In an era when wealth and material comfort are highly desired commodities, filmmaker Amalie Atkins and HOT DOCS introduce us to Aunt Agatha and the beauty of simplicity.
Agatha’s Almanac
This beautiful documentary, Agatha’s Almanac, produced and directed by Amalie Atkins for Minema Cinema Productions, took six years to make. Filmed on 16 mm film by an all-female crew, including cinematographer Rhayne Vermette, the documentary welcomes us into the life of Agatha Bock. Agatha is a feisty, independent 90-year-old woman who tends to her family farm in the province of Manitoba, Canada.
Now, when I say that Agatha tends to her family farm, I mean it literally. This amazing lady, who is hunched over from her years of working the land, is smart and witty. She saves the seeds from each harvest, which means that she has the original seeds…not that GMO junk that we have here in the States. Agatha explains how to prepare the plot of earth, which is to receive the seeds, along with ageless advice on how to protect the fruits and veggies from the bugs and heat.
Agatha also shows us how she preps the harvested food for canning and, just when you think that this elderly woman might topple over from the hard labor, she even gives us a cooking lesson on perogies.
The Director
Amalie Atkins is a Saskatoon-based multidisciplinary artist known for cinematic fables that fuse performance, textile and film into immersive storytelling. Her work has been shown at Mass MoCa, the Textile Museum of Canada and internationally at festivals in Berlin, Paris, Montreal, and Bucharest. Agatha’s Almanac is Atkins’s most ambitious work to date; an extended meditation on memory, ecology, and the power of one woman’s quiet conviction. Agatha’s Almanac has been nominated for Best Canadian Feature and for the Emerging Filmmaker Award.
Gilbert. What was the inspiration…that particular moment….when you decided that documenting the daily life on Aunt Agatha’s family farm would be able to stand its ground against the usual Hollywood action films. This was a big risk. Were you expecting the success the documentary has had so far?
Amalie Atkins: It wasn’t one single moment—it was more like a slow burn. I’m a visual artist and filmmaker, so the idea of any of my films competing with a Hollywood action movie never crossed my mind. Agatha’s boldness, her particular way of moving through the world, kept pulling me in.
The first time I filmed with Agatha, she played the part of the matriarch in a surreal world of women. In one scene, she makes bread shoes and then places them on a young women (played by artist Dagmara Genda) who has died, and her body is positioned halfway out the window. In another scene, she layers on 40 aprons, most of which used to be my grandmother’s. She made perogies for the crew (her gold standard!) and welcomed the troupe of Ukrainian dancers. She was completely at home on a movie set and a solid presence on camera. It also became clear that she didn’t need a role. It was on that project that I felt strongly about shooting a film with her, as herself, in the world she’s created.
I didn’t make Agatha’s Almanac for mass appeal—though I am glad she’s reaching a much larger audience than I expected. I worked on the film chapter by chapter and it took a few years before the idea of a feature seemed possible. All my projects lead from one to the next. If I had set out to make a feature it may have felt too daunting. I usually trick myself into doing these long projects. It was an experiment to see if I could make a feature. I made the film for me and Agatha. I made the film to spend time with her and understand her. I am glad to take it into the world and excited she will be there for the first time I see it in a theatre!
I remember seeing Betzy Bromberg’s 16mm experimental film Glide of Transparency at Anthology Film Archives in New York. It is a mesmerizing feature film with a meditative score and dreamy closeups of plant life and untethered by traditional story arc. Her film was an early guide that it was possible to pursue a non-traditional approach to documentary storytelling without high drama, and still captivate an audience. I just learned of nordic slow tv, and Agatha’s Almanac aligns in some ways with this model though I actually think she moves too fast for slow tv.
When I was at ACAD, my weaving teacher told me that the more personal the work is, the more universal it becomes. I think that applies to Agatha. The pace of her world—the rhythm of her daily life—is deeply calming. Spending time in the edit helped me manage my own anxiety about an uncertain world. And I can’t say the world has stabilized, so the film is here now, ready to offer a calm place to hang out and feel your imagination being cared for.
Spending time with her work in the garden, I kept thinking: will the future even remember how to do this? She demystifies things—gardening, cooking, repairing—with such matter-of-fact ease. That kind of knowledge is disappearing, and I wanted to make a record of it. Grounded stories have their own kind of power. So yes Hollywood- here she comes! Get your garden gloves out.
Gilbert: I hope that Aunt Agatha lives forever, but when that day comes, who will take care of the farm? I’ve become so invested in this beautiful documentary that I am positive that the Biff Bam Pop readers will be as curious as I am as to what will happen to the farm.
Amalie Atkins: Not to worry—the farm will stay in the immediate family. Agatha co-owns it with her oldest brother, John. When she stopped driving, he made sure she could still spend her summers out there, bringing her back year after year. Before that, she drove herself, well into her 80s. John understands what the farm means to her, so when that day comes, it will stay rooted in the family.
Gilbert: What are you working on now?
Amalie Atkins: I am working on multiple projects! I just finished designing an Agatha’s Almanac tote- a four color screen print made with a current run of 50! These will be available after the Sunday screening and later on my website. It feels great to be making objects again after so much editing time.
And of course, there are always films in the pipeline. I’m currently working on a project with The Milkweed Film Guild and Winnipeg’s newest poet laureate—and dear friend—Jennifer Still. I am also working on part four of The Diamond Eye Assembly trilogy with my friend Monique Blom, Saskatoon’s enigma! You see, I really make films to spend time with people I love! So, of course, I would love to shoot another film with Agatha. She has this whole secret urban life we haven’t even touched.
Conclusion
Growing up in a city, my only connection to how food was grown or harvested was through a yearly visit to my paternal uncle’s farm in New Jersey. Like Agatha, my Uncle Jack only spent the summers at the farm. My visits to the farm were memorable because life was so basic. We had to pump the water from a well to cook or get bathed. The outhouse was the only bathroom…but, the corn was so sweet, we could eat it right there in the field. It was a treasured time away from the dirty and noisy city.
Aunt Agatha brought back many happy memories of Uncle Jack’s farm. Like Agatha Bock, my Aunt Louise would stock up on that year’s harvest by canning what was not shared with the family and neighbours.
Amalie Atkins may have intended this film to be a tribute to her Aunt Agatha, but Agatha’s Almanac is so much more. It is a survival kit. Aunt Agatha is teaching us how to live in harmony with the land. When to plant. How to protect the seedlings. When to harvest. Aunt Agatha is teaching us the preciousness of life.
