TORONTO — Nearly a decade after an Eskasoni, N.S. family redubbed British animated film "Chicken Run" in the Mi'kmaw language, some of the film’s directors are commending the couple for working to keep their language alive.
The co-director and writer of the film Peter Lord took to Twitter last week to say he "just heard about" Tom and Carol Anne Johnson’s version of "Chicken Run."
"As co-director of the original film may I say: Congratulations! What a great project and carry on the great work," Lord wrote in the tweet.
Carol Anne Johnson told CTV's Your Morning on Thursday they had emailed the distributor of the film, DreamWorks, nearly nine years ago about the project, but never heard back.
Tom Johnson said that in addition to Lord, the couple has also since heard from the daughter of the film’s late co-executive producer Canadian Jake Eberts. Tom said Lindsay Eberts explained to the couple that her father was a supporter of the Indigenous community, especially in film, and would have appreciated their redubbing and work to maintain the Mi'kmaw language.
Tom said there are less than 20 per cent of "first language speakers" on the Eskasoni First Nation who know and still use Mi'kmaw. He says this makes the importance of keeping language alive by passing it to the younger generation more significant.
"The language was meant to be spoken, it's an oral tradition -- and our goal is to capture as much as we can while we still have to first language speakers available to us," Tom said.
Originally meant to be just for their kids, the couple says dozens of DVD copies have now been shared all over Cape Breton, and it has even been shown at the local school.
Tom said their film is not a word-for-word translation; they put their own spin on it by also injecting humour that would fit not only the language, but also fit the movie. Tom said the choice wasn’t intentional.
"It was sort of on the fly," he said. "Synchronizing the cartoon and whatever we said to do in terms of syllables so that it would jive with the characters and we added a bit of Mi'kmaw humour."
For example, Tom explained that in one of the film’s scenes when the animals are playing with a badminton birdie, one of the characters suggests that it could be worn as a wedding veil. Tom and Carol Anne switched this to say the birdie could make an animal look like a chief.
Carol Anne said she believe these nods to Mi'kmaw culture is one of the reasons why the film is so popular in their community.
"It's probably one of the first of its kind. Actually seeing a movie, an animated movie, that's actually on the box office, and we're actually having it all in Mi'kmaw," Carol Anne explained.
"So I think that creates the delight [and] more intrigue to even look further into the movie and just want to sit there until it's finished because it's all in our language," she said.
Tom says they are considering doing another film in Mi'kmaw given the ongoing popularity of their redubbed "Chicken Run."
"My brother is the one who initially brought the 'Chicken Run' to me and said, 'We should do this,' and I put him off for so long. Now he's been talking about doing another one so... I think we will in the future," Tom said.
