Colder Than Mars looks at Winnipeggers' love/hate relationship with winter

A Winnipeg film company has chronicled the city's love/hate relationship with winter in a new documentary called Colder Than Mars.

The Numan Films documentary was inspired by the weather on Dec. 31, 2013, when the Manitoba Museum reported Winnipeg was colder than the surface of Mars.

• Winnipeg deep freeze as cold as uninhabited planet

"Suddenly we became this place that was internationally renowned as being the coldest place on earth," said Jeff Newman, the film's producer.

Newman was working in Toronto when Winnipeg's weather made international headlines. People asked him how he survives in the cold.

"I don't know. We just do it," he said.

RAW: Jeff Newman talks about the documentary Colder Than Mars

9 years ago

Duration 2:52

Film producer Jeff Newman sat down with CBC Information Radio's Marcy Markusa to talk about a new Winnipeg documentary called Colder Than Mars.The film captures that sentiment. Colder Than Mars follows people going to work, kids getting ready for school and the extra challenge for seniors as they make their way through the icy streets. 

"The goal was to show and feel the emotion of winter, because winter is inside us," he said. 

The filmmakers shot the documentary last winter in temperatures of –25 C and colder.

"It's hard to show or express cold. We worked really hard to capture the beauty of what it is when it's really, really cold," he said.

His crew got shots of exhaust smoke coming from buildings, cars rolling through the streets and people kicking chunks of snow from the bottom of their cars.

"I describe this film as it's a bit of a love letter but there's also some hate mail mixed [in]," he said.

"There's sort of this spiritual connection we all have with this."

Colder Than Mars premieres on Jan. 25 at Le Garage Café. The film is also available on MTS Stories From Home.