Tag: indigenous

The spirit of Indigenous cinema arrives in London!

Posted on by victorfraga

For nine days, nearly 100 movies made by Indigenous filmmakers in every corner of the planet will be showcased in a variety of London venues. They include Nigerian Yoruba, Filipino T’boli, Yakutian horsebreeders from Russia, and a even a very transgressive Indiqueer Canadian Cree filmmaker. Many artists will attend the Festival, showcase their work, and debate the challenges of Indigenous life and filmmaking with an enthusiastic audience of Indigenous people, activists, researchers and film lovers in general. The action kicks off on Saturday, October 12th, Indigenous Peoples’ Day in the US.

Native Spirit Film Festival was founded by Mapuche filmmaker Freddy Treuquil in 2005. It is the UK’s first and only independent annual festival promoting contemporary Indigenous Cinema, MediaMakers and Artists and are event participants with Unesco International Year of Indigenous languages.

Below are the some of the most important Festival highlights. Click on the titles in order to accede to the individual reviews. You can see the full programme either on our calendar, on Native Spirit’s Facebook page or Eventbrite, where you can also purchase your ticket.

…

.

1. Thirza Cuthand Retrospective:

Thirza Jean Cuthand was born in Saskatchewan and grew up in Saskatoon, and she is of Cree origin. Starting in 1995, Cuthand began exploring short experimental narrative videos and films about sexuality, madness, youth, love, and race, using national, sexual and Indigenous experiences to showcase in unfiltered raw exteriors.

Make no mistake, there is purity at play here. Collecting the confines, conditions and contractions of Cuthand’s milieu, the varied works slip together into one continuous narrative written years, even decades, apart. More to the point, the essays cross genres from the pointedly visual into the realms of performance arts.

Don’t forget to check our exclusive interview with Thirza Cuthand by clicking here!

.

2. K’Na Dreamweaver (Ida Anita Del Mundo, 2015):

Young T’boli princess K’Na (Mara Lopez) finds herself trapped in an undesirable dilemma, as she has to balance realising her personal dreams with her duties as a village dream-weaver. Chosen by her town-folk to fill the vacant position, K’na is freighted with delivering visions through colourful abaca fibres. Tied to the boughs that hold her village afloat, K’na fancies the courtship from the broad-shouldered Silaw (RK Bagatsing), before Royal duties divide her impressionable intentions from her personal. The tribes follow tradition with the punishing reverence of survival, but K’na and Silaw share some moments of unbridled flirtation. Animalistic in their desire, their collegiality needs to be subdued.

.

3. 24 Snow (Mikhail Barynin, 2019):

The highs and lows of extreme rural living are expertly depicted in 24 Snow, a documentary that dives into life in one of the most inhospitable places on earth. Alternating scenes of natural beauty with a down-to-earth character portrait of an middle-aged Yakut horse breeder, it celebrates traditional forms of living while lamenting their slow erosion to the forces of modernisation.

Sergey Loukin’s story takes place in the area around Sakkyryr, Russia, one of the coldest inhabited places on earth, where temperatures regularly plummet below minus fifty degrees. It’s so cold in the winter that sheets of ice cling to the horse’s fur and must be removed with axes, and reindeer and husky-pulled sleds remain the only form of transportation. There is no electricity, no internet and no shops for miles around. Sergei must make do with his immediate surroundings alone. We follow him for around a year, from snow to summer to snow again.

.

4. Etienne Charles’s Docushorts:

Jazz creole artist Etienne Charles is one of the genre’s most inventive musicians, garnering acclaim for three impressive and well-received albums for his own Culture Shock Music imprint. A man still in his twenties, Charles understands the vitality and power Creole music holds on those who listen to it, inviting audiences to see, listen and feel the music he espouses on a daily basis. His style of raw playing has been hailed hailed by The New York Times as “an auteur” and by Jazz Times as “a daring improviser who delivers with heart wrenching lyricism”.

