In June 1977, a road accident claimed the lives of five Atikamekw from Manawan. They drowned when the vehicle they were in fell into a river. Only two of the seven passengers survived. Both… White. Starting from this forgotten drama, Chloé Leriche deciphers two solitudes in her powerful and poetic film Atikamekw suns.
Two weeks ago, west of Chibougamau, four members of the Waswanipi Cree community lost their lives in a head-on collision. The news spread across Quebec and authorities deployed psychosocial intervention personnel to support the community, which declared four days of mourning. Reconstructionists from the Sûreté du Québec and fire scene technicians quickly began their investigation to clarify the circumstances of the accident.
Il y a près de 50 ans, une tragédie similaire a eu lieu entre Saint-Michel-des-Saints et Manawan. Cinq membres de la communauté atikamekw avaient péri noyés. Les deux Blancs à qui appartenait le véhicule s’en sont sortis, eux. Que s’est-il passé ? Personne ne le sait vraiment. Ce drame a vite été classé, comme le raconte aujourd’hui la cinéaste Chloé Leriche dans Soleils atikamekw.
« Ce film-là, c’est une voix pour nous. Une voix qui va faire en sorte qu’on va en entendre parler », dit la comédienne Lise-Yolande Awashish avec espoir. Soleils atikamekw s’attarde moins à la tragédie elle-même qu’à son impact dévastateur sur la communauté tissée serré de Manawan. Elle montre un village entier sonné par la perte de cinq de ses habitants et l’indifférence avec laquelle les autorités traitent les victimes et leur famille.
PHOTO MARTIN TREMBLAY, LA PRESSE
L’acteur Jacques Newashish
« Le fait d’avoir mis ça en images, c’est fort, estime l’acteur et sculpteur Jacques Newashish, vu récemment dans Bootlegger de Caroline Monnet. Le soir de la première [à Manawan], I felt the full weight of the tragedy. We feel it throughout the film and we come away overwhelmed, emotionally exhausted. The fact that there was no justice affects us too. »
I think everyone is shocked by this, but even more so the Aboriginal people, because it’s not the first time that this has happened, an injustice like that, or that there is no justice for us.
Jacques Newashish, actor
Two solitudes
Chloé Leriche heard about the tragedy in 1977 while working on her first film, Before the streets, also produced with the collaboration of the Manawan band council. “It didn’t interest me that much at the time,” she admits. However, the filmmaker changed her mind with the establishment of the investigation into murdered and missing Indigenous women and the Viens commission on relations between Indigenous people and public services in Quebec.
That five people from the same community could drown without there being a serious investigation ultimately seemed to him to be an event that deserved to be dissected on a social level. The portrait she paints of relations between Natives and Whites in 1970 is devastating: the insensitive and impatient police officers, the hasty coroner, the families abandoned to their pain, and no one pays them any attention when they point out elements which indicate that this Perhaps the tragedy was not just an unfortunate accident.
Chloé Leriche does not claim to shed any light on the drama. His film is an interpretation of the events carried out at the end of an investigation which drew on the memories and dreams of the bereaved families. His approach, although very realistic, is also imbued with poetry. His staging focuses a lot on nature and also creates images of great symbolic power.
PHOTO MARTIN TREMBLAY, THE PRESS
Chloé Leriche, filmmaker
Painful memories
Atikamekw suns is a direct, but delicate film. This tact was necessary for Chloé Leriche, we understand. The filmmaker actually tells a story that does not belong to her and some of the protagonists are still alive. Not to mention that by breaking the silence surrounding this tragedy, it also awakens painful memories in the Atikamekw communities who had also buried it.
“It opened the discussion,” said Oshim Ottawa, interpreter of Philippe Flamand, who was his father’s uncle. The young actor and musician (he is part of the group Red Rockers) has only become interested in it himself since the sister of one of the victims, Angèle Petitquay, put pressure on the authorities for a real investigation to be carried out. . This was the case in 2016, with disappointing results for families.
Eight years later, Lucie Petitquay, Angèle’s mother, only wants one thing, according to her interpreter, Lise-Yolande Awashish. “I asked her what she wanted [avec ce film], she says. She told me she just wanted to know the truth before she died. »
Indoors