The preliminary idea for “Infinite Cookie” appeared easy: two half-brothers — one Indigenous, one white — inform tales about their completely different upbringings, delivered to life by way of animation.
Making it work, nevertheless, proved something however easy.
Seth and Peter Scriver say they started recording classes for his or her documentary 9 years in the past, however issues shortly descended into “chaos,” due to the energetic power of Peter’s home in Shamattawa, a First Nations reserve in northern Manitoba.
“It was inconceivable to seek out silence,” remembers Peter on a digital name from Toronto.
“There’s seven children residing in Pete’s home and he’s acquired 12 canine,” Seth laughs.
“We actually acquired interrupted a million instances. After which it was sort of identical to, ‘I believe we have now to only go together with what’s actual.’”
The result’s a crazy hangout movie that leans into its imperfections — and one that can have its world premiere Saturday on the Sundance Movie Competition as a part of the World Cinema Documentary Competitors.
Animated in Seth’s surreal hand-drawn type, “Infinite Cookie” unpacks the brothers’ advanced relationship, starting within the late Seventies when Peter left Shamattawa to reside with their father in Toronto.
The doc embraces the messiness of its storytelling, the place on a regular basis sounds — child gurgles, rest room flushes and all — grow to be a part of the feel, punctuating the Canadian brothers’ heartfelt yarns. Their households and pets additionally play energetic roles, typically breaking into the narrative with their vibrant interjections.
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“It’s sort of terrifying, but in addition thrilling, simply placing your self on the market and making a film about your loved ones that’s actual,” says Seth, who additionally co-directed the 2013 animated highway journey movie “Asphalt Witches.”
“Though this film seems to be completely unreal, it’s all very private.”
Their doc is amongst a number of Canadian initiatives premiering at Sundance, which begins Thursday. Different movies sure for the Park Metropolis, Utah pageant embrace “Two Ladies,” a carnal comedy by Montreal’s Chloé Robichaud about two jaded suburban mothers, and “Lifeless Lover,” a horror characteristic by Toronto’s Grace Glowicki, a few gravedigger decided to convey her drowned lover again to life.
In “Infinite Cookie,” Peter remembers being 11 when his estranged father got here to Shamattawa, the place he was residing along with his mom, and requested him to maneuver to Toronto. He remembers the tradition shock he felt when he arrived within the metropolis, together with his personal amazement that each home had plumbing.
“Residing out within the bush in a cabin, everyone has their very own outhouses. Then you definitely transfer to the town and folks have bathrooms of their homes. So I realized lots,” says Peter, who’s now 62.
Seth was born years later. Now 46, he remembers Peter being “like an uncle” within the family when he was rising up. He’d come to understand the variations of their identities and upbringings, particularly when he ultimately visited Shamattawa after Peter moved again there as an grownup.
Regardless of its comedic tone, “Infinite Cookie” carries layers of tragedy – together with the story of Peter’s brother being kidnapped and delivered to a residential faculty when he was a baby. Elsewhere, the movie touches on the dearth of entry to scrub consuming water amongst First Nations communities in Canada — Shamattawa has been underneath a boil water advisory since 2018.
“I believe most individuals who reside in Canada have heard these tales, however they’re tuning them out now, so it’s good to convey them up differently – like surprise-attack individuals with them,” says Seth.
Peter says Indigenous individuals have spent a long time having a distinct tradition thrust on them and “being advised that your beliefs and your historical past are not any frickin’ good.”
But he’s longing for the long run as extra Indigenous tales are being shared.
“The way in which native individuals have been conditioned to assume and to behave, it’s all coming undone now,” he says.
The movie’s title is a nod to each Peter’s daughter, Cookie, and the seemingly limitless journey it took to convey the mission to life. Seth attributes the delay partly to the logistical problems with travelling from Toronto to Shamattawa, which is just accessible by ice roads or air.
“It was nerve-wracking as a result of all the youngsters have been rising up and so they had voices within the film. It was like, ‘Rattling, all their voices are altering! Everybody’s going to be adults quickly,’” he says.
The Scrivers say they’re nonetheless in disbelief that “Infinite Cookie” is premiering at Sundance. They’ll be heading to Utah with three of Peter’s kids — Cookie, Simone and Chris — whose voices are within the movie.
The brothers have been in a mad rush to get Peter a brand new passport; he hasn’t had one in a long time.
“We went to the passport workplace and everybody was displaying off his 1985 passport, it prefer it was some sort of archival surprise,” says Seth.
“I don’t know in the event that they have been extra (shocked) that they have been seeing an vintage or that I was that good trying,” laughs Peter.
© 2025 The Canadian Press
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