Through a trilogy of short films, Charles shows the beauty Trinidad holds in both its visual and musical form. Charles’ blend of improvisation and first-class musicianship has an infectious quality that attracts fans of all ages. The films capture the artists pure spontaneity, thriving and diving through the Trinidad streets.

24 Snow

Posted on by Redmond Bacon

The highs and lows of extreme rural living are expertly depicted in 24 Snow, a documentary that dives into life in one of the most inhospitable places on earth. Alternating scenes of natural beauty with a down-to-earth character portrait of an middle-aged Yakut horse breeder, it celebrates traditional forms of living while lamenting their slow erosion to the forces of modernisation.

Sergey Loukin’s story takes place in the area around Sakkyryr, Russia, one of the coldest inhabited places on earth, where temperatures regularly plummet below minus fifty degrees. It’s so cold in the winter that sheets of ice cling to the horse’s fur and must be removed with axes, and reindeer and husky-pulled sleds remain the only form of transportation. There is no electricity, no internet and no shops for miles around. Sergei must make do with his immediate surroundings alone. We follow him for around a year, from snow to summer to snow again.

There is something very satisfying and empowering even in watching someone dedicate themselves to a simpler, less encumbered way of life. It’s evident that director Mikhail Baryin feels the same way. Stunning cinematography of the Russian Taiga — replete with endless snowy plains, misty mountains and huge lakes — give Sergey’s work a mythical vibe, as if his life is untouched by time itself.

But times are changing, Sergey deliberately framed with his cowboy hat and leather jacket like he’s the last hurrah of the old school. His eldest children have left for the city, earning plenty more than the mere 5,000 roubles (£61.79) he says he earns a month. Sergei knows he could earn more money working elsewhere, but its evident that nothing beats the rush of horse breeding or being so close to nature. He is also often estranged from his family for long periods of time: he says he left his daughter while she was starting to laugh and came back to see her starting to walk.

This is the price he pays for his life, which he accepts with both grace and a touch of regret. He knows he is an outlier, even for the Indigenous Yakut people, yet it is this very extremity that seems to be its own reward. Baryin finds ways to express this in both deeply dramatic ways, such as an epic horse herd crossing a vast river, and the perfectly simple; after cutting grass all day, he lies down and takes a nap, his exhausted expression the very picture of contentment. A likeable, talkative narrator, he warmly invites us into his life, regaling us with anecdotes and minuscule details, expertly communicating the sheer joy he finds in his work.

And there are certain moments that seem to place us right there alongside him. Cinematographer Mikhail Kardashevski rigs his camera on top of racing horses, travelling reindeer and the back of trucks, immersing us in Sergey’s journey across this vast, gorgeous, desolate landscape. Although we probably wouldn’t last a day in Sergey’s winter, rare films like 24 Snow give us the opportunity to imagine, ever-so-briefly, that we could. A truly transportive experience.

24 Snow shows on October 15th as part of the 13th Native Spirit Festival. Just click here for more information.

London is in high spirits!!!

Posted on by victorfraga

They are black, they are aboriginal and they are queer. They are the new Queens of the Desert. Six Aboriginal drag queens (one of which is pictured above) will open up the 12th Native Spirit Film Festival, as the Australian documentary Black Divaz kick-starts the event. The action takes place between October 11th and 21st in Bloomsbury (Central London).

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. The event includes more than 50 films from all continents, more than half directed by Indigenous filmmakers. The event will also include a number of talks and debates. Artists and speakers include: Ingrid Pumayalla (Peru), Greta Morton Elangué (Indigenous Australian) and founder of the Festival of Indigenous Australian Cinema in Paris), Jules Koostachin (Cree, Canada), Red Haircrow (Chiricahua Apachean award-winning writer), Suming Rupi (Amis-Taiwanese singer and songwriter), Ado’ Kaliting Pacidal (Amis, Taiwan), Lin Guo-ting (Amis, Taiwan), Sara Kautolonga (Tonga), Peiman Zekavat (Director of Timbo) and Alex Browning (African Diaspora).

