TORONTO -- James Cromwell puts himself on the line for the issues he passionately believes in, such as environmentalism and respect for aboriginal cultures.
So it was easy for the Oscar-nominated American actor from Babe to head north, the far north, to film a marvellous but modest Canadian movie called The Snow Walker. The film is based on a short story by famed author Farley Mowat.
"James told me not to bother to send him the script," writer-director Charles Martin Smith told The Sun yesterday prior to the late night world premiere of the film as a Special Presentation in the festival. "I thought that meant he wasn't interested in the role -- but what he really meant was that it didn't matter, that he was willing to say yes just hearing the story."
The Snow Walker, set in the high north in 1953, is the story of a hot-rodding bush pilot (played by rising Canadian star Barry Pepper) who crashes on a run across the tundra and is forced to learn about survival from his only passenger (Annabella Piugattuk), a young Inuit being flown to Yellowknife to get treatment for her tuberculosis.
"There are no accidents," Cromwell says of being part of the cast of The Snow Walker. He plays the owner of the bush plane company that sends out a search party after the crash.
Part of the attraction for Cromwell was shooting in Churchill, Manitoba, as well as on location in British Columbia. Other true tundra scenes were shot in Rankin Inlet in Nunavut but Cromwell did not participate in those.
Churchill, however, intrigued him: "That's where it starts," he says of this unique city where the boreal forest and the arctic tundra intersect. "And it's where western culture and the remnants of Inuit culture meet. That is the interface that really intrigues me. That's what attracted me to the story."
In the film, Pepper's character will either begin to understand Inuit culture and survival techniques, or he will die. Cromwell is convinced that the mass of people of North America also must begin to appreciate aboriginal cultures in their midst, or suffer because of their ignorance.
"Aboriginal issues are key," he says of a new world order in which "the ethics and morality of almost every issue" are open for discussion in the wake of 9/11.
In his own country, Cromwell is the founder of Hecel Oyakapi, a foundation which helps the Lakota people of South Dakota perserve their language and culture through traditional arts. Cromwell also named his production company Koshari, after an impish clown god in Hopi culture that appears to people to show them how not to act.
In The Snow Walker, a single southern man learns his lesson in a profound way. "There are epic stories that are told," says Cromwell, "but this one (is intimate) and I like it because it allows the audience in. This one is something where people are being deeply touched by it. It is just a wonderful story. Good for Charlie for doing this."
Smith is an American who moved to Vancouver as a result of his experience working on Never Cry Wolf, the film version of the Mowat classic in which Smith, working then as an actor, played the role that is loosely based on the real-life Mowat.
It is Never Cry Wolf that inspired Cromwell to first meet Smith. So he was open to Smith's offer to do this film.
"And I love that it's a Canadian film," says Cromwell. "I think that it's really important that Canada make films about Canadians, especially with all the crap that we send you."
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