Contact
Jonathan Bland
jonathanbland-at-gmail-dot-calm
Avatars
Writer/ Director
Lighting Cinematographer
Recovering Malcontent
Bio
Passion for adventure and unusual experiences has guided me through 40 countries, a six year stay in Berlin, and fifteen in India.
I'm inspired by narratives that challenge perceptions in unconventional ways and am increasingly drawn towards immersive experiential works where overt meaning and message isn’t always apparent, or necessary.
Bio
Passion for adventure and unusual experiences has guided me through 40 countries, a six year stay in Berlin, and fifteen in India.
I'm inspired by narratives that challenge perceptions in unconventional ways and am increasingly drawn towards immersive experiential works where overt meaning and message isn’t always apparent, or necessary.
Working without a clear blueprint, I'm drawn to complex and unsettling narratives that are often difficult to capture and convey. Here, I'm looking for relationships and contrast. This can be between people, places, events and time and can arrive in the form of coincidence, and/ or divine intervention.
Filmography (condensed)
Filmography (condensed)
Untitled (2023)
A Docuseries by Jonathan Bland
The Canada Council for the Arts/ Manitoba Arts Council/ Winnipeg Arts Council/ CBC Documentary Channel
Synopsis: Hush hush, keep it down now... voices carry.
Driving with Selvi (2015)
Documentary Film (Canada/ India)
Cinematographer (additional)
Eyesfull Films Link
Canada Council for the Arts, The Fledgling Fund, Ontario Arts Council, Toronto Arts Council, Women in Funding: Film & Television International, Women in Film Finishing Fund
Synopsis: Selvi, like so many girls living within India’s patriarchal culture, is forced to marry at a young age, only to find herself in a violent and abusive marriage. One day in deep despair, she chooses to escape, going to a highway with the intention of throwing herself under the wheels of a bus. Instead she gets on the bus, choosing to live… and goes on to become south India’s first female taxi driver. We first meet 18-year-old Selvi at a girls’ shelter in 2004 – timid, soft-spoken, a fresh runaway from a difficult life. Over a ten-year journey, we see a remarkable transformation as Selvi finds her voice and defies all expectations – learning to drive, starting her own taxi company, leading seminars to educate other women, and much more.
Raw Opium (2010)
Documentary feature (Canada)
Cinematographer (India, China)
Kensington Communications Link
Commissioned by: Arte/ ZDF, Canal D, SBS Australia, TV Ontario
Synopsis: Raw Opium is a two-part documentary about a commodity that has tremendous power to both to ease pain and to destroy lives. The opium poppy is the raw material for heroin, fueling a vast criminal trade far larger than the economies of many countries. It is also the source of the pharmaceutical morphine and codeine that patients desperately need for pain relief. Raw Opium is a journey around the world and through time, where conflicting forces do battle over the narcotic sap of the opium poppy. From an opium master in Laos, to the DEA in Afghanistan and the opium smugglers of central Asia; from the fine balance of India's vast opium fields that feed both the Western pharmaceutical industry and their own escalating population of heroin addicts; to a crusading Vancouver doctor who confronts the prevailing notions of addiction. We see how this flower has played, and continues to play, a pivotal role not just in the lives of people who grow, manufacture and use it, but also in the increasingly tense sphere of international relations. In the process, our assumptions about addiction and the war on drugs are challenged.
Fight (2012)
Documentary short - Canada
Cinematographer (additional)
National Film Board of Canada Link
Synopsis: this short documentary introduces us to Randy Baleski, a Winnipeg high school teacher and former boxer who has a unique approach to helping students at risk of not graduating: get them in the ring. We watch him work with two indigenous teens from troubled backgrounds as they slowly come to understand that boxing is more than just a sport… it's a way of life.
The Story of Canada's Royal Winnipeg Ballet - 40 Years of One Night Stands (2007)
Documentary feature (Canada)
Cinematographer
Merit Motion Pictures/ Edgeland Films Link
Commissioned by: Bravo!
