Victoria-bred documentary filmmaker Sam Dunn is back on his home turf Friday for a quick in-and-out business trip.
That he is doing it as part of the symposium South of Heaven: Heavy Metal and Religion — which includes a Cinecenta screening of Dunn’s acclaimed 2007 film Global Metal — is reason enough to fly across the country, even with an incredibly hectic schedule waiting for him back home in Ontario.
“Metal music serves many of the same things that people get out of a religious experience,” Dunn, 39, said Tuesday from his home in Toronto.
“It’s about connecting with something that feels bigger and more powerful than yourself. If you’ve ever been at a metal festival, there’s a sense of power, of community, of release, and those are similar things that people have found in religious experiences for a long, long time.”
The topic of metal is one Dunn knows very well, having co-directed (with his business partner, fellow University of Victoria grad Scot McFadyen) a handful of documentaries relating to the subject.
One of his best is Global Metal, which looks at the cultural and socio-political aspect of heavy metal. Dunn will be at Cinecenta in the UVic Student Union Building on Friday for a Q&A session and screening of the film, which continues to make cultural inroads nearly six years after its release.
“Global Metal is by far our smallest film from a sales perspective,” Dunn said. “But metal fans really like it because it takes them to places where they didn’t know there was metal. The academic community loves it, too, because it’s looking at issues like globalization and religion and the identity of young people in countries where there’s a lot of change going on.”
He was busy Monday and Tuesday screening his latest documentary, Super Duper Alice Cooper, for programmers at the Toronto International Film Festival. The retrospective on Alice Cooper is the latest anticipated release from production company Banger Films, which McFadyen and Dunn have run since their first film together, 2005’s Gemini Award-winning Metal: A Headbanger’s Journey.
Dunn played in some metal bands growing up — including Victoria acts Scrape Chamber and Dementia — and even hosted a metal radio show on UVic station CFUV, titled Overkill. But when he moved east to attend Toronto’s York University, from which he received his master’s degree in anthropology, Dunn’s interest in filmmaking blossomed.
Dunn and McFadyen are currently finishing a documentary on Satan, their first broad-stroke picture since Metal Evolution, their docu-series that ran on VH1 and MuchMusic.
Victoria has hosted various Banger Films screenings over the years, including one at Lucky Bar in 2006 during which Dunn met his future wife. As such, every trip home is special for Dunn.
That he is coming home to talk about metal in the context of a religion appeals to Dunn’s inner egghead.
“There’s always a part of me that is going to miss academia. If there is anything I was meant to do, it was to be a professor of some kind, so I’m always happy to reconnect with that world in some way.”
Where were you born and raised?
I was born in England, but raised in Victoria.
When did you arrive in Victoria?
We came here when I was one, which is why I have no British accent.
At which point did you know the city was not for you in the long term?
As I was finishing my BA at UVic I made the decision that I wanted to go on at a master’s level, and I didn’t want to do it in Victoria or Vancouver, or anywhere close. I wanted to move away and experience something new. That was 1998. I was 24.
What is your favourite thing about Victoria?
Memories of childhood, if that counts. I know I’m supposed to say the ocean and the scenery. But I’m trying to be contrary here. I miss more than anything the smell of freshly cut grass in March. When I got to Toronto in March and there was six feet of snow, I was a little pent-up.
What is your greatest accomplishment as a person?
It has to be the beautiful family that makes me look good. I struck it rich, because my wife loves metal. It gets heavy in our household.
And as a professional?
Becoming a professional filmmaker, in general, is the thing I am most proud of in my career.
First album you purchased?
Ratt, Out of the Cellar. I can see myself now, holding the cassette in my hand.
Favourite album?
Iron Maiden, Live After Death.
First concert you attended?
Armoros and Mission of Christ at the Fernwood Community Centre. It was kind of a blurry time, but I think it was 1988.
Favourite concert you attended?
The date in Costa Rica on Iron Maiden’s Somewhere Back in Time tour. I still get goosebumps now thinking about it.
If you had one motto or rule to abide by, what would it be?
Hire people that are smarter than you.
Buffy Sainte-Marie headlines tonight’s free outdoor concert at Congress 2013’s Celebration Square, in front of the McPherson Library, at 7:30 p.m. Congress 2013 continues through Saturday. For information and a schedule, go to uviccongress2013.ca.