Explor­ing indige­nous Cana­di­an films at the Fes­ti­val du Nou­veau Cinéma

On the eve of Canada’s fed­er­al elec­tion, one of the most press­ing issues is the rights and lib­er­ties of indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties across the coun­try. Many First Nations com­mu­ni­ties across the coun­try do not have access to clean water, the cur­rent Lib­er­al gov­ern­ment has chal­lenged the human rights rul­ing to, ​“com­pen­sate First Nations chil­dren harmed by the on-reserve child wel­fare sys­tem and under-fund­ed child,” and fam­i­ly ser­vices and access to gov­ern­ment ser­vices remains unequal.

This sum­mer, a report by the Nation­al Inquiry into Mur­dered and Miss­ing Indige­nous Women and Girls com­mis­sioned by the Fed­er­al gov­ern­ment, ruled that, ​“seri­ous rea­sons to believe that Canada’s past and cur­rent poli­cies, omis­sions, and actions towards First Nations Peo­ples, Inu­it and Métis amount to genocide.”

More than ever, the voice of indige­nous peo­ple with­in Cana­di­an soci­ety and the arts are inte­gral for a healthy and mobilised democracy.

This year’s Fes­ti­val du Nou­veau Ciné­ma in Mon­tréal brought numer­ous indige­nous voic­es to the fore. Beyond the fea­ture films select­ed in the main pro­gramme, the fes­ti­val held its annu­al show­case of the best films made by the Wapikoni Mobile, a trav­el­ling ini­tia­tive that offers resources and work­shops to Indige­nous youths to pro­duce films.

There was also a ret­ro­spec­tive of the work of Dar­ryl Nepinak, from Skow­nan First Nation, which includ­ed a pas­sion­ate dis­cus­sion about his work, his life and film pro­duc­tion in Cana­da. Here’s a clos­er look at the four fea­ture films made by indige­nous film­mak­ers to screen at this year’s festival.

Jeff Barnaby’s fol­low-up to his fea­ture-debut Rhymes for Young Ghouls recent­ly had its world pre­mière as part of the Mid­night Mad­ness pro­gram at TIFF. A fresh take on the zom­bie film, Blood Quan­tum is set at the Red Crow Mi’gMaq reserve as a zom­bie apoc­a­lypse breaks out along its edges. Wel­com­ing refugees as they also must pro­tect them­selves from oncom­ing threats, the film echoes spe­cif­ic polit­i­cal and social issues from history.

It quotes spe­cif­ic iconog­ra­phy of the Oka cri­sis, a land dis­pute between the Mohawk res­i­dents of Kane­sa­take and the res­i­dents of Oka that took place in 1991. The title refers to a very real prac­tice that con­tin­ues today, which deter­mines by ances­try and ​“blood,” whether or not you can claim sta­tus as an indige­nous per­son with­in Cana­da. While some­what uneven, Blood Quan­tum is a gory and thought­ful take on the famil­iar zom­bie myth.

Rest­less Riv­er, an adap­ta­tion of a nov­el by one of Canada’s fore­most writ­ers, Gabrielle Roy, is a restrained por­trait of Elsa, a young Inuk woman who is raped by an Amer­i­can sol­dier and gives birth to a blonde, blue-eyed son. Set in the after­math of World War Two and cross­ing sev­er­al decades, the film reveals a chang­ing world and chang­ing poli­cies that com­pli­cate Elsa’ sense of iden­ti­ty and culture.

Co-direct­ed by Made­line Ivalu and Marie-Hélène Cousineau, the film is bright­ly coloured and fea­tures a strong, warm lead per­for­mance by Malaya Qau­nirq Chap­man. Nar­ra­tive­ly con­ven­tion­al, the film nonethe­less chal­lenges the per­spec­tive of most peri­od films, while being a fas­ci­nat­ing and engag­ing por­trait of moth­er­hood under adversity.

Aside from a few open­ing scenes, The Body Remem­bers When the World Broke Open unfolds in one con­tin­u­ous shot. Set in the East Side of Van­cou­ver, the film is about the meet­ing of two indige­nous women from dif­fer­ent back­grounds; Rosie (Vio­let Nel­son) who is phys­i­cal­ly assault­ed by her part­ner, and the oth­er named Áila (Elle-Mái­já Tail­feath­ers) who notices Rosie in dis­tress and vol­un­teers to help her. Explor­ing the con­cept of vis­i­bil­i­ty, oppres­sion and class dif­fer­ences, the film is a tense and heart­break­ing exam­i­na­tion of con­flict­ing iden­ti­ties and ideals, unfold­ing in real-time.

The con­ceit of the one-shot offers a sense of hyper-real­i­ty, and the nat­u­ral­ism of the inter­ac­tions and plot only serve to high­light the strug­gles of escap­ing tox­ic cir­cum­stances and stand­ing up on your own. A unique and chal­leng­ing expe­ri­ence, this is a bound­ary-push­ing, ground­break­ing work by Kath­leen Hep­burn and Elle-Mái­já Tail­feath­ers (the lat­ter of whom stars as Áila and also appears in Blood Quantum).

While Zacharias Kunuk’s film, Ata­nar­ju­at: The Fast Run­ner, is reg­u­lar­ly vot­ed as the great­est Cana­di­an film of all time, his career remains some­what inac­ces­si­ble out­side of Cana­di­an film fes­ti­vals. His lat­est film, One Day in the Life of Noah Piu­gat­tuk, is set in 1961 in the Apuivik, Baf­fin Island. As the film opens, Noah Piu­gat­tuk has set out to go hunt­ing for seals with his dog team. On his path, he encoun­ters a rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the Cana­di­an gov­ern­ment, who tries to per­suade Noah to relo­cate from his ances­tral ter­ri­to­ry to a set­tle­ment town.

Their dis­cus­sion, fil­tered through an Inuk­ti­tut trans­la­tor, makes up the major­i­ty of the film’s run­ning time. A micro-nar­ra­tive about Canada’s insid­i­ous rela­tion­ship with the first nations peo­ple, as the dis­cus­sion pro­gress­es it becomes increas­ing­ly clear that the government’s ​“propo­si­tion,” is not a sug­ges­tion but a demand. The film toys with lan­guage, com­mu­ni­ca­tion and inde­pen­dence. It is wrought with con­fu­sion and mis­giv­ings and is a scathing por­trait of the colo­nial and pater­nal­is­tic Cana­di­an government.

More than just a peri­od piece, this is a film about the ongo­ing real­i­ty of the rela­tion­ship between the first nations peo­ple of Cana­da and the Fed­er­al government.

For more on this year’s Fes­ti­val du Nou­veau Ciné­ma vis­it nou​veaucin​e​ma​.ca