Los Angeles film-maker Alyssa Bolsey was searching in the basement of a New York state family home when she unearthed reels of film made by her great-grandfather. It was evidence that her clever ancestor, Jacques Bolsey, was the inventor of the 16 mm Bolex camera, back in the 1920s.
“There were hours of footage there,” she said. “A journal, photos and personal films, including several short documentaries.”
This almost indestructible, simple to operate film camera was the choice of adventurers and photographers everywhere for decades. Bolsey decided to do what she does best — make a film about it. The project, she told Coast Reporter, has consumed her working life lately — and has involved research, fundraising and production (www.jacquesbolsey
project.com).
In August, Bolsey travelled to the Sunshine Coast to meet two residents who were familiar with the Bolex, and to film them as they shared their memories.
Shendra Hanney of Pender Harbour had much film footage from her late husband Collin Hanney’s exploratory travels up north in Canada and into the jungles near Chiapas, Mexico, where he filmed an indigenous tribe, the Lacandon Maya. (See Part 1, Coast Reporter, Sept. 12).
Another Coast resident, Maynard Kaasa, had also found more than 12,000 feet of Bolex footage shot by his late father, John Kaasa, in the 1940s and ‘50s. It contains scenes of his father’s treks into mountain wilderness and his journeys to the land of the Inuit.
That’s when Bruce Devereux entered the picture. Last year he introduced Hanney and Kaasa to one another, and acquainted them both with Alyssa Bolsey’s burgeoning film project. In Devereux’s profession at Christenson Village Care Home, he is always interested in listening to stories from the past. He is also a film fan and offered to convert Kaasa’s reels of film to digital and set up a website: www.maynardkaasa.com.
Meanwhile, spurred by the film project, Hanney resurrected her interest in her late husband’s Bolex footage.
When Bolsey arrived on the Coast, she met with local cinematographer Ben Ged Low and they spent 12 hours with Hanney and Kaasa, now firm friends or “Bolex buddies,” at Hanney’s home in Pender Harbour listening to them share memories, looking at Collin Hanney’s former studio (www.shendrahanney.com) and filming.
“Their passion is infectious,” Bolsey said later.
Hanney at age 81 and Kaasa at almost 91 both say they have been revitalized by the experience.
“It’s very exciting, and it’s brought back lots of memories,” Kaasa said.
When Kaasa was a teenager he joined his father on the wilderness treks — he recalls a time when they loaded a big river barge with lumber on the Nelson River and floated to the Arctic. He also tells a story that will likely end up in the Bolsey film. His father tried to cross a northern river one spring when the waters were high, and he accidentally dropped his Bolex and equipment. Ever hopeful, he marked the trees to indicate the spot, then returned in the autumn when the waters were low. He found the Bolex that had sunk to the bottom, picked it up and continued to use it for years after. The camera’s durability was definitely one of its better features.
