Tag Archives: NFB

Module 4 Post 4 (Qallunaat! Why White People Are Funny)

This documentary/mockumentry examines how white culture has tried to document the ‘other’ through lack of understanding and cross-cultural exchange. It does this by reversing the traditional roles of subject and documenter – an Inuit community tries to understand white culture by using the same methods that western documenters used on them to falsely represent their cultures.

To me, by re-appropriating the methods of settler culture, this film strongly comments on how traditional usages of media have served to subjugate and misrepresent Indigenous people and communities.

NFB Description

Entry 5: NFB Archive Film Remix – Souvenir

Souvenir is a NFB film remix project. Using archived film footage, Indigenous artists, Michelle Latimer, Kent Monkman, Caroline Monnet, Jeff Barnaby and Tanya Tagaq have created a series of films that explore Indigenous identity through the reclaiming of non-indigenous portrayals of Aboriginal communities (http://canadianart.ca/features/nfb-souvenir, http://blog.nfb.ca).

Below are links and descriptions of the four featured films:

Sisters & Brothers by Kent Monkman is a film that juxtaposes archived images of bison herds with images of residential school survivors. The film makes connections to the extermination of the bison population with the genocidal practices of white settlers.

Nimmikaage (She Dances for People) by Michelle Latimer challenges the construction of the Aboriginal female identity by white settlers.

Etlinisigu’niet (Bleed Down) by Jeff Barnaby comments on how the colonialist Canadian mandated initiatives to exterminate the ‘Indian problem’ has failed. That despite genocidal practices, Indigenous populations remain.

Mobilize by Caroline Monnet examines how Indigenous identity is constantly being pulled in two directions because of the influence of colonialist culture on Indigenous communities.

3.3: Indigenous Feature Film Production in Canada: A National and International Perspective

Study can be found at this website

This is a large study by ImagineNative Film and Media Arts Festival that examines Aboriginal film production in Canada. This study makes the case that First Nations’ stories represent a huge untapped resource in Canada. Canada’s film industry has not yet fully explored the stories of indigenous peoples. Not only are these stories important to our collective identity as Canadians, but they also enormous commercial potential.

3.2: The Aboriginal Voice: the National Film Board and Aboriginal Filmmaking Through the Years

Website: The Aboriginal Voice

This site provides the history of Aboriginal Voice, which is a program that saw Aboriginal films be created by Aboriginal people. The rationale behind the program is summed up in a 1972 letter:

“There was a strong feeling among the filmmakers at the NFB that the Board had been making too many films “about” the Indian, all from the white man’s viewpoint. What would be the difference if Indians started making films themselves?” [Letter from George Stoney, executive producer, Challenge for Change, January 3, 1972]

The site includes six NFB films made by First Nations peoples. The films explore contemporary social and political issues from across Canada, including a film about Haisla people reclaiming a stolen artefact and a film documenting the confrontation between First Nations fishermen and the federal government in Burnt Church, New Brunswick.

Module 2 Post 5: Aboriginal Programming

For National Aboriginal Day, the CBC is hosting a variety of Aboriginal television programming, much of which is hosted at the following link: CBC – National Aboriginal Day

One program I viewed this evening was a documentary called “Trick or Treaty?” (link to the NFB), made in 2014 by Alanis Obomsawin, which discusses Treaty No. 9 – signed over a century ago under false pretences – perhaps especially because of the manipulation of oral information.  The documentary emphasizes that the government manipulated what was said to the Chiefs who signed the treaty, who would have had a very different understanding of the magnitude of what was orally agreed upon, in order to gain their signature.  It’s an interesting film that lays bare the exploitive actions taken by Canada to have this treaty agreed to and the actions that have been taken by Indigenous groups (and non-Indigenous, e.g. as a workshop led by a white educator is woven throughout the film) against it, especially in recent years.