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First Nations

Slash/Back: Hunting for Heritage

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You don’t [mess] with the girls from Pang.

Written and directed by Nyla Innuksuk, Slash/Back is set in Pangnirtung, Nunavut and tells the story of Maika (Tasiana Shirley) and her friends (Alexis Vincent-Wolf, Chelsea Pruksy and Nalajoss Ellsworth). With school closed for summer, this sunlight-drenched part of the world settles in for a typical summer of fun. However, when an unknown presence threatens their hometown, the group must band together to ward off the alien threat.

Set in the heart of Nunavut, Slash/Back is a fun and furious sci-fi horror that also feels relevant with its exploration of Indigenous issues. For her first feature, Innusuk takes a story of four indigenous teens battling aliens and makes it feels like an act of love. Part Attack the Block and part Amblin-style adventure, the film is a celebration of indigenous culture and youthfulness that also fully entertains. As a love letter to the horror genre, this ‘zombie creature-feature’ knows how to make use of its limited budget and special effects to imbue the film with a sense of dread without skimping on the blood splatters. What’s more, the film has some joyful performances from its young cast that help the film feel authentic, even in its wildest of moments. (Performances become particularly noteworthy when one considers that this is also the first film for its young stars.)

While it absolutely brings the blood, Slash/Back also reminds us of the value of owning one’s cultural identity as it speaks to the emotional weight that can be carried by indigenous teens. Struggling to connect with their parents or their culture, the younger generation is shown to have a deeply rooted frustration within themselves. Feeling disconnected from their heritage, there is a sense of frustration about their ethnicity and the way that others view them. (In fact, Maika even argues that her her parents only create art in order to appease white tourists.)

Their indigeneity may be who they are… but that doesn’t mean that it’s who they want to be.

However, as the pressure of alien invasion mount, things begin to change. When their community is threatened, they begin to take ownership of their cultural heritage and they rise up to protection their hometown. All of a sudden, the shame that they once felt gives way a sense of pride. This connection with their history gives life to their souls and the young teens are driven into action. There is a fury that burns deeply within them that is unleashed against the outside threat. 

With its ambitious tone and enthusiasm, there’s a lot to like about Slash/Back. With wild kills and chills, Innuksuk clearly has a love for the horror genre that fuels the film. Even so, what makes the film so special though is its beating heart of cultural celebration. As Maika and her friends step forward to fight, Slash/Back shows the strength of the Indigenous people and the power that stems from owning their heritage.

Because, after all, you don’t [mess] with the girls from Pang.

Slash/Back is available in theatres on Friday, June 24th, 2022

Run Woman Run: Moving Out of Our Muck

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We’re all called to run the race of life. But some of us are more afraid to get started than others.

Written and directed by Zoe Leigh Hopkins, Run Woman Run tells the story of Beck (Dakota Ray Hebert), a single mom who is struggling to put it all together. Living with her son and her father, Len (Lorne Cardinal), Beck has essentially given up on life. However, after she has a vision of the iconic First Nations marathon runner, Tom Long, she finds the right voice to encourage her to get moving. 

Like the film’s climactic marathon, Run Woman Run begins slowly but finishes strong. Set amidst a native reserve in Northern Canada, Run explores what it means to restart your life. Anchored by some truly engaging performances by Dakota Ray Hebert and the always endearing Lorne Cardinal, Run manages to overcome some rough terrain and outpace other coming-of-age tales with its unique voice and style.

For Beck, her entire life is stuck on standby. After the death of her mother, she is still reeling from the loss and, essentially, given up entirely. Divorced and living in unhealthy life, she’s shaken up even more when she discovers that she has diabetes, just like her mother. As a result, she has no interest (ability?) to own any aspect of her life, whether it’s her health or even taking time to understand her heritage.

But she’s not the only one. 

Similar to Beck, her father remains paralyzed with grief. Even though he is now in a relationship with a woman that he loves, he is still not ready to move on. Unable to deal with his pain, he hides his wife’s possessions so that he doesn’t have to deal with them. Like his daughter, he too remains in stasis. 

