'Commemoration is important': The new documentary showing Mennonites migrating to Manitoba

A new documentary is telling the story of how Mennonites first came to Manitoba nearly 150 years ago.

The Manitoba Mennonite Historical Society (MMHS) has received a $65,000 grant from the Province of Manitoba to help fund the project. The documentary is being written and directed by Toronto-based filmmaker Dale Hildebrand, who grew up in Halbstadt, Man.

MMHS president Conrad Stoesz said it's been a long time since a movie about Mennonites has been made in our province. "I think 1999 was the last time a documentary was made, and those documentaries tended to focus on who the Mennonites were at that time, in 1999, and very little about the early years in Manitoba."

Stoesz said the film will focus on the migration of the Mennonite peoples to Manitoba, and the first few years spent here.

"The leaving of imperial Russia in 1874, the crossing of the ocean, and the establishment of communities here in the province," he said.

The documentary will be made up of interviews with historians, as well as documents and photographs from the MMHS archives, and computer-generated re-creations of life in the late 1800s.

Stoesz said it will be a challenge to tell this story visually, due to a lack of pictures from the era. "They didn’t have money or time to be taking photographs, they were trying to eke out an existence on the prairie," he said. "So we don’t have a lot of photos, and that’s why the computer-generated materials and re-enactments are important."

Filmmakers will be shooting re-enactment scenes at the Mennonite Heritage Village in Steinbach. Filming is slated to begin in the fall, with the movie to be released next year.

Stoesz said the government grant has put them at about 75 per cent of funding. A sample script has been written by Hildebrand and his sister Eleanor Chornoboy, who has been researching the topic tirelessly at the Mennonite Heritage Archives.

"Collecting materials, collecting stories, finding information," said Stoesz.

The documentary will premiere at the Mennonite Heritage Village next summer. After that, Stoesz hopes to screen it for schools and other community groups.

"Commemoration is important, it builds community, it builds identity," said Stoesz. "It provides momentum and a reason to care about a person's past."