FIFEQ – Short film program

As part of its 19th edition, the FIFEQ-MTL invites you to a free screening of 5 short films around the following theme:  Thinking Ethnographic Cinema Through the Lens of Indigenous Filmmaking. 

Indigenous filmmaking has been promoted for many years by filmmakers and organizations accompanying them in order to share the realities and issues Indigenous peoples face in defending their territories, throughout the world, and more particularly in the Americas. This session features several Indigenous cinematographies that have the common goal of sharing lived realities through the medium of film. What do these works teach us, and how can they push the boundaries of contemporary ethnographic cinema?

Built in partnership with the McCord Museum and the Wapikoni Mobile, this theme is part of the Indigenous program of the 19th edition of FIFEQ-MTL focuses on the theme: Defending the Land in a Context of Climate Change. The theme and the proposed films were chosen in collaboration with two invited Indigenous filmmakers, David Hernandez Palmar, filmmaker from the Wayuu community (Venezuela/Colombia) and co-founder of the organization “If Not Us Then Who?“, and Katherine Nequado, filmmaker and student in Atikamekw film production from the Manawan community (Quebec). 

Free admission, limited seating available ! We advise you to come 20 to 30 minutes before the start of the session to ensure your seat.

Screening followed by a panel discussion with the directors.

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1 – Invasion – Michael Toledano and Sam Vinal

Country of origin of directors : Canada
Country of production and recording : Canada
2020 | 19 min | VOSTF

SYNOPSIS :
In this era of “reconciliation”, Indigenous territories continue to be seized by force. Invasion focuses on the resistance of the Unist’ot’en encampment, the Gidimt’en access point and the entire Wet’suwet’en nation against the colonial violence of the Canadian government and big businesses.

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2 – Ilnu aitun au féminin – Amélie Courtois

Country of origin of director : Canada
Country of production and recording : Canada
2019 | 6 min | VOF 

Presented in collaboration with Wapikoni Mobile.

SYNOPSIS :
This short film accompanies the women of Puakuteu (the Women’s Committee of Mashteuiatsh) in search of ancestral learnings. They discover that it is necessary to take the time to learn and to look at what Mother Earth offers us in order to fuel the sacred fire within them.

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3 – Aski, la mère de tous – Amélie Courtois

Country of origin of director : Canada
Country of production and recording : Canada
2022 | 3 min | VOSTF

Presented in collaboration with Wapikoni Mobile.

SYNOPSIS :
A poetic film inspired by nature and what it offers us: colors and softness. A tribute to Mother Earth, this film takes the time to look at the little details of the forest.

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4 – SHA’À – Peregrino Shanocua Chaeta

Country of origin of director : Peru
Country of production and recording : Peru
2022 | 3 min | VOSTA

Presented in collaboration with “If Not Us Then Who?”

SYNOPSIS :
Peregrino is a young Indigenous person from the Ese Eja community of Madre de Dios in Peru. He must seek guarantees for his life after having receiving threats for opposing illegal gold miners affecting a protected area part of his community’s ancestral territory. This film explores what happens when a government is unable to protect its environmental defenders.

First screening in Canada.

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5 –  Piatua Resiste – Yanda Inayu and Miguel Imbaquingo Chimarro

Country of origin of directors : Ecuador
Country of production and recording : Ecuador
2019 | 19 min | VOSTA

Presented in collaboration with “If Not Us Then Who?”

SYNOPSIS :
Facing a hydroelectric dam development in their territory, the Kichwa communities of Santa Clara fight back. Piatua Resists follows the grassroots struggle and legal process to defend the Piatúa river in the Ecuadorian Amazon. The dam would seriously impact the flow of the Piatúa river and the communities living on its banks, in one of the most biodiverse regions of the planet.

First screening in Canada.

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FIFEQ 2023 – May 4 to 11

The FIFEQ-MTL, the only festival dedicated to ethnographic cinema in Canada, brings together several hundred spectators each year around two common passions: visual anthropology and documentary film. Thanks to spaces for discussion and exchange between the public, filmmakers, researchers in human sciences and experts, we are democratizing this cinematographic genre to the public. The festival is also a privileged space to discuss contemporary issues or experiences of capturing and representing reality.

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