Don’t let the surrealist nature of Endless Cookie fool you, rather, indulge in it. Half-brothers Pete and Seth Scriver – the former White, the latter Indigenous, come together to share stories of their upbringing, dipping in and out of the bizarre, including portraying Pete’s daughter Cookie as a talking cookie.
The film plays out like a particularly tangential fever dream–a colorful depiction of the many overlapping episodes of the brothers’ lives–from their upbringing in Downtown Toronto’s Kensington Market to Pete’s current residence in an isolated Northern Manitoba First Nation community. As they reminisce, their yarns are often punctuated, interrupted or else hijacked by the charismatic members of their family who indulge in their own reveries. Endless Cookie is at heart an impressionistic and often surreal depiction of family but it is also a documentary of the creative process.
Carlos Aguilar of Variety wrote about Endless Cookie, saying, “It’s not that Pete is particularly engaging or that he has a hypnotic voice, but rather that he can turn the most irrelevant-seemingly piece of insular lore into a funny bit that invites the listener to take the burden of existence less seriously, while never ignoring the past. Underneath the lowbrow fart jokes and images of caribou mating, the Scrivers’ “Endless Cookie” honors the legacy others left behind through their experiences so that it can help each new generation piece together their understanding of the embattled present.”
Endless Cookie premiered at Sundance Film Festival where it was nominated for a Grand Jury Prize in World Cinema for a Documentary. It was shown at several other film festivals, including San Francisco International Film Festival and BFI London Film Festival, and won five awards in total. The film received a theatrical release in Canada, and will open in theaters in New York and Los Angeles on December 5th.
Watch the official trailer for Endless Cookie above.
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