Synopsis: Born out of nothing in the middle of nowhere, an impossible dream of two determined immigrants from England, The Royal Winnipeg set the ballet world on prairie fire, touring from Moscow to Flin Flon and wowing audience and critics with its youth, vitality, and innocent excitement. From it’s early days as what the NY Times dubbed a “bright feather in the cultural cap of our neighbour to the north” to international award-winning fame, the RWB ‘family’ has survived fortune, famine and fire to become one of the world’s premiere dance companies.
Haunts of the Black Masseur: The Swimmer as Hero (2004)
Documentary feature (Canada/ Europe) 52 min.
Cinematographer
Merit Motion Pictures/ Edgeland Films Link
Broadcast/ Commissioned by: Arte, ZDF, TV Ontario, Knowledge Network, SCN, IFC
Synopsis: For the millions of swimmers worldwide, this film explores all that swimming has meant for so many – the splendor, the bravery, the adventure and the sensuality of the aquatic experience. This is a film of submersive passion; from the ancient Greeks to the great swimmers and divers of the twentieth century, water has inspired a devotion beyond athletics, a virtual cult of immersion. This hour long documentary takes its inspiration from Charles Sprawson’s landmark book, Haunts of the Black Masseur – The Swimmer as Hero, and the viewer is invited to accompany Sprawson as we explore such famous swimming haunts as Turkey’s Hellespont, the Tiber, the English Channel and many other magnificent locales across Europe and the United States. Throughout the hour we will meet some of the top marathon swimmers in the world such as Lynne Cox, David Yudovin and Alison Streeter as well as famed personalities, such as photographer Linda Troeller, who share their passion for and obsession with what most of us take for granted: water.
Kiran Over Mongolia (2004)
Documentary Feature (Mongolia) 86 min.
Story concept/ Writer/ Cinematographer
Bulk Films Link
Synopsis: Kuma, a young Kazak man, retraces the steps of his grandfather who was formerly eagle master back to the remote mountainous region of his family's origin. there, in extreme western Mongolia, he fulfills his dream of trapping and training his own eagle. under the tutelage of a local eagle master named Khairatkhan, Kuma learns not only the ways of hunting with eagles, but also the ways of his own people.
Untitled (2004) Link
Documentary short (India) 6min.
A film by Jonathan Bland
World premier: Billytown, The Netherlands
Synopsis: Diesel fumes hang heavy under the warm amber glow of sodium lamps deep south on the Indian sub continent. in the distance, ghost ships jockey. their cockeyed headlamps drift through the thick and weighty air. a single horn smashes the silence and a dog's warm carcass lays shattered. red liquid spills and the crows begin to smile.
Outcaste (2003) Link
Documentary short (India) 30 min.
A film by Jonathan Bland
Official selection Hot Docs / IDFA
Synopsis: Set amidst India's rich pageantry and frightening mayhem, one human being struggles to live a simple life in silence. In a world of inter-connectivity he is a mauni baba (silent monk). photographed over a one-year period, and without narration, this wordless portrait takes an anthropological approach to reveal the not so quiet daily life of a man that few of us would dare to trade places with.
Crapshoot: The Gamble With Our Waste (2003)
Documentary feature (Canada) 52 min.
Cinematographer (India)
National Film Board of Canada Link
Synopsis: A hazardous mix of waste is flushed into the sewer every day. the billions of litres of water-combined with unknown quantities of chemicals, solvents, heavy metals, human waste and food-where does it all go? And what does it do to us? From ancient times, countries have chosen the sewer to get rid of household and industrial waste, yet the contaminants we flush resurface in our food chain. Fish swim through waste water dumped into rivers, while sewage sludge is spread on farmland as fertilizer. Filmed in Italy, India, Sweden, the United States and Canada, this bold documentary questions whether the sewer is actually compounding our waste problems. While scientists warn of links between sewage practices and potential health risks, activists, engineers and concerned citizens challenge our fundamental attitudes to waste. does our need to dispose of waste take precedence over public safety? What are the alternatives?
Kaliyuga: Age of Iron (2000) Link
Documentary Feature (India) 35 min.