In this way, Run’s becomes about so much more than one woman’s journey towards health and exercise. For Hopkins, Beck’s journey is about the work that’s required emotional healing and restoration. Her conversations with Tom Long serve as somewhat of a spiritual mentor for her, challenging her and calling her into a life that moves forward. Through her interactions with him, she begins to understand that her return to some sense of normalcy is a long one and will require a determination and inner desire. Whether it’s making amends with her family, taking responsibility for her own life or simply choosing to learn about her own heritage, Beck slowly begins to put the pieces back together emotionally and physically, allowing her to look ahead.

In Run Woman Run, writer/director Hopkins tells a simple story that remains beautiful, and poignant. But, most of all, it’s patient. This is a film acknowledges that life is not one moment or a quick fix. Instead, it’s a journey that requires a steady hand and the willingness to be thankful for those that have helped you along the way.

But first, we have to make the choice to get running.

Run Woman Run is available on VOD now.

Day 3 at AFI Docs

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Today’s films reflect a look at history. That includes a look at a wonderful music festival from 50 years ago—that isn’t Woodstock, and an in depth look at one of the darkest days of recent American history.

In 1969 the world knew all about Woodstock. A few hundred miles away another music festival took place that has been hidden away for half a century. Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised) takes us to the 6 weeks of the Harlem Cultural Festival that featured the crème de la crème of Black music at the time. We see Mahalia Jackson, The Staple Singers, Sly and the Family Stone, B.B. King, The Fifth Dimension, Nina Simone, Gladys Knight and the Pips, and many more.

This is an amazing collection of musical history of the time, but even more it is a look back at the issues that were occurring fifty years ago, and that still are a part of society’s struggles today. Directed by Questlove, this film makes a point that music speaks of and to the struggles of people. The fact that this festival has been unknown for so long is a sign that we still need to hear these voices. Summer of Soul will soon be available in theaters and on Hulu.

As we draw close to the twentieth anniversary of the terrorist attack on America, National Geographic, in official collaboration with the 9/11 Museum and Memorial, has created a documentary series, 9/11: One Day in America. The series presents oral history from some of the people who survived that day: firefighters, people who escaped from the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. These are intimate, personal, and often very graphic and emotional memories.

The first three episodes of the series are having their world premiere as part of AFI Docs. Those three episodes begin just before 6:00 a.m. and move through 10:50 a.m., shortly after Flight 93 crashed in Pennsylvania. Part of the purpose of the series is to make this a human story. In our minds 9/11 has found a place in the American mythos. We politicize it. We make it about heroism (and that is a big part of that day). We see a big picture, but this series is about many of the pieces that are the human beings involved. Those human stories are to be treasured.

I’ll be honest. This wasn’t the top of my list to see during the festival, but I thought it was important to include. The way the stories are told by these survivors, with archival footage providing much of the visuals, is truly compelling. That is not to say it is easy to watch. This is not the kind of thing to binge watch. I needed to take a few breaks along the way to process all I was seeing and hearing.

And as always, I want to share some shorts. Today I’ll note a pair of animated shorts. They are docs, but done in animation. In The Train Station, Lyana Patrick very briefly (two minutes) tells the story of her father being sent to the Lejac Indian Residential School and his mother’s weekly long walk along the railroad tracks to bring him food and to help him keep his language The film doesn’t speak of what went on at the school, but rather celebrates how Patrick’s grandmother’s love helped to form her father to be a leader among First Nation people.

Spaces (Mezery) is an animated exploration of memory—and the loss of memory. It chronicles filmmaker Nora Štbová’s brother’s struggle with losing all short-term and then all memory as the result of a tumor. A touching and loving bit of her own memory of that experience.

