Cambridge film producer Stephen Paniccia took centre stage earlier this month at the Toronto International Film Festival for his most recent work highlighting a Canadian Indigenous icon.
Buffy Sainte-Marie: Carry It On chronicles the life of the singer, songwriter and actor, who became the first Indigenous person to win an Oscar in 1983.
Like many great movies, the idea to shine the spotlight on Sainte-Marie came from a book.
“Back in 2018 a colleague of mine read a book about Buffy written by Andrea Warner and he thought it would make a great film,” Paniccia said. “We thought, ‘who wouldn’t want to listen or watch an hour and a half of Buffy’s career spanning 60 years?’”
From there, the creative wheels began to turn for Paniccia and White Pine Pictures, a Toronto-based production company where he serves as the director of finance and production.
After some conversations with Sainte-Marie and her manager, they ended up loving the idea and came to an agreement to film. Intent on not letting the COVID-19 pandemic slow production, Paniccia travelled out to her home in Hawaii to begin the process.
“I was lucky enough last spring during COVID to take three other people to visit Buffy for a week in Hawaii where she lives,” he said.
“Our main interview took place in a hotel ball room and we built a set to look like a 1960’s New York coffee house. We followed her after that to three concerts, one each in London, Ont., Brooklyn, NY and at Massey Hall in Toronto.”
From the start of the production until the film hit the big screen, a year and a half had passed.
“That’s only the filming and the editing,” Paniccia said.
“The financing, broadcasting and getting people on board was another year and a half.”
Then came the endeavour of trying to get their work in front of the judges of the Toronto International Film Festival. It’s a task that isn’t quite as complicated as one might think, Paniccia says. The hard part is getting the panel of judges to like the film.
“Trying to get into a film festival is a straight forward process,” he said.
“There’s a website called FilmFreeway and you apply. Luckily enough, TIFF has judges that watch lot of those films. They screened ours, liked it and loved Buffy. They decided to program it. We’ve had plenty of films over the years not get selected.”
With much anticipation, premiere night at TIFF arrived on Sept. 8. Over three years of travel, countless hours of filming and editing, and hard work was about to pay off.
“I was relieved that the film was done, at least the picture portion,” Paniccia said with a laugh.
“To be on that stage with those people and those types of films makes you very proud to be a part of such an amazing project. TIFF is one of the premier festivals in the world. It was great seeing Buffy again and to work with someone of her calibre, who’s down to earth, is fantastic.”
For Paniccia, all the long days and travel was worth it to hear the audiences' reaction.
“To hear the audiences and to listen to them discuss all the things they didn’t know about Buffy and what they learned was great,” he said.
“I feel really lucky to be able to tell her story.”
