THE GLOBE AND MAIL: INDIGENOUS WOMEN GRAB THE SPOTLIGHT
With its eclectic programming, irreverent marketing campaigns and renowned parties, the imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival long ago dispelled any notions that it's a niche powwow.
One of the world's largest, most prestigious celebrations of film and media work by indigenous peoples, the annual event doubled its audience from 8,000 in 2006 to 16,000 last year. The ninth edition, which opens Wednesday, reflects that growth with an increase in festival staff, sponsors and industry guests - not to mention a strong offering of more than 100 international and Canadian features and shorts, with many world premieres including Exile (Oct. 17, 5 p.m., Al Green), a documentary about the forcible relocation of Inuit families in 1953, from renowned filmmaker Zacharias Kunuk (2001 Cannes-winner The Fast Runner).
"In the early years, we battled against the stereotype that the festival is strictly issues-based because it has to do with aboriginal people," says Danis Goulet, who has worked for imagineNATIVE since 2003 and assumed the new position of artistic director this year. "We're the only festival with a mandate to show work by indigenous artists that actively tries to help sell that work. So we present a lot of new work, which is great for audiences, but we've also seen the festival transform careers." For example, last year's closing film, Tkaronto, was picked up for theatrical distribution, a major boost for first-time feature director Shane Belcourt.
This year's "Indian Jane" marketing campaign parodies the Steven Spielberg flicks, but the image of a women wearing braids and posing like Harrison Ford's archeologist isn't just fun and games. Indigenous women take the spotlight this year, reflecting the submissions reviewed by Goulet's programming team. "We noticed women were telling amazing stories plus many films had women as central figures," she says.
Opening night (Wednesday, 7 p.m., Bloor) features the Canadian premiere of two whimsical documentaries: Mémére Métisse is an eloquent half-hour "twist" on the familiar theme of coming to terms with identity, as filmmaker Janelle Wookey (co-host of APTN's Friday Night Flick) attempts to draw her grandmother out from denial of her Métis heritage; Australian Darlene Johnson's gently humorous feature River of No Return follows Frances Daingangan, a grandmother whose dream to become a movie star came true after being cast in the groundbreaking Ten Canoes (2006) but who discovers that sustaining her dream is a tough road.
A grandmother's story is also the heart of imagineNATIVE's centrepiece film, the captivating Before Tomorrow (Oct. 18, 7 p.m., Al Green), winner of the best Canadian first feature at TIFF 2008. After two Inuit families meet for a summer celebration, elder Ninguiq (co-director Madeline Piujuq Ivalu), her ailing lifelong friend Kutuujuk and her grandson are dropped off at an island to prepare the season's catch. But as winter nears, Ninguiq realizes that no one is coming for them and must draw on her practical and creative resources to survive.
Before Tomorrow is a collaboration with Arnait, the women's video collective of Igloolik founded by the film's co-director, Marie-Hélène Cousineau in 1991. "The film is based on a Danish novel set in the mid 19th-century, and I thought it was a unique story," Cousineau relates. "But the women of Igloolik knew it even though they hadn't read the book - they all knew someone who had a similar story of survival."
The book's Greenland setting was adapted to reflect the Igloolik environment and culture, yet Cousineau asserts that the film is not intended to be historical: "How can we really know how people looked or behaved or talked?" she says. "So everyone involved in the production was imagining this history in a very collaborative, creative way."
Sounds like the perfect expression of the spirit of imagineNATIVE.