Photos courtesy of AFI

Horror and History: 1on1 with Jeff Barnaby (BLOOD QUANTUM)

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Directed by Jeff Barnaby, Blood Quantum brings us to the isolated Mi’gMaq reserve of Red Crow where things begin to spiral out of control when an unseen virus begins to turn the locals into blood-thirsty zombies. As the dead begin to come back to life, the Indigenous inhabitants discover that they are strangely immune to the plague and are forced to care for those in the area who are desperately seeking sanctuary themselves. Asked what inspired him to make his film from the perspective of First Nations peoples, Barnaby states that his vision simply extends from a desire to tell a zombie story in fresh and exciting ways.

“I reversed engineered this story from just wanting to do a zombie movie,” he begins. “Honestly, we’re sitting around at TIFF in either 2006-7 and John and I, the producer, had just finished screening The Colony, which blew up. We ended up on TIFF’s Top Ten… We were feeling pretty good about ourselves. So, we were like, ‘Let’s do a zombie film!’ [laughs] Nobody was going to hand over $5 million to any first-time filmmaker to do a zombie film. So, that’s how we ended up doing Rhymes [for Young Ghouls] first because we wanted to show people that were viable for that kind of money and that kind of market… So, with Blood Quantum, it was just the idea of wanting to do a zombie film…”

In developing the film, he wrestled with how to make use of the ‘virus’ motif within the narrative, especially considering the historically traumatic relationship between Indigenous people and foreign disease. 

“I think people are making that association because of the environment we’re in now, but also because of the history of indigenous people and their association with viruses,” Barnaby clarifies. “The word ‘virus’ is never even mentioned once in the film and neither does a source and everybody’s just assuming it’s a virus. If they don’t die, it could be a Martian. You don’t know. It was implied in a couple of other things too [that] there was a spaceship showed up out of nowhere and the dead started coming back to life. But it is a virus, to end the debate. In earlier draft of the script, it was more explicit to be more like a 28 Weeks Later virus. And I felt like it would’ve been in bad taste to do something like that considering the history of indigenous people. I felt like indigenous people love zombies and to turn it more into a classical zombie horror film class rather than make the explicit comparison. I felt like just by putting natives in that context, people were going to do it anyway and I didn’t really even draw those connections too explicitly.”

While the concept of the ‘killer virus’ movie is far from new, the current global pandemic certainly gives the film a more realistic edge to it. In light of a COVID-19 world, Barnaby points out that history may have shown that a situation like this should not have been unexpected.

“I’m here more or less because somebody in my historical lineage survived a pandemic, which is true of basically anybody on the planet right now,” he explains. “I think we’re just a group of people with the idea that it can’t happen to us. We were due for a major outbreak like this because you see it. Virtually every century, there’s some major pandemic. Almost hundred years ago to the day, it was the Spanish Flu. It seems like all the things that came up then are coming up now and I keep hearing myself explaining over and over again [that] humanity’s learning curve is a circle. I feel like the film in and of itself is expressing that same idea. You’re picking a film and you’re basically creating this false construct them from making a comment on postcolonial North American culture. I didn’t really do anything besides following the patterns. I feel like I was just making logical leaps… There have been minor outbreaks here and there. We were getting warning shots across the bow for so long. I feel like this was bound to happen and I didn’t even think like that when I was writing the film. To me, I was following the pattern, right? I was following the patterns of disease and the pattern of social structure and reaction to the disease. So, you still see the xenophobia that you saw from the early turn of the century and it’s just one big circle.”

With this in mind, Barnaby goes on to say that Quantum ultimately serves as a metaphor to the relationship between First Nations people and the pain of colonialism.

“It’s the retelling the story of colonialism, which invariably involves disease,” describes Barnaby, “and it wouldn’t be a stretch to say we are where we are right now because of the mass pandemics on this land. If the smallpox fires didn’t wipe out half the population, would the face of this culture look the way it looks now? Of course not. Diseases and the xenophobia that comes with that has shaped our society. I think natives or indigenous people have such a weird relationship with that history because, in a sense, that’s what led to our decimation. Our population disappeared 90% in about a century. That’s one of the comments in Blood Quantum also that we’re the perfect post-apocalyptic society because we survived all these pandemics. We’ve survived violent oppression and we’re pretty good at making barricades.” [laughs]

Frustrated by the limitations of conventional filmmaking, Barnaby considers the horror genre to be the perfect place to discuss cultural issues through the metaphors inherent to wild and out-of-the-box circumstances.

