In 2002, Toronto-born filmmaker Charles Officer was asked to be someone’s date to the Harry Jerome Awards, an annual event that honours excellence among the African-Canadian population. Although he knew the name going in – the late Jerome famously ran track for Canada – he did not know the incredible history that shaped Jerome’s legacy. Though he found Jerome inspirational at that time, he had no idea just how great an impact he would have on his life, let alone that he would become the subject of his second feature film, Mighty Jerome.

It took five years before Officer would come into contact with the track star once again, when the National Film Board approached him to potentially direct a documentary about Jerome’s life. At that time, Officer had only directed a handful of shorts and had yet to focus his passion on filmmaking, coming from a background that included graphic design, architecture, acting and even professional hockey. He had not even begun shooting his first feature, Nurse.Fighter.Boy, which would go on to earn the writer-director 10 Genie nominations after a successful festival run. Suffice it to say, he was a bit taken aback by the NFB’s interest. Not one to cower though, Officer attacked the opportunity with the same fervour Jerome might have attacked a race.

“I had heard about this man before but I only knew that he was a fast runner, not what he actually accomplished,” Officer tells me when we meet. “I was nervous as hell but I just came at it from that naive place. I was so nervous that I overprepared.”

Officer’s preparation would ultimately win him the job over a handful of other directors. Having never made a documentary, though, he would now have to figure out just what that entailed. “I wanted to push the experience,” he says with clear sincerity in his tone. “There are formulas that work, but it really comes down to the story and how you’re going to interpret that cinematically.” Officer chose to do so in delectable black and white, breaking up his time between touching and engaging testimonials, extensive archival footage and striking recreations.

RACE AND RACES

To become more intimately familiar with Jerome’s life, Officer began by interviewing the people who knew him best, from the coach that brought him back from the brink of oblivion, Bill Bowerman, to his surprisingly supportive ex-wife, Wendy Jerome. “This guy affected his friends in a deep way,” says Officer, clearly also moved by vast admiration. “Sometimes, before interviews even started, people would break down.”

While the interviews would shape Officer’s treatment of the film, it didn’t hurt that the story he was telling was so naturally compelling to begin with. Jerome broke out onto the international track scene in 1960 when he tied the 100-metre-dash world record at the time. He instantly became a national hero and Canada’s greatest hope for a gold medal at the 1960 summer Olympics in Rome. When he failed to place there due to an injury, the backlash from the Canadian press was not only unduly harsh, but also exposed a Canadian attitude towards race that had previously been neatly hidden beneath a polite surface.

“What Harry experienced was paramount to how we saw Canadian politics with the civil rights movement at that time,” Officer states. “We don’t hear about certain elements of that struggle [in Canada] and we also don’t hear about how we’ve grown.”

Out of his hardships, Jerome would grow to earn an underdog status on the world track circuit, and we all know how much people love comeback stories. “It’s such a Hollywood story,” Officer gushes. “I was like, why hasn’t this already been made? Why haven’t I seen this already?”

One could argue that Jerome’s story was just waiting for the right person to tell it. Mighty Jerome is after all a fine piece of cinema. The uncannily natural arc to Jerome’s life might have made the structure of the film a little easier to piece together, but it was Officer’s calculated and concerted effort to tell that story with distinction and respect that ensured it crossed the finish line triumphantly.

“I am so hungry to dive in creatively now,” Officer exclaims, eyes beaming. “I just want to get to my next film.”

Just like an athlete, always thinking about the next race.

ooo

Vues d’Afrique Pan Africa International Film Festival

The United Nations has proclaimed 2011 to be the International Year for People of African Descent, which makes the 27th edition of Vues d’Afrique feel more relevant than ever. Over the next 10 days, more than a hundred African and Creole features, shorts, documentaries and series will be shown, starting this Friday with opening film Kinshasa Symphony, Martin Baer and Claus Wischmann’s documentary about the Congolese symphony orchestra. Amongst other notable titles, let’s mention Debs Gardner-Paterson’s Africa United, in which a group of kids from Rwanda attempt to make their way to Johannesburg to attend the 2010 World Cup; Alice Aterianus’ Les Nouvelles écritures de soi, a documentary about young slam poets in Gabon; and closing film Zombi Damou, Haitian director Arnold Antonin’s satire about the loves and political aspirations of yes, a zombie. Sections devoted to digital cinema, local productions, music-related pictures and children’s films complete this year’s selection. At Gesù (1200 Bleury), April 29 to May 8. (Kevin Laforest)

www.vuesdafrique.org

Mighty Jerome

Vues d’Afrique at Gesù (1200 Bleury), May 7

At Cinéma Parallèle, starting May 8