International Short Film Festival in Saguenay | Spotlight on indigenous creation

(Saguenay) For the first time in its 28 years of existence, the REGARD festival presented Friday evening a competition strictly reserved for indigenous short films. Born from a desire to highlight the cinema of underrepresented communities, this novelty also pushed management to train a new generation of programming.

“We’ve been working on this for several years. It was important for us to do it well, with care,” notes Mélissa Bouchard, director of programming.

The latter says it straight away: she knew little about First Nations and Inuit cinema before embarking on this project. “The only films I knew were those from the NFB and Wapikoni mobile and I even wondered if there was enough content to make an annual program. » It was during a visit to the imagineNATIVE festival in Toronto that she realized that there was no shortage of quality Indigenous works.

The festival management then moved forward, first by creating a consultation committee to ensure that it listened to the communities. Made up of Anishinaabe artist and filmmaker Caroline Monnet, Alexandre Bacon, producer at Terre Innue, Mélanie Brière, producer at the NFB, and André Dudemaine, artistic director and founder of the Présence indigenous festival, the committee is arrived at a first observation: to do things well, you need an indigenous programmer.

This is what led to the hiring of Vincent Careau, a member of the Wendat community who recently completed his studies in cinema at UQAM. Thanks to the mentorship of Jess Murwin, a queer non-binary artist and programmer of Mi’kmaq heritage, the recruit was able to learn the art of programming. “An art that cannot be learned at school, so it is all the more important to train the next generation,” explains Mélissa Bouchard.

Cover the spectrum

The duo worked for weeks to select the nine films for the competition, called Indigenous Perspectives, which touch on various themes, from fashion to slavery in the territory of New France, and which come from Canada, United States and Greenland.

“We wanted to show the extent of what indigenous filmmakers are capable of doing,” explains Vincent Careau, visibly proud of the work accomplished.

He quotes Gabriellaa coming-of-age film (coming of age) which borrows the codes of Hollywood, but which still represents realities specific to Aboriginal people.

Running in step with the footsteps of your ancestors

Another notable work that has made its way to the programming of Regards indigenous: 6 minutes/km, by Catherine Boivin. Presented in Cannes in 2023 as part of the Talent tout court program, the film was produced during a stopover by the Wapikoni mobile in Odanak, in Centre-du-Québec, and was originally an exhibition.

If we see the director running throughout her film, it is because the idea for the project came to her during her morning jog. “I wanted to address the Atikamekw language, my concerns about it, but also to echo the issue of the physical fitness of Aboriginal people today in connection with their way of life. »

The multidisciplinary artist believes that programs like the one that has just been created at REGARD are essential to raise awareness of indigenous filmmakers, but also for the public to become familiar with their way of making cinema.

A retrospective of one of the most eminent indigenous filmmakers, Alanis Obomsawin, also takes place this Saturday at REGARD¹. The opportunity to revisit the work of the director of Kanehsatake, 270 years of resistance and of Trick or treaty? in his presence.

The hosting costs for this report were paid by REGARD, which exercised no right to review its content.

1. Read our file on Alanis Obomsawin

Visit the Indigenous Perspectives page