I am Crysta Perak. I was born in Moncton, New Brunswick and grew up with my mother and father. Eventually they divorced when I was 14. My mom is Inuit and my dad is Croatian. The area I lived in is an Anglo-Francophone community, where I spoke both English and French. My current community is located in North Vancouver, British Columbia where I currently live as a roommate with two aboriginal producers and their daughter. They are great people, and have inspired me to further pursue my dreams of creating aboriginal media. We’ve travelled to Peru together, where my vision has expanded to connecting aboriginal cultures across the globe, uniting the Eagle and the Condor.
I participate in the Indigenous community by aiding my producers organize and edit their aboriginal media. I also participate in the local marches supporting aboriginal rights, and I am preparing to direct and produce aboriginal related material for my school assignments. When I was in Peru we explored their indigenous communities, and I discovered many of their myths and teachings are very similar to our native teachings across Canada. It was quite amazing, and I felt I could use this aspect to connect our Mother Earth (Pachamama), and our people back to their origin to give them, and everyone somewhere, where they can feel they belong, so that we may keep one foot in the land of our ancestors, and the other carrying forward to the future.
In order to promote further awareness of aboriginal culture, and my own personal development, I filmed my first documentary on my roots. This film was funded by CBC, Arctic College and College of the North Atlantic. I flew to Iqaluit, Nunavut from my first educational facility, College of the North Atlantic in Newfoundland, as my final assignment for school to meet the family I’ve never encountered before, and unite with the land my grandmother left 47 years ago. I felt that the creation of this documentary expanded my view of the Inuit culture, and who we are as a people. It was one of the greatest experiences I’ve had, and also the most unnerving because it was the first journey I took on my own. I never knew what to expect, however the journey allowed me to further mold my ideals as a filmmaker.
Now that I am attending another film institution at Capilano University as a 3rd year, to acquire my bachelors of Motion Picture Arts, I feel that I can now develop the scripts I had mentioned previously which rely heavily on aboriginal culture, and uniting all of our tribes. We are here on this planet, but not all of us know how to use our resources properly. Our resources include our love of people, our agriculture, our oil, water, and if you combine it all together – our Earth. However, I feel our greatest resource is our people. Not just native aboriginals from all over the world, but the French, English, Europeans, Iranians, Africans, Chinese, Japanese, Indians – the People! We are all human! We all have ideals! Once we can push aside our feelings for greed and materialism, and reach out to others and hold them tightly, I feel we can develop our entire planet for the better. That is my aim; to connect the disconnected through media, knowledge and compassion. I want to transcend barriers of religion, sexuality, and race so that we can all strive, with our hearts connected to the sole goal of learning from each other.
During my studies I've come to understand how to connect with people through visual philosophy, narrative and technological skills. As a transfer to the second year of the program I faced the challenge of meeting new people who have already been together in the program for a year. It was imposing to make friends in their tight knit community, especially since I came from small village in New Brunswick. Another confrontation was that of finding a job. Due to the surplus of students and low employment rate of Vancouver, it took me 3 months to find a stable place of work. Although the city was big and lonely the experiences were endless, and eventually exciting as I persevered through my obstacles that allowed me to make friends and acquire a full-time job.
I experienced many successes during my second year (Technically my first year, since I was a direct transfer) at Capilano University. The most memorable success I can think of is the intense collaboration of the films students. Like living in the real world, I quickly realized that film isn’t just something I created. Everyone has a hand in its creation and without those people and their insights I feel that my films would not have been as great if I had done it alone. Every film crew you work with is a community that supports you. One part that made this community complete was the teachers at Capilano University. They are a great inspiration and allowed me to pursue the subject matter I was interested in.
As a note to the jurors, I feel I should speak about my emotional challenges during this program, and my battle with depression. I feel not enough people reach out about being sad, alone and isolated even if they surround themselves with friends and family. By not reaching out they suffer. I moved away from all my family in New Brunswick to pursue film studies in Vancouver. However, I believe even if I had my family with me, it would have been just as hard.
At the time of my depression I was working as a full-time pet-shop specialist while going to school full-time in order to forget the feelings of loneliness and meaningless I was having. I wanted to die. However, I realized that by connecting with other people, and reaching out to the other sad people on this planet, that we do indeed find a feeling that slowly dissipates the loneliness. (I think this is compassion.) I didn’t realize I was suffering academically, and even if I did subconsciously, I did not care, until about the last 2 months of second year at school. I approached the teachers at Capilano University and told them of my sadness. They understood and gave me the push to quit my fulltime job so that I could focus on my studies. I felt like a pressure had been lifted off my shoulders. Through my landlords and fathers blessing I went to Peru and gained insights about life. I had the chance to experience life to the fullest because I had opened my eyes to the spirit of the world that exists within all of us.
Sometimes, some days, I fall back into the mode of depression, that may last a month or so, however, I can now come out of easier, because of the new supportive community I have created for myself. Sure, it took an enormous amount of effort to accept the gift of friendship and kindness from my landlords, teachers and friends, but I feel that in accepting their friendship I somehow filled a little void in their hearts. In turn, if we continue to reach out our hands, hearts and minds to people, and our earth, I feel we can solve any problem and continue on with a more connected lifestyle while promoting the goodness of the heart.
In conclusion, we must remember that the ground we stand on, the air we breathe and the water we drink connects us all, and it doesn’t matter where we are from – we must strive to reach out and protect humanity and our planet with compassion, media, and knowledge.
