FESTIVAL PREMIERE
#vanlife
Director: Trevor Lovett Cameron
CARLSEN and VANESSA, are vanlife influencers, processing the suicide of CLINT, his brother and her ex-boyfriend. After a year on the road Vanessa is ready to go back to ‘reality’, while Carlsen, haunted by Clint, has found a community in vanlife. When they break up, he befriends DEIDRA, a mysterious older woman and the victim of Intimate Partner Violence. They end up riding together. Their journey uncovers a dark path, touching on survivor’s guilt, imposter syndrome, and a death cult connected to other murders on the lonely highway.
CAST & CREDITS
Director
Trevor Lovett Cameron
Writer
Trevor Lovett Cameron
Producer
Anand Ramayya, Kelly Balon, Doug Cuthand, Juliette Hagopian
Key Cast
Michelle Thrush, Justin Derickson, Dakota Ray Hebert, Joel Montgrand, Tahmoh Penikett
DIRECTORS STATEMENT
Trevor Cameron knows about living on the road in a van. Cameron was filming his documentary, Shadow of Dumont, (produced by KarmaFilm), hot on the trail of a distant relative, Buffalo hunter and freedom fighter named Gabriel Dumont who fought in the 1885 Métis uprising, and he got himself an RV. “I thought it would scratch that itch I had in my twenties. You get out of college with dreams about being able to go where you want, camp where you want, and drive around like Scooby-Doo. It’ll be great! you think,”
Cameron recalled. After 30 days in this RV, he realized the dream of
ultimate freedom wasn’t even within hailing distance of the reality.
“You drive for eight hours a day, and your ears are ringing because of the engine noise. You’re always dirty because of the dust flying off the road and coming through the vents or through the windows. And you’re sweaty and sticky all the time. And the van always stays dirty. Even when you clean it, like five seconds later, it feels dirty again.
” Today’s massive popularity of professional social media influencers made Cameron wonder about their nomadic lifestyle. How did they do it? After the documentary was completed, he did a deep dive and realized influencers were glossing over the less-than-appealing bits and only posting the glam parts because they are doing a hard sell on the lifestyle.
That seemed like the perfect setting for a story, especially from a Métis perspective. On its surface, the film focuses on a young couple who have adopted the social media world as their culture, but that is disrupted when their created culture begins slipping away. Under the surface, this is a story about identity: who you think you are versus how others’ perceive you, particularly for Carlsen who has struggled with his Indigenous identity.
“As I was travelling around for my Shadow of Dumont documentary, the focus narrowed in on culture and what it means to self-identify. I attracted many ‘identity gatekeepers’ during the shoot. Their desire to control others, gave me a cult vibe,” said Cameron. “There’s an unwritten bit of history about being Métis which is that for generations, we had parents and grandparents who were marrying white, trying to fit into Western society as much as they could. After the 1885 Métis uprising, people lost their farms, lost everything,
camping on the road allowance. It became a matter of survival.”
“There are a couple of different ways to describe the Métis people: as the rainbow people because we come in all of these interesting shades depending on where the families are from, but we’re also called the invisible people because we are not seen as a distinct culture. When we talk about gatekeeping, there’s usually somebody who thinks that they know who or what their culture is and anything that’s different is therefore not their culture. And this isn’t limited to just the Métis. It happens right across the board for all groups.”
DIRECTORS BIO
Trevor is a Metis Writer and Director. His videos and films have been screened across the land and on TVs internationally. He began working for Metis diaspora by working for Schools and Youth Centres in British Columbia. He found performing, and soon toured western Canada as an improviser and stand up comedian, all while making short films. He found a new path when he found success on Wapos Bay, An animated kids show filmed in Saskatchewan. He worked his way from performer and assistant director, to writer and director. Trevor was nominated for four Geminis on Wapos Bay (writing, directing, and performing) and several other international awards like the Chicago International Children’s Film Festival. From Indie to Children’s TV, Trevor has moved to a variety of other productions, as a writer and director. Trevor’s interest in telling Metis specific stories has given him a distinct voice and perspective in Canadian Arts.