A film by Jonathan Bland
Canada Council for the Arts/ National Film Board of Canada FAP Grant
World premier Calgary International Film Festival
Synopsis: We are now 5121 years into the age of 'Kali yuga', a period of immorality and strife lasting 432,000 years. Living as a Hindu Sannyasi (renunciate) in a cave high above the source of the ganges river (Gaumukh glacier), Kailash Bharti wishes to transcend this world. What follows is a series of slow moving vignettes captured from his daily life in Tapovan (4463m) over a 4 month period in 2000.
Synopsis: Hush hush, keep it down now... voices carry.
Driving with Selvi (2015)
Documentary Film (Canada/ India)
Cinematographer (additional)
Eyesfull Films Link
Canada Council for the Arts, The Fledgling Fund, Ontario Arts Council, Toronto Arts Council, Women in Funding: Film & Television International, Women in Film Finishing Fund
Synopsis: Selvi, like so many girls living within India’s patriarchal culture, is forced to marry at a young age, only to find herself in a violent and abusive marriage. One day in deep despair, she chooses to escape, going to a highway with the intention of throwing herself under the wheels of a bus. Instead she gets on the bus, choosing to live… and goes on to become south India’s first female taxi driver. We first meet 18-year-old Selvi at a girls’ shelter in 2004 – timid, soft-spoken, a fresh runaway from a difficult life. Over a ten-year journey, we see a remarkable transformation as Selvi finds her voice and defies all expectations – learning to drive, starting her own taxi company, leading seminars to educate other women, and much more.
Raw Opium (2010)
Documentary feature (Canada)
Cinematographer (India, China)
Kensington Communications Link
Commissioned by: Arte/ ZDF, Canal D, SBS Australia, TV Ontario
Synopsis: Raw Opium is a two-part documentary about a commodity that has tremendous power to both to ease pain and to destroy lives. The opium poppy is the raw material for heroin, fueling a vast criminal trade far larger than the economies of many countries. It is also the source of the pharmaceutical morphine and codeine that patients desperately need for pain relief. Raw Opium is a journey around the world and through time, where conflicting forces do battle over the narcotic sap of the opium poppy. From an opium master in Laos, to the DEA in Afghanistan and the opium smugglers of central Asia; from the fine balance of India's vast opium fields that feed both the Western pharmaceutical industry and their own escalating population of heroin addicts; to a crusading Vancouver doctor who confronts the prevailing notions of addiction. We see how this flower has played, and continues to play, a pivotal role not just in the lives of people who grow, manufacture and use it, but also in the increasingly tense sphere of international relations. In the process, our assumptions about addiction and the war on drugs are challenged.
Fight (2012)
Documentary short - Canada
Cinematographer (additional)
National Film Board of Canada Link
Synopsis: this short documentary introduces us to Randy Baleski, a Winnipeg high school teacher and former boxer who has a unique approach to helping students at risk of not graduating: get them in the ring. We watch him work with two indigenous teens from troubled backgrounds as they slowly come to understand that boxing is more than just a sport… it's a way of life.
The Story of Canada's Royal Winnipeg Ballet - 40 Years of One Night Stands (2007)
Documentary feature (Canada)
Cinematographer
Merit Motion Pictures/ Edgeland Films Link
Commissioned by: Bravo!
Synopsis: Born out of nothing in the middle of nowhere, an impossible dream of two determined immigrants from England, The Royal Winnipeg set the ballet world on prairie fire, touring from Moscow to Flin Flon and wowing audience and critics with its youth, vitality, and innocent excitement. From it’s early days as what the NY Times dubbed a “bright feather in the cultural cap of our neighbour to the north” to international award-winning fame, the RWB ‘family’ has survived fortune, famine and fire to become one of the world’s premiere dance companies.
Haunts of the Black Masseur: The Swimmer as Hero (2004)
Documentary feature (Canada/ Europe) 52 min.
