Filmmaker Peter Sacco racking up music video awards

Niagara-on-the-Lake filmmaker, author and psychology professor Peter Sacco’s latest music video is turning heads at film festivals around the world. 

Pure Heart, a video for a new song by Canadian music legend Ray Lyell, has won 15 Best Music Video awards and been selected for 20 different film festivals. It will show this September at the Toronto Independent Film and the Toronto International Nollywood Film Festivals, both linked to the larger Toronto International Film Festival.

The part-time McMaster University faculty member got into making films at the urging of a friend who worked in the industry as a production manager and ADR (automated dialogue replacement) supervisor on well-known films such as Pretty Woman, Braveheart and Pleasantville. 

“His name was Joe Mayer,” Sacco tells The Local. “He had read some of my books and he suggested I try to get someone to pick up the options on making some of them into films. I didn’t know how to do any of it, so I just sort of figured it all out myself.”

Sacco threw himself into learning what equipment he needed and then taught himself how to use it.

“I didn’t go to school for this, I’ve never even taken a course,” he says.

He teamed up with Cogeco’s director of programming Jack Custers to produce a popular program called Paranormal Profilers that ran on the cable station from 2012 to 2015, and began producing his own films the following year. 

Since then, Sacco estimates he’s completed almost 30 films, including short and feature length documentaries as well as music videos, many for Gordon Deppe, lead singer and songwriter for Hamilton-based band Spoons.

“Gordon has been a friend of mine for a long, long time,” says Sacco. “About five years ago, he approached me and asked me to do a video. I had him on Paranormal Profilers as an investigator. He wanted to do a video on that theme for one of his new songs.”

The video for the song, called The First & Last Time, features Deppe and his longtime musical partner Sandy Horne wandering through Willowbank in Queenston on the hunt for paranormal activity.

More videos for the new wave band followed, including an ingenious one for their song New Day New World, which he stitched together using submissions collected from people around the world during one of the pandemic lockdowns.

In the meantime, he shot a series of short videos under the theme of Historical Niagara. These have featured many NOTL locations, including Fort George, the Laura Secord Heritage Trail, Fort Mississauga and the Court House on Queen Street. 

The new music video was also shot locally with the help of co-director Peter Dychtiar. 

“Part of it was shot along the Niagara River, not too far from the old railroad bridge,” he explains. “We shot the rest of it in my backyard on York Road.”

The local footage is weaved together with stock video imagery provided under contract by Pexels and Pond5.

Lyell, who became a pastor about 15 years ago, tells The Local his inspiration for the song came from The Beatitudes, the summary of Jesus’ teachings found in the Gospel of Matthew.

“I didn’t grow up in the church,” says the musician, whose first hit was the single Another Man’s Gun back in 1989. “A lot of the songs that led me along my own divine path weren’t Christian songs. I Want to Know What Love Is, by Foreigner, the chorus from the Doobie Brothers’ Long Train Running. Their messages just hit me between the eyes. There’s a lot of lessons there.”

As the video for Pure Heart begins, the words A Redemption Story are featured on screen. Sacco’s interpretation of Lyell’s lyrics takes on many of the issues plaguing society today, including the fentanyl crisis, human trafficking and hate crimes. 

“The message is anti-hate, anti-racism, the whole gambit of it,” Sacco explains. “There’s so much human trafficking going on in the world. I know it first-hand because I have volunteered with ChildFind Ontario, and I’ve consulted for police services at all levels. I’ve seen it with my own eyes.”

Lyell, who lives in Dunnville, says he left the visual element for the video pretty much up to Sacco. 

“I respect the way Peter went with this,” says Lyell. “Sure, if I did the video it might have been completely different, not necessarily any better or worse. It’s always great to get someone else’s take on it. It’s really cool to see Peter’s thoughts take form, it’s really outside of the box in a way I never would have thought of.” 

It’s an emotional video, and that has led some to reach out to Sacco to thank him for making it. 

“A lot of women, especially, have reached out to me,” he says. “They tell me the video made them cry. The wife of an old friend I haven’t spoken to in many years told me how moved and crushed she was by the video.”

Sacco, a member of the Ontario Association of Counselors, Consultants, Psychometrists, and Psychotherapists, as well as the Canadian Mental Health Association, has submitted Pure Heart to film festivals in Hollywood, Turkey, Melbourne, Vancouver, the U.K. and Ukraine. 

“I basically run on zero budget,” adds Sacco. “I pay out of my own pocket to enter these film festivals. About nine of them have waived the fee because they really love the video and want to screen it at their festivals.”

Since 2016, Sacco estimates his relentless submissions to film festivals has resulted in more than 200 selections and awards for his work. 

Up next for him is another collaboration with Lyell and Dychtiar. 

“We’re going to shoot it in Kitchener,” he says. “There’s a covered bridge there that goes over this creek. It’s neat to see the Mennonite women there singing on Sundays in their traditional attire. We’ll shoot there and see where that takes us.”

To see Pure Heart, visit youtu.be/5xYVPR1olcc, or visit Sacco’s YouTube page at youtube.com/@historicalniagaratvshow5036 .