First, on the scene

>>The First Peoples’ Festival presents a diverse array of aboriginal film and video works

PURE PROBLEMS: Club Native

by MALCOLM FRASER

The 18th annual First Peoples’ Festival hits town this week, running through June 22 and celebrating the achievements of aboriginal peoples all over the globe. The roster of activities includes a diverse film and video program, running the spectrum from family drama to artistic portraits, issues-driven documentary to irreverent humour.

Native peoples’ struggles over their ancestral territories are nothing new in these parts, but these battles are also being fought on an international level. George and Beth Gage’s Our Land, Our Life documents the travails of the Shoshone people in the USA; Francesco Taboada Tabone’s 13 pueblos en defensa del agua, el aire y la tierra tells of an Aztec community in Mexico’s Morelos region and their fight to defend their water supply; and Dominique Roberjot and Christine Della-Maggiora’s Considérant que… details the oppression of the Mapuche people in Pinochet’s Chile.

A number of the films focus on native arts and crafts. Gisèle Gordon’s The Tunguska Project documents Saskatchewan-based Cree artist Floyd Favel’s journey among the Evenki people of Siberia. Gwendolen Cates’ Water Flowing Together is a portrait of Jock de Soto, a Navajo dancer with the New York City Ballet.

Patricia Ortega’s El niño shuá tells the inspirational story of Miguel Angel Jusayu, who, despite being blind since childhood, not only became a famous writer in Venezuela, but wrote a grammar of the Wayuu language. Cynthia Taylor’s Basket Making and Jobie Weetaluktuk’s Umiaq Skin Boat show the revival of ancestral craftsmanship.

Community stories play a major role in the fest. Regan Tarbell’s Little Caughnawaga: To Brooklyn and Back tells the story of a community of Mohawk construction workers whose apparent cultural immunity to fear of heights made them indispensable to the building of New York City’s skyscrapers. Kevin Papatie’s L’Amendement raises alarm over the disappearance of the Algonquin language, while Paul Rickard and Tracey Deer’s Kanien’kehá:ka, Living the Language tells the inspirational story of a community who formed their own school to keep the Mohawk language and culture alive. Deer also directed the festival opener, Club Native, a probing documentary on the “blood purity” issues within her community of Kahnawake.

Lest anyone fear an abundance of dark, intense material, the festival’s programming doesn’t neglect the lighter side. The Urban Nation collective, consisting of Ontario-based Cree painter/filmmaker Kent Monkman and English filmmaker Gisèle Gordon, will present their prankish, intriguingly titled Miss Chief Eagle Testickle Trilogy. Local filmmaker Jeff Barnaby presents his comic/romantic horror short The Colony, and Jennifer Dysart’s Hooked Up: NDNs Online humorously explores the perils of aboriginal online dating.

Fans of longtime NFB documentarian Alanis Obomsawin can check out her latest work, Gene Boy Came Home, about an Odanak native and Vietnam veteran, as well as the presentation of her earliest works, L’Histoire de Manawan (1972) and L’Ilawat (1975).

Those of us with youngsters in tow might consider the screening of some episodes of Geneviève Mackenzie’s family-friendly series, Les Découvertes de Shanipiap. And those with an affinity for freebies should check out the free open-air screening of Richard Desjardins and Robert Monderie’s Jutra-winning doc Le Peuple invisible. All told, something for everyone interested in the efforts of the often overlooked and much misunderstood original peoples of the world.

The First Peoples’ Festival
runs June 12–22. Info:
www. nativelynx.qc.ca

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