The theatrical run of director Michael Mankowski’s Back Home Again: A Story of Hope, Love and Community following its Los Angeles premiere presented by the Consulate General of Canada to the United States. Inspired by community resiliency after one of the largest wildfire evacuations in Canadian history which impacted the lives of more than 80,000 residents of Fort McMurray and area in 2016, the story is told through the eyes of the woodland creatures that inhabit the land of Fort McMurray Wood Buffalo.
To date, Back Home Again has won top honors at Edmonton International Film Festival, winning the Jury Award for Best Short Film and the Audience Choice Award for Best Dramatic film. Most recently the film won two Leo Awards for Best Animated Program and Best Screenwriting in an animated program. The Leo Awards celebrate the best in TV and film in British Columbia.
Written and directed by Mankowski and produced by Mankowski, John Schneider and Mark Dippé, Back Home Again features an all-star voice cast, many of them Canadians, who donated their time to the production, including Jeremy Renner, Martin Short, Kim Basinger, Eugene Levy, Catherine O’Hara, Michael J. Fox, Howie Mandel, Ed Asner, Lorne Cardinal, Gordon Pinsent, Mena Suvari, Bill Burr, Tom Green, Norm Macdonald, Harland Williams, Sherri Shepherd, Marlon Wayans, Scott Thompson and Tantoo Cardinal — one of two honourees to receive the inaugural “Key to the Consulate” from the Consul General of Canada in Los Angeles.
In 2018, Fort McMurray local Mankowski called Schneider, an L.A. film and TV producer, to ask a favor: He wanted to know if Schneider’s friend and client Tom Green would record a voice in support of his animated project, then called The Beast. Green proceeded to record a few lines of dialog at his house, and when it was done, Schneider asked Mankowski if he wanted help getting a few more of his friends to record voices.
“The project struck a chord with me … about this community and overcoming adversity,” Schneider recalls. “So I then reached out to Norm Macdonald and we set a date to record.” Then it was Harland Williams and soon Schneider was reaching out to select people he knew from his years producing movies at Adam Sandler’s Happy Madison Productions.
“At that time I kept dreaming up people who would be great,” Mankowski adds. “Everyone is someone I looked up to and John kept asking and getting a yes… all these amazing actors donating their time to help tell the story of my community… one day I said I dreamed Michael J. Fox would do a voice and the next day he was in! … John and I were on the phone jumping with joy.”
For music and animation, they enlisted former ILM legend and VFX producer and director Dippé, and one of music’s great composers and song writers, Walter Afanasieff. These creatives brought in their teams and helped complete both the animation with companies and artists from Argentina and for the music, Walter wrote the film’s score and main song sung by Jeremy Renner which became the new name for the film: Back Home Again.
“The story of the Fort McMurray Wood Buffalo wildfires is one of Canadians standing together to support friends and neighbours through difficult times,” said Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. “That’s why I am so touched by Back Home Again and everything it represents for what we can achieve together.”
Voice star Kim Basinger concluded, “Back Home Again reminds me that, even as we speak, fires continue to burn thousands and thousands of acres all over the world. As I, and many dear people close to me as well, lost their homes in the [Los Angeles] Woolsey fire, there is not a day that goes by that I don’t think of the millions of animals that also lost their homes and their lives in these fires. With homes and habitats destroyed and so much physical demise and mental disorientation involved, it is a devastating experience, but this film is one of hope, dedication, determination, and love; a film of belief that we can restore, rebuild and recover.”
Following an L.A. premiere on August 11 attended by Mankoski, Dippé, Schneider, Afanasieff, executive producer Charmaine Hammond, Consul General of Canada for Los Angeles Zaib Shaikh and Disney’s Ellen Poon, the film is screening through August 20 at the Laemmle Monica Film Center in Santa Monica. Tickets availabl here.
