DRIFF Alumni Spotlight: Stacey Tenenbaum
Since 2017, DRIFF has cultivated a space for audiences to engage with diverse filmmakers from the Durham Region, across Canada, and around the globe. Our Alumni Spotlight series highlights the impacts and achievements of past and present DRIFF filmmakers who are working in media arts today.
Stacey Tenenbaum is a Montreal-based award-winning creative producer and director known for Scrap, Shiners, Mystery Hunters and The Beat. Her documentary, Shiners, which she wrote, produced, and directed, was presented in over 20 film festivals, and won several best documentary awards, including DRIFF 2018’s Best Documentary Feature Award. Shiners was also named one of the top 10 films of 2017 by the Globe and Mail. The film focuses on shoeshiners, who share not only the same job, but also the realization that most people in our general society views their work as beneath them.
As someone who has worked in television for 16 years before becoming a filmmaker, Tenenbaum understands what it takes to tell a great narrative. Her passion for film and curiosity about others around her is truly inspirational and makes us want to interview the people we know to learn about their stories. She has a way to connect with incredible people all around the world and shares their stories in a way that does them justice. Whether it is a story about shoeshiners, musicians, or even planes and ships, Tenenbaum can bring it alive and captivate the audience.
In 2014, Tenenbaum founded a Montreal-based boutique documentary film company called H2L Productions that features documentary films shot around the world. Its first documentary feature was Pipe Dreams, which was produced, directed, and written by Tenenbaum. The film tells a story of five young organists who compete in Canada’s International Organ Competition (CIOC). It was presented at Hot Docs and received recognition among critics and mainstream audiences alike.
Among Tenenbaum’s other recent movies is Scrap, a film that showcases what happens to things like planes, trains, and ships when they can no longer be used. Scrap was an official selection at the 2022 Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival.
We caught up with Tenenbaum to learn more about her journey into documentary filmmaking and the details of her latest projects.
First off, it’s been a while! What have you been up to since your documentary Shiners was shown at DRIFF in 2018?
I’ve been up to quite a bit actually! I had a film called Pipe Dreams that came out in 2019 and that was about a young competitive pipe organist. So, he plays the organ and it’s actually a lot more exciting than it sounds! It’s a really fun competition film and the music is fantastic. So, that was great, and it premiered at Hot Docs. And then I had another film that just came out last year that’s called Scrap and it’s about what happens to things like trains and planes and ships when they are no longer useful, so it’s really about the end of life of these things and how we can reuse and repurpose them.
Shiners is a very powerful film that has received incredible reviews, including a number of Documentary awards across North America. How has this documentary impacted your career?
It was my first film! So, it was really exciting. It actually changed my career because before I was working in film, I was working in television for a long time. Since I did Shiners, I’ve been able to support myself as a documentary filmmaker which is pretty amazing and hard to do. It’s almost ten years now that I’m doing only documentary films as part of my career. I thank that all to Shiners because I think that really was something that brought my voice into the world and then people started to know my work and like it. So it’s very exciting and I’m very grateful that I can still do that job.
What inspired you to start using film as a medium to tell stories?
I’ve been in television for about 16 years before I started doing film, so I think I was always telling stories in a way. But the interesting thing about documentaries is to be able to have time to get to know people and to be able to tell the stories in a way that does them justice. And I think often in TV, you are just too rushed, or you have too little time and it’s hard to get deeper into a story. I’ve always been a storyteller and I guess documentary film now allows me to do that in a way that I really want to do.
As a director and writer, what’s the hardest part about bringing your stories from the page to the screen?
Everything is hard (laughing), it’s all so hard! I think the easiest part is coming up with ideas because as a documentary filmmaker you really have to be curious and ask questions about the world around you and for me, that’s the easiest part. But after that, it all becomes quite difficult because when you are working on a documentary film, you just don’t know what’s going to happen. You are dealing with people who have all kinds of different schedules, so it’s hard to figure out when you are going to shoot. Getting permits at all the locations where you are going to shoot can be tricky so just setting up the shoots is fairly tricky. But for me, I think the hardest part is really editing, which is the writing part of the job. There is million ways to tell a story and none of them is 100% right and it’s kind of like a little bit of a Rubik’s Cube in terms of coming up with solutions for problems and telling the story in a way that makes sense. There are all kinds of ways to do that, so I find that’s the most puzzling and difficult part of the process.
What advice do you have for aspiring filmmakers out there?
I think you have to be curious like I said and be interested in people. I think that everybody has a story. I know that sounds kind of cliché but it’s true. It doesn’t have to be some famous person; it could just be your neighbour or someone else. So, I think that’s a big thing, just being curious, talking to people. And also, what I do is, like, let’s say I see an article about what I think could make a good film, and I keep all those articles together and keep thinking about them. So, whatever piques your curiosity, or your interest is probably good; a good place to start. If it interests you, then it’s probably going to interest other people. I hope so (laughing). I think being curious goes a really long way.
What’s one underrated film or one underrated director that you think should be on everyone’s radar?
There are so many great directors out there, it’s really hard to say... I would say a lot of Canadian directors. We don’t get enough of our due and Canadian documentary films are really, really strong! I mean, this year, 2 out of the 5 documentary nominations in the Academy Awards were Canadians. And a Canadian won, so I think that supporting your local Canadian documentary films is a huge deal. So, I would go for all the Canadian documentary film directors. The Documentary Channel runs a lot of our films so that’s a place to start looking and there’s just so many great films out there that people aren’t necessarily getting a chance to watch.
What’s one thing you remember about the last time you attended DRIFF?
I actually was not able to attend DRIFF! I was really sad about that because I wanted to attend, and it seems like it is such a wonderful festival. I am working on 2 films, so hopefully I’ll get to attend in the future.
Thank you to Stacey Tenenbaum for sharing her thoughts generously throughout this conversation.
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Alina Mitrofanova is a Creative Writing and English student from Toronto with a passion for film and literature.
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Want to participate in growing film culture and attending a film festival in Durham Region? The Durham Region International Film Festival’s events include an annual fall film festival in Durham Region, summer drive-in film screenings in Whitby and DRIFF in a Jiff short film screenings in Oshawa. Visit driff.ca, become a DRIFF insider or follow us on social media at @catchthedriff for all the details.