Indigenous Program
International Indigenous Program
Light Feet, A Raramuri Tale
Director: Oskar Laffont
Mexico/UK, 2008
12 min.
Light Feet is the story of Tepo, a Raramuri boy guiding his mother and baby brother through the mountains and to civilization. What are these characters looking for? What are they running away from? Premonitions, dreams, and memories unfold inside this boy's head as he gets closer to the unknown.
Award: 25th Chicago International Children's Film Festival (Liv Ullmann Peace Prize)
Indigenous Canadian Program
Yaani Kukaa
Director: Ken Leslie, Haidawood Media Project
Narrators: Jusquan Bedard, Amelia Rea, Primrose Adams, Steven Brown
Haida narration: Jusquan Bedard
Canada, 2009
6 min.
A spoiled young girl is taken by the wild forest-woman, Yaanii K'uuka and must find a way to escape and make her way back to her parents.
Six Miles Deep
Director: Sara Roque Canada, 2009 42 min.
On February 28, 2006, members of the Iroquois Confederacy (also known as the Haudenosaunee or People of the Longhouse) blockade a highway near Caledonia, Ontario to prevent a housing development on land that falls within their traditional territories. The ensuing confrontation makes national headlines for months. But less well known is the crucial role played by the clan mothers of the community - the traditional source of power in the Haudenosaunee Nation. Six Miles Deep is an inspiring and compelling portrait of a group of women whose actions have led a cultural reawakening in their traditionally matriarchal community.
Q&A with the Director (10 min)
Sara Roque is a multi-talented Metis filmmaker, writer, arts administrator and activist who has been involved in a number of community-based arts and Aboriginal history projects. Her short films have screened at ImagineNative Film Festival and the Splice This! Super8 film festival, and have been broadcast on MuchMusic. She is originally from northern Ontario and currently lives in Toronto. Six Miles Deep is her first documentary.
How People Got Fire
Director: Daniel Janke
Canada, 2008
16 min.
How People Got Fire centres on Grandma Kay (based on elder Kitty Smith) and the connection she forges with the village children through the oral tradition of their culture. Twelve-year-old Tish is one of those children - an introspective, talented girl who feels particularly drawn to Grandma Kay's kitchen. Here, past and present blend, myth and reality meet, and the metaphor of fire infuses all in a location that lies at the heart of the community's spiritual and cultural memory.
Horse
Director: Archer Pechawis
Canada, 2009 version
7 min.
What would the Horse Nation have said to us all during the Battle of Little Big Horn, the Sand Creek Massacre, and the Washita River Massacre? This is a story that should be true.
Awards: The single-channel video of "Horse" won Best Experimental Short Film at imagineNATIVE.
