Young Island filmmaker to take part in Remembrance Day ceremony in Ottawa

Shane Pendergast has found a lot of inspiration in the stories around Remembrance Day. Growing up, he remembers seeing the veterans at the ceremony in the Tracadie Cross-Mount Stewart area of P.E.I.

Now the Morell High grad will lay a wreath at the Remembrance Day ceremony in Ottawa, as a national winner in the Royal Canadian Legion's 2016 Poster and Literary Contest. 

Pendergast has been entering the Legion contest since elementary school, but decided, in his Grade 12 essay to focus on music. A musician himself, he dug into the online archives to find songs from World War One, and was surprised by what he found.

"Some of them that really interested me were the songs that were written by the soldiers in the trenches because I thought that they might focus on back at home, or the homeland, kind of take their mind off of the horrors that were going on in front of them," explained Pendergast.

"What I found out was that a lot of the songs that they wrote were funny and they made fun of their situation," he said. "They had a song We're all Waiting for a Shell and that really surprised me."

The story from the trenches

Shane Pendergast's interest in Remembrance Day also inspired a short film that he and a friend produced last year while they were in Grade 12 at Morell High School. 

Their history class was hosting the school's ceremony of remembrance and they wanted something that teenagers would appreciate.

The film features a modern day youth, played by Pendergast, standing on the edge of a field. He takes out his smartphone and starts to play an audio recording of a soldier in World War One describing life in the trenches. 

"We found an old recording of someone describing life in the trenches in World War One, an actual recording," said Pendergast. "He's very vivid."

'This is real'

The idea of the video was to take the viewer right into the scene.

"We went out to this big dirt pit. It was raining that day, pouring rain, and we were out there for four or five hours," explained Pendergast. "We dug our own trenches, my buddy was dressed up as a soldier. We got an actual helmet from World War I."

"It makes you really think, this is real, it actually happened, people were fighting for our freedom."

The short film had its debut last month at the Charlottetown Film Festival.

Pendergast is now attending York University in Toronto, majoring in film, and dreams of someday making a period piece, based around World War One.

"Hopefully someday I will have the autonomy to be able to take a project like that on my own, I would love to do something for Remembrance Day, just on a bigger scale."

"As an artist, I have a huge appreciation for the freedom of expression, freedom of speech. It's an honour to live in this great country where we have those freedoms."

Laying a wreath

As part of his award from the Royal Canadian Legion, Pendergast will travel to Ottawa a few days before Remembrance Day. He and his fellow winners will get to stay at the Chateau Laurier and meet the Governor-General. They also receive a $1,000 bursary.

On Remembrance Day, Pendergast will lay a wreath on behalf of Canadian youth.

"There are a lot of people who have family connections and we're all going to be thinking about — even those people we haven't met," said Pendergast, whose great-grandfather Billy Fitzpatrick fought in the First World War.

"I never met my great-grandfather but he still means so much to me."

'We have to remember'

Pendergast will also be thinking about his grandfather, who he travelled with to Ottawa for the first time, along with his family.

"He was a big fan of history, he had the best week of his life," recalled Pendergast. "He passed away a few years ago but I'll really be thinking of him when I stand at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier again. I'll know he's looking down on me from somewhere."

"It's Remembrance Day and it's called that for a reason and that's because we have to remember."

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