H2Oil in Top 10 Independent Docs of 2009

It’s safe to say that the Alberta Oil Sands have achieved a singular level of regard in the national imagination. Images of them proliferate the media. Usually beautifully detailed and taken from great heights, they conjure up anxieties running deep in our culture – of thirst and demolition and bewildered entitlement. They are the largest and perhaps most important industrial energy project in the world. And I wonder, after seeing the provocative and powerful documentary H2Oil, if the Oil Sands aren’t simply an icon for our times, but if they are perhaps some great metonymy for them as well. Cruising across their unreal expanse at the beginning of the film, we acquire the sense that what’s visible of the Sands can only ever stand for something larger. The Oil Sands are a flash-point for volatile inter-provincial debate, a bulging knot in the North American petroleum market, the fuel for our cities, and an environmental wager of global proportions.

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Hot Docs 2009 Preview

by: Tim, BlogTO, Apr. 29 2009

H2Oil picked as BlogTO’s top Hot Doc Picks!

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Gripping eco-flicks top 2009’s Hot Docs lineup

by: Constance Droganes, CTV, Apr. 28 2009

Alberta’s Athabasca oil sands drive “H2Oil,” Shannon Walsh’s eye-popping exploration into their impact on local water ecology and peoples’ health.

“Anyone who starts to pull back the curtain, not just on the tar sands but on any environmental issue today, will find lots to be disturbed about,” Walsh told CTV.ca during a phone call from Montreal.

Before Greenpeace came to the tar sands Walsh was diving into the great divide between environmentalists, oil corporations and government. Their beef? How do you serve the economy and save the planet at the same time?

“You can ask what’s more important: Oil or water? But there’s a bigger question here and it concerns our ability to live on the planet,” says Walsh. “These are life and death questions for all of us.”

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Hot Docs film fest boasts strongest lineup ever after record submissions

by: CBC, March 24, 2009

Toronto’s Hot Docs film festival programmers had a record number of submissions for this year’s lineup, leading organizers to tout the 2009 program as the strongest in the event’s 16-year history.

Organizers revealed details for the upcoming festival at a packed downtown Toronto club Tuesday morning, with 171 films to unspool across 10 screening programs. The selections span a range of topics from macro issues like international environmental conflicts (Waterlife, The Cove, H2Oil) to a fascinating stories about individuals, such as an Indian boy facing life with a facial deformity (Ganesh: Boy Wonder).

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H2Oil ou l’insatiable soif du pétrole albertain

écrit par: Jessica Nadeau , Rue Frontenac, April 17, 2009

L’exploitation des sables bitumineux est-elle en train d’assécher les nappes phréatiques et d’empoisonner les communautés vivant en aval de Fort McMurray? C’est la question que se pose la documentariste montréalaise Shannon Walsh avec son nouveau film H2Oil, qui sera présenté en première au festival des Hot Docs de Toronto en mai.

Tout a débuté il y a quelques années lorsque des amis de Shannon Walsh, qui embouteillent de l’eau de source dans la forêt boréale en Alberta près des zones d’exploitation pétrolière, ont sonné l’alarme. «Ils m’ont appelée pour me dire de venir voir ce qui se passait chez eux, il n’y avait pratiquement plus d’eau et ils avaient peur que leur eau soit contaminée. Pour moi, ça a levé le rideau sur le sujet des sables bitumineux et plus je creusais, plus j’avais de questions.»

Très rapidement, la documentariste s’est retrouvée chez les autochtones de la communauté de Fort Chipewyan en aval des exploitations pétrolières sur l’Athabasca. L’endroit même où on a retrouvé un poisson à deux têtes récemment. Et où, bien sûr, les autochtones qui préconisent un mode de vie traditionnel continuent de pêcher.

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Doc digs into oil sands

by: Patricia Bailey, Playback Oct 29, 2008

The producers of an upcoming doc on the Alberta oil sands, H2Oil, hope to get audiences talking about one of the world’s largest industrial projects and its potentially devastating environmental impact.

“I can’t believe that the oil sands wasn’t a major issue in the federal election,” said writer/director Shannon Walsh, during a break in editing the doc, which will air on Global and Télé-Québec, likely some time next winter. “We are mortgaging our environmental future with this project and the government isn’t doing anything,” says Walsh, who began the doc in 2006 shortly after receiving a call from friends who have a spring water bottling company near the oil sands.

“They were worried because their water levels were down,” recalls Walsh. “They were sure it had something to do with the oil sands.” Two barrels of water are required to extract one barrel of oil; much of which comes from the nearby Athabasca river. Walsh says she quickly became determined to “unravel what’s going on in the oil sands.”

It’s estimated that major oil companies such as Shell, Chevron, Exxon, Total, Occidental and Imperial have invested nearly $100 billion in Alberta’s 3,000-square-kilometer “bitumen belt.” The controversial project has transformed the once-pristine wilderness around Fort McMurray and the Athabasca River into a landscape of enormous black mines — so large they can now be seen from space — and toxic waste ponds. The Canadian Energy Research Institute has suggested that between 2000 and 2020 the oil sands could contribute some $51 billion to the federal government, $41 billion to the Alberta government and $11 billion to other provinces.

Produced by Sergeo Kirby and Sarah Spring of Loaded Pictures, one of H2Oil’s principal subjects is Athabasca Chipewyan Chief Allan Adam, who wants the government to stop companies from extracting oil from the sands until thorough environmental impact studies have been conducted. Adam, who has threatened court action if the oil sands projects proceed, believes leakage is polluting the Athabasca. Spring is thrilled that Global is broadcasting the point-of-view documentary, which was funded by the network, SODEC, the Canada Council, the CTF and Télé-Québec. “It’s wonderful they picked it up. We want to reach as wide an audience as possible.”

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Loaded Pictures fait sa niche au Québec

30/10/08

Alors que 2008 fut l’année de EyeSteelFilm – surtout grâce à «Up The Yangtze» de Yung Chang, un des documentaires les plus lucratifs de l’histoire canadienne – 2009 pourrait être favorable à une autre boîte de production anglo-québécoise, Loaded Pictures.

Situés sur la rue Saint-Viateur à Montréal, les bureaux de la jeune compagnie bourdonnent depuis les derniers mois avec les détails finaux apportés à «Roadsworth : Franchir la ligne» de Alan Kohl, cofondateur de la boîte avec le producteur Sergeo Kirby. Le film, qui fut coproduit avec l’ONF, sera présenté en grande première aux RIDM le mois prochain.

L’autre grand chantier de Loaded Pictures est le documentaire «H2Oil», un film destiné à Global Television et Télé-Québec traitant de l’exploitation et l’impact environnemental des sables bitumineux en Alberta et dans l’Ouest canadien. Le film réalisé par Shannon Walsh est produit par Sergeo Kirby et Sarah Spring.

L’équipe comprend le directeur photo Alan Kohl, les monteurs Sophie Leblond et Étienne Gagnon, ainsi que les compositeurs Rebecca Foon et Ian Havsky. Des animations de James Brathwaite, Dale Hayward et Sylvie Trouvé ponctuent également le film financé par le Conseil des Arts du Canada, CanWest, le FCT, la Sodec et le Crédit d’impôts du gouvernement du Québec.

La filmographie de Loaded Pictures comprend aussi le court métrage de fiction «Transfert» de Guillaume Paquin-Boutin, présenté au dernier FNC, et le documentaire «Wal-Town» de Sergeo Kirby. La boîte complète également le film «Vanishing Currents» de Sebastian Lange, coproduit par Lange et Gabrielle Cran.