Island filmmaker honours late John Bil with documentary

Shane Pendergast knew John Bil had cancer, but when he heard of the restaurateur's passing this week, he said it still came as a shock.

"Somebody like John, he's like this machine that you just assume that is going to keep going and going," Pendergast said.

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Bil, a restaurateur, sustainable seafood advocate, and oyster shucking champion, was known for such restaurants as   Honest Weight in Toronto, Joe Beef in Montreal and Ship to Shore in P.E.I. He died Wednesday from cancer. 

"Even when he was dealing with his illness, he was still doing so many things," Pendergast said.

A 'great opportunity'

But before Bil's death, Pendergast, now a film student at York University in Toronto, said Bil was the obvious choice as his subject for a documentary assignment.

"I hadn't seen John in a couple years," he said. "I realized since we were both in Toronto that I had this great opportunity."

Pendergast reached out to Bil in the fall, and spent the next two months producing an eight-minute documentary about his life.

"He has done so many amazing things and now he had a unique perspective, the fact that he had this illness...and still doing things."

'A bit of a mystery'

Pendergast grew up around the corner from Bil when he lived on the Island, and said Bil became very close with his family.

"John always was around ... some people thought he might be a Pendergast himself," he said. "Now that I'm older, I realized he was still a bit of a mystery to me."

Pendergast said the response to the documentary has been wonderful, even from Bil himself before he died.

"He really liked seeing the old home footage that we had ... this is footage that's almost 20 years old."

Canadian restaurateurs remember Bil

Pendergast's video is one of many tributes that came pouring in after Bil's death.

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