Building large industrial plants in a community always raises questions about public consultation and democracy, but when these mega-projects involve fossil fuels, the discussion also becomes environmental. Over four years, filmmakers Magnus Isacsson and Martin Duckworth follow the battle fought by citizens against the Rabaska consortium’s methane tanker terminal planned for the south shore of the St. Lawrence, opposite île d’Orléans.
While the local elites rally around the prospect of an $800 million investment, local residents fight tooth and nail to stop the project. Their main concern is safety and security, but they find allies among people concerned with protection of the cultural heritage of the area, and environmentalists opposing increases in greenhouse gas emissions.
The Battle of Rabaska is a suspense-filled tale of citizen intervention, captured in the direct cinema style with sympathy and sensitivity. While following all the twists and turns of the story, the film delivers touching portraits of the main characters. In the end it raises important questions about democracy and the role of governments and powerful lobbies.
Stay tuned for upcoming screenings!
Martin Duckworth is a Canadian documentary director and cinematographer who was on staff at the National Film Board from 1963 to 1970 and has continued to work with them as a freelance filmmaker. He was cinematographer on more than 100 films, and directed or co-directed 30, most of them with the NFB.
Telling dramatic stories which bring crucial social and political issues to the attention of the public – that was Magnus Isacsson’s objective as a documentary filmmaker. In the last fifteen years, he specialized in feature length “process films”, following conflictual situations over long periods of time. Power (Cineflix 1996), told the five-year story of how the Cree Indians defeated Hydro-Québec’s Great Whale megaproject. The film received the award for best documentary at the Paris International Environmental Film Festival in 1997 and the Grand Prize of the Lausanne festival in 1999. The Choir Boys (Érézi 1999) about Montreal’s choir of homeless men, was nominated for several major Canadian awards and received the Golden Conch at the Mumbai International festival in 2000. The feature length View from the Summit, (Érézi 2002) is a multi-faceted view of the politics of protest, which the Globe and Mail called “remarkable…riveting”. Isacsson also co-directed Pressure Point (Multi-Monde 1999), a film on the same theme that received the Quebec Film Critics award for Best Documentary in 2000. Maxime, McDuff and McDo (Virage), his second film on attempts to unionize McDonald’s restaurants, was nominated for three Gémeaux awards. Isacsson’s most recent films are ‘The Battle of Rabaska’ ( with Martin Duckworth, ONF 2008) and Art in Action (Amazone Films 2009) which received the Prix Gémeaux for best portrait or biography in 2011. Isacsson received the 2004 Prix Lumières from the Quebec directors’ association. ( ARRQ.)
Magnus Isacsson was born in Sweden in 1948. He immigrated to Canada in 1970 and became a Canadian citizen in 1978. He is fluent in Swedish, English and French and understands Spanish. After studying political science at the Universities of Stockholm and Montreal, Isacsson started his career as a radio producer for Swedish Broadcasting and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation from 1972 to 1980. From 1980 to 1986 he directed numerous current affairs reports and investigative stories for the English and French television networks of the CBC, for programs such as Le Point, Contrechamp and The Fifth Estate.
Isacsson taught audiovisual production at l’INIS, the Quebec film school, and at several universities, including Whitman College in Washington State, the University of Montreal and Concordia U. In the mid-eighties he taught video production in Zimbabwe and South Africa for Montreal-based Vidéo Tiers Monde (Third World Video). He directed an instructional tape on video production, which received the award for best audiovisual production from the Association for Audiovisual Teaching Techniques in 1991. He was a member and former co-chair of the Documentary Association of Canada (DOC), a member of the Association des Réalisateurs et Réalisatrices du Québec (ARRQ), and of SARTEC. He was also vice-president of the Observatoire du documentaire.
Isacsson passed away in 2012.
