By: Maria Fernanda Osorio Arredondo, SFU Student
Passion was palpable among the artists present at the Vancouver Firecracker Department launch on Saturday, September 28. Initially a podcast created by award-winning actor Naomi Snieckus, the Firecracker Department grew into an international community of women and gender-non-conforming people “empowering each other to take creative action through education.”
Through interviews with women and non-binary artists, the Firecracker Department aims to platform diverse voices and their experiences in the TV and film industry. The original podcast perfectly represents film director and producer Ava DuVernay’s quote, “I’m not going to continue knocking that old door that doesn’t open for me. I’m going to create my own door and walk through that.” The Firecracker Department launch party, celebrated at the beginning of fall, was a launch not of the podcast itself, but of the community’s presence in Vancouver.
The Blaze Sessions, a subsector of the Firecracker Department’s original podcast, is Snieckus’s way of challenging the TV and film industry’s prevalent sexism and frequent exclusion of minorities. Jennifer Podemski, co-host of Blaze Sessions season two, invites her auditors to visit The Shine Network Institute website and partake in the Pledge-Activate-Cultivate-Thrive (PACT) as a part of actionable allyship. PACT aims to “empower non-Indigenous professionals within the screen sector, with tools, resources, and best practices required to foster healthy relationships with Indigenous partners and team members.”
At the Firecracker Department’s opening party in Vancouver, I had the pleasure of meeting bilingual scriptwriter Jessica Tremblay. A published haiku poet, Tremblay “fell in love” with script writing when she discovered the screenplay for Alien (1979) was written in haiku form.
The podcast emerged during a time of political turmoil, something that Snieckus used to channel her anger and make it constructive.
As the winner of the “From Our Dark Side” competition (now known as The Genre Film Lab), Tremblay was mentored by Women in Film and Television Vancouver to create Storage, her first feature. This film, Tremblay told The Peak, “demonstrates how parents can be monsters and monsters can be parents.”
During the inauguration ceremony, Snieckus recounted the origin story of the Firecracker Department. The podcast emerged during a time of political turmoil, something that Snieckus used to channel her anger and make it constructive. Uplifting marginalized voices in the film and TV industry was her way to push this division to the side.
One of Saturday’s highlights was the presentation of the Blaze Award to actress Veena Sood, who I had the honour of talking to and complimenting her splendid coral saree. She was introduced by producer Krista Rand as “this amazing woman who has been carving the path for all of us.”
In a phone interview with The Peak, Sood said she found improvement in “producing [her] own plays” and being a “self-generating artist.” She talked fondly of her mentor, Keith Johnstone, and emphasized that “the journey is the payoff.”
Entering the art world can be scary, particularly for someone with a marginalized identity. Competition is fierce and disappointment is common, which is why to become an artist, it is crucial to love the journey. The women and non-binary individuals present at the Firecracker Department launch strongly believe in not only their own creativity, but also in that of others. It’s truly beautiful witnessing how we can uplift each other so that we can all contribute to building an ethereal world of the arts.
Listen to the Firecracker Department podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube.