Cinematographer
Merit Motion Pictures/ Edgeland Films Link
Broadcast/ Commissioned by: Arte, ZDF, TV Ontario, Knowledge Network, SCN, IFC
Synopsis: For the millions of swimmers worldwide, this film explores all that swimming has meant for so many – the splendor, the bravery, the adventure and the sensuality of the aquatic experience. This is a film of submersive passion; from the ancient Greeks to the great swimmers and divers of the twentieth century, water has inspired a devotion beyond athletics, a virtual cult of immersion. This hour long documentary takes its inspiration from Charles Sprawson’s landmark book, Haunts of the Black Masseur – The Swimmer as Hero, and the viewer is invited to accompany Sprawson as we explore such famous swimming haunts as Turkey’s Hellespont, the Tiber, the English Channel and many other magnificent locales across Europe and the United States. Throughout the hour we will meet some of the top marathon swimmers in the world such as Lynne Cox, David Yudovin and Alison Streeter as well as famed personalities, such as photographer Linda Troeller, who share their passion for and obsession with what most of us take for granted: water.
Kiran Over Mongolia (2004)
Documentary Feature (Mongolia) 86 min.
Story concept/ Writer/ Cinematographer
Bulk Films Link
Synopsis: Kuma, a young Kazak man, retraces the steps of his grandfather who was formerly eagle master back to the remote mountainous region of his family's origin. there, in extreme western Mongolia, he fulfills his dream of trapping and training his own eagle. under the tutelage of a local eagle master named Khairatkhan, Kuma learns not only the ways of hunting with eagles, but also the ways of his own people.
Untitled (2004) Link
Documentary short (India) 6min.
A film by Jonathan Bland
World premier: Billytown, The Netherlands
Synopsis: Diesel fumes hang heavy under the warm amber glow of sodium lamps deep south on the Indian sub continent. in the distance, ghost ships jockey. their cockeyed headlamps drift through the thick and weighty air. a single horn smashes the silence and a dog's warm carcass lays shattered. red liquid spills and the crows begin to smile.
Outcaste (2003) Link
Documentary short (India) 30 min.
A film by Jonathan Bland
Official selection Hot Docs / IDFA
Synopsis: Set amidst India's rich pageantry and frightening mayhem, one human being struggles to live a simple life in silence. In a world of inter-connectivity he is a mauni baba (silent monk). photographed over a one-year period, and without narration, this wordless portrait takes an anthropological approach to reveal the not so quiet daily life of a man that few of us would dare to trade places with.
Crapshoot: The Gamble With Our Waste (2003)
Documentary feature (Canada) 52 min.
Cinematographer (India)
National Film Board of Canada Link
Synopsis: A hazardous mix of waste is flushed into the sewer every day. the billions of litres of water-combined with unknown quantities of chemicals, solvents, heavy metals, human waste and food-where does it all go? And what does it do to us? From ancient times, countries have chosen the sewer to get rid of household and industrial waste, yet the contaminants we flush resurface in our food chain. Fish swim through waste water dumped into rivers, while sewage sludge is spread on farmland as fertilizer. Filmed in Italy, India, Sweden, the United States and Canada, this bold documentary questions whether the sewer is actually compounding our waste problems. While scientists warn of links between sewage practices and potential health risks, activists, engineers and concerned citizens challenge our fundamental attitudes to waste. does our need to dispose of waste take precedence over public safety? What are the alternatives?
HELL REALM (2002) Link
Documentary Short (India) 8 min.
A film by Jonathan Bland
World Premier: Billytown, The Netherlands
Synopsis: Life in hell.
Kaliyuga: Age of Iron (2000) Link
Documentary Feature (India) 35 min.
A film by Jonathan Bland
Canada Council for the Arts/ National Film Board of Canada FAP Grant
World premier Calgary International Film Festival
Synopsis: We are now 5121 years into the age of 'Kali yuga', a period of immorality and strife lasting 432,000 years. Living as a Hindu Sannyasi (renunciate) in a cave high above the source of the ganges river (Gaumukh glacier), Kailash Bharti wishes to transcend this world. What follows is a series of slow moving vignettes captured from his daily life in Tapovan (4463m) over a 4 month period in 2000.
