Chaakapesh documents an orchestra’s unprecedented journey to the North
It was a project of almost unimaginable ambition: a world-class opera sung entirely in Cree, bringing a symphony orchestra to small Indigenous communities in northern Quebec.
It was a project of almost unimaginable ambition: a world-class opera sung entirely in Cree, bringing a symphony orchestra to small Indigenous communities in northern Quebec.
“Best of” lists proliferate every December, and before we add to the annual offering of film favourites, here’s a short note on the selective, subjective celebration of cinema.
Over the last 10 years, many Indigenous designers and artisans have gone from running small side businesses to operating online boutiques through social-media platforms.
“We are in the time of prophecy: the youth are going to take Indigenous wisdom and resurrect it through their art and their stories because they are going to inherit what we leave behind.”
At the awards ceremony for the 20th imagineNATIVE Film and Media Arts Festival this year, Cree artist Kent Monkman – while giving out an award named in his honour – quipped that the featival was getting old, old enough to have sex.
Many Indigenous stories have been passed down generations as songs. For Indigenous hip-hop group Violent Ground, music is still a way to share stories about their lives and experiences growing up in the Naskapi Nation of Kawawachikamach.
The highly anticipated Inuit-focused film Restless River premiered October 12 at Montreal’s New Cinema Festival to a lively reception.
“The question, ‘How do I define myself as a person?’ has always been one that has fascinated me,” expressed filmmaker Myriam Verreault, director of Kuessipan.
For as long as there have been Cree, the Cree have been defining their landscapes.