The ties that bind

Kalispell documentary filmmaker's next project focuses on Browning

While he was in film school in New Zealand, Nicolas Hudak put a great deal of work into the making of moving images, and a lot of thought into his career focus.

"As an artist, the ones who find their path create the most powerful work," Hudak said. "You have to find a style, and a subject that's meaningful."

Hudak, a 26-year-old Kalispell native, has found his passion in a documentary he begins filming next week, telling the story of a group of young American Indians on the Blackfeet reservation in Browning.

He has teamed up with Anna Starke, a German journalist he met in New Zealand, to shed light on some of America's indigenous people "from a youthful perspective."

"They are truly a generation in the middle ground," Hudak said. "They're stuck between traditional knowledge and ways, and being a part of Western culture."

He will present his plans for the project, as well as samples from his past photography and film work, on Monday at The Museum at Central School in Kalispell. The multimedia presentation, entitled "Beautiful Struggles," begins at 7 p.m. The event is free and open to the public.

Hudak's presentation will begin with still images from the small town of Cremona, Italy, where he aimed his camera and his curiosity toward a group of violin makers struggling to maintain their craft in the face of global competition.

Still and moving pictures from the slums of Mumbai, India, will follow, then the beginnings of the Browning project will be shown and his vision for it explained.

He said the evening will have an integrated feel, despite the vast geographical distances between the locations of his subjects.

"All three of the subjects have a lot in common," he said. "The ties that bind small communities together; the struggles they have to survive."

Hudak began exploring the world community in his teens, leaving Kalispell at age 16 to live in Italy. He was home-schooled and went to school in Italy for the remainder of his high school career, and then returned to receive his diploma from Flathead High School.

He spent the following summer on the island of Sardinia, Italy, where he delved into photography seriously, though he remained unsure whether still photography should be his career destination.

After deciding that film was where he could find "the real power of storytelling," Hudak spent a year going to school at a New Zealand university. He then teamed up with Kalispell filmmaker Michael Javorka to make a 30-minute movie in Italy. That film later was entered in the Banff Mountain Film Festival.

That project gave him entry into the prestigious School of Fine Arts at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand, where he spent five years studying film.

"It was pretty intense," he said of the program. "You just make films, one after another. It's based around creating film directors."

Alumni of the program include "Lord of the Rings' filmmaker Peter Jackson and someone Hudak particularly admires, Vincent Ward, director of the 1998 movie "What Dreams May Come," starring Robin Williams. Coincidentally, it was shot in the East Glacier and Browning areas, where Hudak will spending this summer.

Hudak was partly led to tell the story of people in Browning from his time in New Zealand, where he said the indigenous people "have a completely different relationship than what we have in America."

"I was amazed to see how completely different it was here," Starke said. "The indigenous people there are part of modern culture and politics - every aspect of life."

Hudak and Starke's project has been given nonprofit status through the Museum at Central School and they are looking for donors and investors to help underwrite the work. They have been researching for about four months, plan to spend the summer shooting footage and then will take the project to Germany for post-production work.

Hudak hopes that with this project he will not only give people a look at modern life on the reservation, but also open doors for future filmmakers in the Flathead Valley.

"I had to leave the valley, as there was no real availability of equipment or education around here," he said. "Hopefully this can create an interest there. You never know."

Reporter Heidi Gaiser may be reached at 758-4431 or by e-mail at hgaiser@dailyinterlake.com