imagineNATIVE: Femme Totale

 

About the Films:
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Nitanish a ma Fille (Nitanish - To My Daughter)
Canada, 3 mins, 2015, Short Drama
Director: Melissa Mollen Dupuis (Innue)

French with English SubtitlesWhile awaiting the arrival of her daughter, Melissa Mollen Dupuis – the co-founder of Idle No More Quebec – crafts a blanket for her unborn daughter that tells the creation story of their people. What begins as a creation story becomes a strong and stirring message of promise, conviction and hope to the new life growing inside her.

I am Thy Weapon
USA, 4 mins, 2016, Short Drama
Director: Razelle Benally (Diné/Oglala Lakota)

A young Navajo woman returns home to the place where her sister was murdered. While she deals with her anger and tries to make peace with her sister’s passing, she realizes that her sister can live on in the art that she creates.

Nous Nous Souleverons (We Will Rise)
Canada, 4 mins, 2015, Short Drama
Director: Natasha Kanape Fontaine (Innue)

The talented poet Natasha Kanapé Fontaine creates a stirring ode to the generations to rise up and bring light to the world.

Canada, 5 mins, 2016, Short Drama
Director: Melissa Girvan (Mi’gmaq)

An old woman drops her keepsakes, and as she picks up her belongings the memory of a childhood friend begins to haunt her. As she moves through the cycle of her memories, she struggles to find peace amidst the longing.

Melissa Girvan made her first music video with Wapikoni, entitled Every Afternoon. She took the opportunity in 2015 to direct her third film, which is a poetic essay on loss and love.

Polar Sun
USA, 12 mins, 2016, Short Drama
Director: Katie Avery (Inupiaq)

After the tragic death of Sondra’s sister, her seven-year-old niece, Raven, comes to live with her and her partner. Already struggling to make sense of her own grief, she must also help her niece through the loss of her mother as she turns to the Inupiat stories as a source of guidance for them both.

Katie Doane Tulugaq Avery received a BA in museum studies from the Institute of American Indian Arts in 2009 and worked at the Santa Fe Art Institute. Her short films are centred on cultural, social and familial narratives with interest in how the feminine, queer and Indigenous representations expand dialogue in social and political conversations. 

Exposed Nerves
Canada, 8 mins, 2016, Short Drama
Director: Madison Thomas (Ojibway/Métis)

Through a contemporary dance piece, we see the different ways that a young woman deals with her bipolar reality. The ups and downs of her life are eloquently displayed through the happiness of her dance versus the weight of her depression and how she battles her way through the movements of life.

Exposed Nerves won a Special Mention for The Ellen Monague Award for Best Youth Work at imagineNATIVE in October 2016.

Madison Thomas is a filmmaker from Winnipeg. Raised in a Métis household, storytelling was a huge part of her childhood. Madison found the natural extension into filmmaking in high school and has worked at honing her craft ever since.

The Length of Grief: The Daughters of Métis Mothers
Canada, 5 mins, 2016, Experimental
Director: Amy Malbeuf (Métis)

An evocative experimental film about transformation from women’s grief rooted in colonial trauma, we find two Métis women who, through trust and sisterhood, support one another on their path to transcendence and healing.

Amy Malbeuf is a visual artist who has exhibited her work nationally and internationally. In 2016 she was selected as one of six Indigenous artists to create a permanent public artwork for the upcoming Indigenous Art Park in Edmonton. Through utilizing mediums such as caribou hair tufting, beadwork, installation, performance and video, Malbeuf explores notions of place, language and ecology. 

Susto
USA, 8 mins, 2016, Experimental
Director: Pearl Salas (Xicana/Yaqui/Navajo)

A young woman recounts the story of the “Coco Man,” a ghostly and monstrous entity that haunts misbehaving children. When terror continues to grab her in adulthood, a medicine woman tells her she has “susto,” a fear in her life that she must confront. Gripping, haunting and deeply unsettling, the woman’s truth is much more terrifying than the fear of an imaginary boogeyman.

Susto won a Special Mention for the Kent Monkman Best Experimental Prize at imagineNATIVE in October 2016.

Pearl Salas was born and raised in Denver, Colorado. Her work plays off this unique cultural mix of Mexican, Yaqui and Navajo ancestry to interrogate how the modern world relates to notions of past, present and future selves. 

Smoke that Travels
USA, 13 mins, 2016, Short Documentary
Director: Kayla Briët (Potawatomi)

An insightful autobiographical documentary from self-taught filmmaker Kayla Briët, who weaves a beautiful visual tapestry of her father’s teachings as a cultural leader and the legacy she holds onto. Through language, dance, music and the history of the Prairie Band Potawatomi, she claims her family’s story and expresses her and her father’s beliefs as a smoke signal to the world.

Smoke That Travels won The Ellen Monague Award for Best Youth Work at imagineNATIVE in October 2016.

Kayla Briët is a 19-year-old award-winning filmmaker, composer and musician. She first discovered music by tinkering with the piano at age four, taught herself to sing and produce tracks at age 10, and discovered film at the age of 14. Her work in music, art and film is personal and visceral, reflecting themes of self-discovery, fear and strength.