muranetz adopted a guerrilla-style approach. She commuted from Victoria, often slept in her car and embedded herself on the front lines of the blockade.
“I really wanted to make a film where people were embedded in the experience and had a more visceral sense of what this blockade was all about,” she said. “Most of our time was spent being embedded with the blockaders to understand where they were at, and to watch as actions were unfolding, strategies were changing, people were coming and going on the ground.”
Muranetz and her team also acquired press badges, which allowed them to speak with RCMP officers and kept the team of filmmakers, who often blended in with the blockaders, safe.
The film presents a nuanced look at all the actors involved – from loggers and Indigenous people to RCMP and the blockaders themselves.
The film can be intense and violent, capturing waves of arrests amid the drawn-out conflict, but the absurdity of the situation can make it appear almost humorous, as well. RCMP officers monitoring a late-night blockader rave resemble chaperones at a school dance. A gentle forestry worker at a mill, and quippy exchanges between RCMP and protestors at times make the situation appear almost comical.
“I think there’s also something to say about humour being a tool that people lean into when they’re processing something intense,” said Muranetz, who sometimes found the situation nearly theatrical – but knew that it wasn’t.
“I want to really just emphasize that it wasn’t theatre. There were a lot of people who got arrested, who were harmed on all sides,” she said. “I imagine this is the same for some forestry workers who were out of work, and for RCMP officers who had to do a job they didn’t want to do. But specifically for a lot of blockaders –especially those who were people of colour or Indigenous – a lot of them were put through some pretty brutal conditions.”
Through Muranetz’s lens, Fairy Creek is not always black and white.
“The Pacheedaht First Nation chief and council released a public statement asking the blockaders to leave, and the blockaders didn’t leave,” she said. “So that becomes a complicated thing – what does it mean to take a stand for the land? Who has the right to take a stand for the land?”
While the film spends most of its time within the blockade – highlighting efforts to protect the old growth, the RCMP’s arrival and the harsh conditions protestors endured – Muranetz said it may leave viewers with more questions than answers.
“What I want viewers to walk away with is a reflection on their own personal journey when it comes to land defence, or activism, or what it even means to take a stand for something you believe in,” she said.
“So many people showed up because they believed in something, because this was something they felt like they could stand behind. And so I want viewers to reflect on themselves. How much would they be willing to put at stake for something they believe in? And where do you draw the line?”
Fairy Creek will screen in theatres across Canada beginning this weekend (June 6). In Victoria, it will show at Cinecenta on June 6 and 7, and at the Roxy Theatre on June 13, 14, 17 and 18. For showtimes and details, visit fairycreekfilm.com.
