From movie set to character: How Winnipeg found a role in The Mother and the Bear

Filmmaker Johnny Ma wasn't exactly thrilled at the idea of changing plans to shoot his movie in Canada.

"But when the name 'Winnipeg' was chosen, I was very intrigued," Ma told CBC News Weekend Morning Show guest host Bruce Ladan on Saturday.

His interest piqued hearing other directors and creators talk about how movies were resourcefully made in Manitoba's capital.

So the Chinese-Canadian filmmaker took a shot at it, without knowing at the time the city that was meant to be the set would also become a character in his movie The Mother and the Bear. 

"Film is kind of an organic process. There might be a first inspiration that draws you to it, but eventually all of the artists and the participants in the film, they all sort of add their energy to the movie, including Winnipeg itself," Ma said.

"It's a live thing, and once the audience sees it becomes another thing again."

The Mother and the Bear portrays a Winnipeg viewed through the story of a mother who comes to the city from South Korea to check on her hospitalized daughter, rendered comatose after a spill on an icy sidewalk.

The movie screened at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival and opened in theatres on January.

The idea for the movie stems from Ma's experience creating his first film in 2016. At the time he was travelling in South Korea, where he stayed at a Seoul hostel and met a woman who resembled what would become the main character of his film.

After changing locations for the movie from Cincinnati, Ohio, to Winnipeg, Ma said he decided to spend a winter in Manitoba.

"I was an outsider coming in," he said. "I just felt that … it was a rite of passage, to stay there and really learn."

He said his time paid off with a second and third draft for the movie that merged the plot with the sights and experiences he had in Winnipeg.

Unlike other movies where the city is only the venue to shoot the film, Ma said he didn't want to make-up Winnipeg to be another part of the world on the big screen, but rather set the plot in Winnipeg.

The movie then changed into making Winnipeg a part of the story, Ma said.

"In some ways … the main character is thinking, just probably like what the audience is thinking — why Winnipeg and the film is that answer," he said.

In Winnipeg, Ma said he found a different pulse to how art is made, especially during long winter nights when time is spent creating content.

LISTEN | How a wintry Winnipeg ended up playing a starring role in Chinese-Canadian filmmaker Johnny Ma's latest film:

"I felt like I was in a place that was kind of like me," he said.

The filmmaker is hopeful the movie will draw a bit of nostalgia with Winnipeggers with elements that may remind them of home.

But he is also  hopeful the intersectionality of different cultures and the breach of different generations in the movie will make it thought-provoking for a universal audience.

"What is cinema if it can make you feel and, you know, maybe change consciousness just a little bit," he said.