“I think when you deal with mainstream film, you’re dealing with the group of people that do not want to rock the boat,” Barnaby argues. “It’s nauseous now. Never mind, [writing] an original script. You’re never going to see that. Everybody needs to get something that’s worked before so it’s either going to be a book or comic book or some sort of previously accessible whatever. Everybody is scared to make a leap in narrative. We’ve been making the hero’s journey for like two millennia. Now, it’s time to move on from those narrative beats for real. You can look at the hero’s journey and you could apply it to like literally 99% of the stuff that’s being released on a quote unquote mainstream market.”

“…All the craziest stories in every platform, comics, novels, video games, whatever. I find everything interesting right now is going on in either horror, science fiction or drama. I know I’m sick of superhero films, like Marvel. You can only see that applied to so many different characters before you’re wondering, ‘okay, what’s next?’ You start looking at the alternatives like Brightburn or some of the other films that have come out that have tried to subvert that hero’s journey.”

Uninhibited by the confines of mainstream cinema, Barnaby believes that horror gives him the freedom to tell more human stories.

“I don’t think any human story is that cut and dry. I don’t think I’m reinventing anything,” he continues. “I’m just telling stories the way they exist in life and I think native people have always done that. I think if you look at traditional native stories, they’re all over the place. People can change into boxes and time can shift all over the place. So, I’m just kind of following that rich tradition of crazy storytelling that I’ve come from and I’m applying it to cinema. I think you can’t really do that in mainstream cinema [but] horror will do anything. I think that’s why you’re seeing a renaissance now because the real ideas are coming out in horror. I think that’s how you get Us. I think that’s how you get the Ari Aster or Robert Eggers [stuff]. They’ll tell you they’re not horror directors. They’re dealing with the human condition. It just so happens that they’re using horror as a vehicle because that’s their aesthetic. I feel like I’m exactly the same way. When I looked at something like Midsommer, I don’t look at it as a horror film. I look at it as a breakup film. That’s exactly how it goes down in a mediocre relationship. It just so happens to take place in this environment where there’s a cult. That’s the only anomaly. I feel like, if you’re a storyteller that wants to deviate from those beats, horror welcomes you with open arms, whereas everybody else has their game plan to follow. Horror says ‘do what you feel’.”

Of course, by grounding his zombie horror on the Mi’gMaq reserve, Barnaby has ample opportunity to explore more conventional horror tropes through the eyes of the First Nations people. For example, when one character makes his ‘last stand’ against the oncoming horde, most films would stereotypically use this as an opportunity for that character to prove their individual worth. However, Blood Quantum more poignantly uses that moment to speak more to that character’s connection with the land itself, rather than any personal glory.

“Typically, when you see those ‘last stands’, [they are] for some sort of noble [crap],” he explains. “The native in Predator comes to mind. He’s just going to stand there because he wants to have a man-on-man fight,” he illustrates. “I think for [that character], I think he did that because he’s a veteran… He’s a WWII veteran so you get the impression that he has left the land to fight for this ‘country’ and he ended up coming back realizing that, [he was] just murdering people for no reason. You hear stories of native veterans coming back. I could see why he would not want to be chased off that land again. The idea that he plans on making the last stand there is absurd because this old man has no intentions of dying there. He plans on killing every zombie that shows up and it’s left ambiguous. To me, it’s not a last stand, it’s more like a beginning. The ending of the film is the beginning of the world and a new order where indigenous ideals are front and center. One of those ideals is that I’m not leaving my land anymore. You’re not moving me off my land with your violence and your aggression. That’s the last statement. If there’s a sequel, I think that that’s going to be the first thing we address.”