There will also be an exhibition held at The Crypt entitled Life Blood, featuring Cara Romero Photography in collaboration with Bloomsbury Festival’s theme Activists and Architects of Change.

Check out the most important highlights from the event below, and don’t forget to check out the full programme and book your ticket (many of the screenings are free) right here!

.

TOP FILM PICKS

1. Black Divaz (Adrian Russell Wills, 2018):

Crystal Love takes to the stage, gargantuan in gown and appearance. Describing herself as a whale, Love refers to the audience as a bunch of “cunts”. It’s a hysterical moment in a series of moments which details the empowerment a Drag Queen Pageant can bring to a person. Love admits later of being reinvigorated, while Isla refers to the transformation as one which changes their attitude from being masculine to more girly more easily. Behind the costumes, flowing hair and choreography is the story of empowerment, invigoration and humanity, all told with the cheekiest of tongues.

Click here for our review of Black Divaz and here for the exclusive interview with the filmmaker Andrew Russell Wills (an Aboriginal LGBT man himself).

.

2. Burkinabe Rising (Lara Lee, 2017):

Politics and art mix in Burkinabè Rising, a deep dive into the way culture informs, comments upon and even provokes societal change. Looking at how Burkina Faso has changed since the popular uprising of 2014, it is a sprawling mosaic of a movie that seems to take in the whole country in its generous, inquisitive approach.

The key event is the 2014 ousting of Blaise Compaoré, considered by many to have led the country over the past 27 years in an undemocratic fashion. He took over from the pan-African revolutionary Thomas Sankara, who is widely considered to be Africa’s answer to Che Guevara (for one thing, he sells as many T-shirts in that region). More an African icon than a mere Burkinabé mortal, the spirit of Sankara is constantly evoked in this restless look at the country’s contemporary art and culture.

Click here for our review of the film.

.

3. It’s Been a Long Time (Laha Mebow, 2017):

Two Taiwanese aboriginal musicians Suming and Baobu, are invited to New Caledonia, by the Director for a trip. During this voyage, they made friends with local Kanak musician, played music, lived together, and sometimes composed together. A film about language barriers and music´s ability to cross cultural differences.

.

4. Suming Carrying the Flag (Jau-Horne Sen, 2017):

Suming, a young Amis man from eastern Taiwan, is part of the first generation of Indigenous people forced to lose their native language. Singing in the Amis language, Suming has worked his way to the forefront of Taiwan’s popular music scene, while simultaneously leading the Indigenous (Amis) youth to rediscover their tribal identity and uniting his people behind the creation of Amis Music Festival.

.

5. 7th Generation (John L Voth, 2017):

The film is about Oglala Lakota tribal member Jim Warne’s efforts in helping Tribal Nations find a way to succeed in a contemporary American system and still remain Indian at heart.

After the Wounded Knee Massacre a Lakota medicine man named Black Elk had a prophecy, “It will take 7 generations to heal our sacred hoop.”

.

6. Yvy Maraey (Juan Carlos Valvidia, 2013):

A well-off metropolitan filmmaker hoping to retrace the trail of an early Swedish documentarian travels to the Bolivian highlands in search of savages. Once there, however, he finds his privileged cultural position met with ire more often than awe. Including allusions to documentary classics like Nanook of the North, Valdivia’s film moves beyond the plot itself to probe larger questions of memory, the politics of representation, and the power of cinema.

.

7. Forget Winnetou: Loving the Wrong Way (Red Haircrow, 2018):

It may be the only film of its kind, for we explore the roots of racism and colonialism, apathy and adoration in German society from Native perspectives and through their experiences. Germany is a microcosm of struggles taking place across the world both against and for decolonization, and the correction of systematic racism and white supremacy that’s still dividing and destroying our world.

Click here for more information about the film.

.

8. PLACEenta (Jules Koostachin, 2017):

Jules sets out to find a place for her Cree Nation traditional placenta ceremony.