(L–R) Peter Scriver and Seth Scriver introduce their documentary “Endless Cookie” for its premiere at the Egyptian Theatre in Park City. (Photo by Andrew H. Walker/Shutterstock for Sundance Film Festival)
By Jordan Crucchiola
For those in attendance at the January 25 premiere of Endless Cookie, an animated film playing in the World Cinema Documentary Competition, they will depart the Egyptian Theatre and walk out into the falling Park City snow with an utterly unique viewing experience behind them. Senior programmer and chief curator of New Frontier Shari Frilot provides a joyful introduction, but not one that could totally prepare viewers for the level of innovative biographical work from filmmaker brothers Peter and Seth Scriver.
“This film comes to Sundance from downtown Toronto and the northern Canadian bush,” Frilot tells the crowd as she sets up the film. “It is one of the most delightful, most profound, playful docs I’ve ever seen about community and the creative process. I love this film so much.” The Scrivers then take the stage, where Seth tells the audience that this is probably the first time Peter has been in a theater in 35 years. “I know that because the first time I went to a movie was 35 years ago, and he was with me,” says Seth, as the audience laughs.
Peter and his family have no movie theaters near them in their northern Manitoba home of Shamattawa, where Seth would go to visit and record audio for Endless Cookie, which took almost a decade to complete. The final piece plays like an odyssey into the intertwined histories and present lives of the Scrivers. While capturing clean sound would be a conventional approach to assembling a documentary, this was a purely homespun effort. Peter’s family didn’t know how to correctly use the microphone that Seth left behind for them, so at one point he got 20 blank files that were supposed to be full of content. Conversations in the film are frequently interrupted by kids, friends, neighbors, and anyone else passing through the room as Seth records and Peter tells stories of his past and of his ancestral people.
The spontaneity of different voices continuously interjecting gives the viewer a sense of immediacy in the dialogue, as if they’re sitting with the Scrivers in their living room. The family goes grocery shopping. Peter makes caribou stew. The kids build a tepee. And Seth records it all. But recounted among the daily routines and interactions are stories from Peter and others that range from a comical mishap with a bear trap to an elder conjuring visions in a shaking tent. (With his signature wry humor, Peter compares the ritual to how modern Wi-Fi works now; you just dial up someone to talk with them in the spirit realm.) At the post-premiere Q&A, Peter’s daughter Cookie Scriver joins the stage. She says watching the movie really does reflect life at their home.
The overlapping timelines make Endless Cookie feel intimate in its tone, yet vast in its scope. As half brothers with a large age difference between them, and who share a white father — Peter is Native and Seth is white — the movie they made together feels as unique as their bond. But for all the insights one could glean from the film and all the lessons from the past it imparts, another quality that’s most important to the Scrivers is humor. Endless Cookie is filled with laughter, the occasional fart joke, and whimsical visions. Peter’s immediate reaction upon being asked what it was like to sit in the audience is, “That was a long movie,” which sends the room and the brothers into laughter. Seth’s animation features Cookie as a literal cartoon cookie, and most characters have inexplicable noses that he used just because they made him laugh. As Peter tells the audience, humor is intrinsic to the soul of his community. “Native people are funny people,” says Peter. “It’s the one group of people I’ve found where there’s hardly anything serious. There always has to be a joke.” Cookie then adds, “Yeah people say ‘just kidding’ a lot — even if they mean it,” causing another round of laughter to break out across the audience.
Kidding aside, Endless Cookie is a beautiful portrait of both a family and their culture, and the Scriver kids in attendance sincerely approve of the project they grew up making over the course of a decade. “I didn’t think we would get this far,” says Peter’s daughter, Simone Scriver. “I didn’t know this would happen, but it’s great and I love it.” Cookie underscores her sentiment, “I thought it was really nice. I just really like seeing a lot of our characters are real. This is a family thing, and with all the Native stories it just warms my heart.”