Having said this, Barnaby insists that his vision for this story is far from over and, given the chance, he’d be very excited to revisit the world and pick up where Quantum leaves off.

“I don’t feel like I wrapped it up at all,” he beams. “The first version of the screenplay was 140 pages or something. There’s a so many more stories to tell in that world, centralized around the main concept of native people being immune. There is an outline of a sequence in this too where they start trying to do a blood serum on that baby. So, basically, it’s a retelling of snatching native babies so we can experiment on them. The surviving military industrial complex is visiting reserves to get these immune babies so they can make a blood serum out of it. That’s the premise of this second movie… That’s such a hard movie to make. I don’t know if I would like step up to the plate. Let’s see what happens. If that became an option, I would definitely not say no because, like I said, the idea is already there. I’ve already written down the beats. So, it’s just a matter of writing the story. Personally, I would like to see the Jeff Barnaby I am today and the progress I’ve made as a screenwriter and director versus the guy who wrote a screenplay 10-15 years ago.”

After showing the film to other Indigenous people, Barnaby is excited by their overwhelmingly positive response. Though there are some people who have found underlying issues that they find troubling, he thinks that the true horror audiences will take these supposed problems in stride and understand the true message of the film.

“[The response from Indigenous people] is always positive,” he asserts. “I have had some negative reactions from people that I think had an agenda going into the film. I mean, there’s obviously a lot of triggers in that film. I mean, there are beats of misogyny. There’s really obvious violence. I think what makes the violence that much more disturbing is that there’s a bit of a philosophy behind it. I think when he started seeing that if you’re a kind of a reactionary person, your immediate reaction is going to be ‘Jeff Barnaby’s a misogynist’. I think, if you come in with a bit of a raw spot, this film is going to pull up at that raw spot and whether it be race relations, gender relations, whatever the case may be, it’s all in there. I think it’s in there in a way that doesn’t wrap it up with a nice bow on top. It presents it to the audience. And assumes that the audience is intelligent enough to unpack it. There’s no real beats where any of the main characters are kind of kind of like, ‘Gee, I wonder why [this character] so misogynistic?’

“I think horror audiences have that wherewithal to read films that are layered with subtexts. So, I think it will be good. I think you are going to get those idiots that are like comparing me to Harvey Weinstein or saying that I’m trying to enforce blood quantum laws, whatever the case may be. But I think the great overwhelming majority are going to grasp what’s behind the film and what’s being said. When you compare this to my previous work, I think there’s a narrative thought that you can follow from one piece to the other. So… if you see something in this film that’s off putting, I think it’s more because you’re choosing to focus on it rather than big picture.

For full audio of our interview with Jeff Barnaby, click here.

Blood Quantum is available on VOD now.

dOctober18: 3100 Run and Become

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Directed by Sanjay Rawal (Food Chains), 3100: Run and Become follows Ashprihanal Aalto, an unassuming Finnish paperboy, and Shamita, an Austrian cellist, in their attempts to complete the 3100 Race for Self-Trancendence, the world’s longest certified footrace. Each year, a small group of competitors come from all over the world to run a distance that totals 3,100 miles in 52 days. Using Ashprihanal and Shamita’s 3100 quest as an overall framework, the film pulls the camera back to examine places around the world where ancient cultures have held running sacred for millennia: the Kalahari Desert, Arizona’s Navajo Reservation, and to the mountain temples of Japan. Beyond competitiveness and athletic prowess, they run not for glory but for spiritual enlightenment, universal oneness—or because they simply have the responsibility to run.

By holding multiple narratives up against one another, 3100 becomes a film that’s far more about running. Rather, it’s about our common human experience. Regardless of ethnicity, geography or social-standing, all of humanity use physical activity as a means of reflection on who they are. Interestingly, despite the fact that they are competing in a race, Rawal shows several instances where participants in the 3100 marathon look to help each other out of concern for their health. While there remains a competitive component to the experience—“After all, it isa race…” reminds Ashprihanal—there is a greater sense that simply being on the journey together matters more than who crosses the finish line first.

