RIVER IS BOSS
Unlike the typical planned documentary film, River Is Boss only happened when all that was planned had to be cancelled. My film crew was stranded by an historic Yukon River spring thaw flood for an extended period. When initial plans were sabotaged, the crew made cutaways during the time they were stranded in the Lower Yukon village of Emmonak. Some time later, I started looking at the film cutaways and realized the entire flood was in the footage. It suddenly hit me that making a film about the flood as an epic visual poem would be a gift I could give to Emmonak people after four years of working with them. I was also approached by an important elder who asked to be filmed performing his drum dance, Into The River. When I spoke about the film in Emmonak, I was also asked by the guitar players to put some blues riffs in the soundtrack so they could learn them. The film was made for the people of Emmonak. It never entered my mind to show it elsewhere until somebody found out about it and asked to see it. The title of the film came from a discussion with a crew member who panicked when he heard an eight mile sheet of ice was headed for Emmonak. When he encouraged one of the elders to contact the Army Corps of Engineers to dynamite the ice so it wouldn’t destroy the village, the elder said, “I don’t know. Only water boss” and he walked away.