Mobilize

Both a requiem for and an honouring of Canada's First Nations, Métis and Inuit women, Michelle Latimer's Nimmikaage (She Dances for People) deconstructs the layers beneath the recorded pageantry of Canadian nationalism. Images of the natural world alternate with archival footage of Indigenous women asked to perform in traditional roles for an audience. The women are observed from a distance, objectified to serve the agenda of those behind the camera. But Nimmikaage reverses the colonial lens. Wide shots of the white Canadian audiences for whom these images were captured are intercut with hauntingly intimate individual close-ups of Indigenous women and girls. It is eventually the First Nations, Métis and Inuit women who emerge as grounded in the real world and the European Canadian audience members who appear curious and exotic. Set to Tanya Tagaq's emotionally resonant "Flight," Nimmikaage shifts the balance of power to reclaim the Canadian narrative, putting the enduring strength and resilience of Indigenous women at the forefront. Nimmikaage is part of Souvenir, a four-film series addressing Indigenous identity and representation by reworking material in the NFB's archives.

Jeff Barnaby's Etlinisigu'niet (Bleed Down) destroys any remaining shreds of the mythology of a fair and just Canada. His message is clear: we are still here. Attempts to "get rid of the Indian problem" have failed. The future is coming. A howl of pain rips across the land in Etlinisigu'niet as traditional life gives way to Indigenous peoples being starved to ensure compliance with government orders. Children forced from their families and penned into the horrors of residential school. Men, women and children examined like livestock in crowded tuberculosis clinics, where policies that could have prevented thousands of deaths were willfully suppressed, resulting in the highest death tolls from the disease ever reported anywhere in the world. And the land and water continue to be poisoned for industry and profit at the cost of Indigenous lives. Tanya Tagaq's "Tulugak" carries the voice of the land through Barnaby's poem of rage. Etlinisigu'niet (Bleed Down) is part of Souvenir, a four-film series addressing Indigenous identity and representation by reworking material in the NFB's archives.

A pounding critique of Canada's colonial history, Kent Monkman's Sisters & Brothers draws parallels between the annihilation of the bison and the devastation inflicted by the residential school system. Once 75 million strong, wild bison were slaughtered almost to extinction by European settlers by the 1890s, both for their hides and as part of a larger policy to eliminate the main food source of the First Nations of the plains. Around the same time, residential schools were established to remove Aboriginal children from their families in order to assimilate them into mainstream Canadian society. The powwow-step rhythms of Tribe Called Red's "The Road" drive home the legacy of loss and pain inflicted by more than a century of abuse and neglect. Sisters & Brothers mourns the preventable deaths of thousands of Aboriginal children in residential schools while honouring the resiliency of Canada's First Peoples. Sisters & Brothers is part of Souvenir, a four-film series addressing Indigenous identity and representation by reworking material in the NFB's archives.