More importantly, however, 3100 also explores humanity’s ongoing quest for the Divine. By highlighting the common journeys of people around the world, Rawal’s film points to the fact that everyone is looking for deeper spiritual truth and, specifically, a connection between our physical body and the spiritual world. While the Navaho acknowledge the intimate connection between having one’s foot on Mother Earth, Japanese monks also embrace extended pilgrimages as sources of spiritual enlightenment. As Ashprihanal sets out on his quest for enlightenment in the 3100 ultra-marathon, bushmen hunt their prey for days on end to discover who they are and retain their culture. In each of these stories, Rawal connects the physical endurance of his subjects to profound spiritual self-discovery. These men and women are not seeking personal glory. They are on a religious pilgrimage to discover truths about themselves and the Divine.

In the end, 3100: Run and Become surprised me in the best of ways. Whereas I initially believed I would be watching a documentary merely about physical fitness, Rawal’s engaging narrative showed me that it’s about something far more profound. Instead of merely telling stories about running and health, Rawal understands that the experience of these pilgrimages stems from our very soul and opens our hearts and minds in ways that our culture has taken for granted.

 

For full audio of our interview with Sanjay, click here.

3100: Run and Become is in select theatres now.

 

 

HotDocs ’17 – Bee Nation

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As Chief Kahkewistahaw Community School principal Evan Taypotat says, “Never judge a person ’til you’ve walked a mile in their moccasins.” 

Opening the festival this year, Bee Nation focuses on the lives of several First Nations children, including Grade 3 student William Kaysaywaysemat III as they compete in the first province-wide First Nations Spelling Bee. For William and many others, there’s one way to spell success, but many ways to define it. Bee Nation highlights kids who have dedicated themselves to their education in an inspiring story that encourages us all to be our best selves.

In an interesting twist, Bee Nation focuses its cameras as much on the lives of the children on the reserve as it does on the bee itself. In doing so, the film presents the Bee as an act of justice, creating new opportunities for children who are sociologically marginalized.  Repeatedly, we are reminded that participation in the Bee is an opportunity begin an education that could help them to potentially break free from the reserve.  As a result, Nation gives a window into the pressures and stresses that these kids put themselves under in order to claim that rare flight to Toronto for Nationals.

Of course, in doing so, the film also reminds us of the ongoing injustice associated with the reserve system as it often creates a cycle of poverty that is difficult to escape in the first place.  With limited resources and funding in their schools, we are also witness the challenges that the children face in order to receive the same opportunities as others.  (“The funding gap is about… $795 000 that we’re underfunded at our school and that’s just our school… It actually breaks my heart right now,” shares one principal.)

However, one of the most glaring positives about Nation is that we witness the support that the children receive from their families and communities.  While other films and television shows focused around child competitions often highlight the pressure put on by parents, etc. for the children to succeed, Nation shows the pride that the reserve communities have in their youth as they attempt to improve their education.  In other words, Nation reveals the tremendous love and hope amidst the first nations population as they celebrate their children’s hard work as they desire to see their children reach their full potential.  Their communities play out as supportive cheerleaders, shouting words of encouragement from the sidelines.

Therein lies the magic of Bee Nation.  Of course, throughout the film, we wish the children to succeed.  We recognize the inequality that exists for First Nations people and wonder how, within the borders of Canada, such systemic oppression still exists.  Still, while our heart breaks in the demand for change, we also bear witness the loving safety net of family that awaits the children behind the scenes, whether they win or lose.  In this way, the film upends First Nations stereotypes and challenges us to revise our understandings.

In the end, it’s the heart behind Bee Nation that truly makes it buzzworthy.

 

Bee Nation plays at the Isabel Bader Theatre on Saturday, May 6th at 6:45pm