First-time feature directors at TIFF connect international Indigenous experiences
CBC
From opposite sides of the globe, two international Indigenous films featured at the Toronto International Film Festival this year embrace themes of family, community and connecting with identity in a contemporary world.
Egil Pedersen (My Fathers' Daughter) and Rachel House (The Mountain) are both first-time feature directors.
At 50, House makes her directorial debut with The Mountain.
"We're from a generation where we were kind of knocked down a lot as women when we were younger and we weren't encouraged to to shine and I feel like, as you get older, you also stop listening to all that stuff and stop caring," she said.
House, who is Māori (Ngāti Mutunga, Te Atiawa, Kāi Tahu) from New Zealand, is known for her acting roles in Moana, Boy, Hunt For The Wilderpeople, and Whale Rider. She said after about a decade of receiving scripts, she found this story by Tom Furniss resonated with her and she infused it with Māori culture and humour.
"I think this is the gift of being older as well — don't waste your time on something you don't love," she said.
In The Mountain, Sam, a young girl raised outside of her Māori culture, is determined to reach Taranaki Mountain so that it can heal her from cancer. She meets up with new kids in town, Mallory and Bronco, whose Māori roots compel him to be a steward of Mother Earth.
She said Indigenous people from around the world share commonalities like a deep respect for the Earth.
Extensive consultation was required in order to receive permission to include Taranaki in the film. Māori consider Taranaki Maunga and other surrounding peaks their ancestors and they were recently given the legal recognition of personhood.
House said she "wanted audiences everywhere to see some of the wisdom and magic that exists within Te Taiao, the natural world and to fall in love with our adventurous kids who discover that friendship can see you through just about anything."
She said she hopes audiences will feel a sense of community with her film.
"We're all connected," House said.
"Every time I see a First Nations film … it's just full of familiar feelings and familiar moments."
Pedersen, who is Sámi from Norway, said he was "super proud and excited" to have his film at TIFF.
This story is part of CBC Health's Second Opinion, a weekly analysis of health and medical science news emailed to subscribers on Saturday mornings. If you haven't subscribed yet, you can do that by clicking here.
Being able to speak Inuktitut on Hockey Night in Canada is like a dream come true for Pujjuut Kusugak.
For Edward Chou, a first-year biochemistry student at the University of Guelph, the symptoms began shortly after lunch on Monday.
Some Indigenous people reacted to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's announcement this week that he would resign once the Liberals select a successor by praising him for his commitment to reconciliation, but others are pointing to unkept promises.
Mélanie Bouchard tries to bring her 13-year-old son everywhere, but car troubles coupled with the cost of an adapted vehicle to fit his wheelchair has left the single mom of four with few options.
One of the oldest public arts funders in North America hired its first Indigenous chief executive officer late last year.
The news caught retired Ottawa police investigator Randy Wisker by surprise.
A day after CBC revealed that a self-styled Vancouver Island "childbirth activist" was under police investigation, a manslaughter charge has been sworn against Gloria Lemay in relation to the death of a newborn last January.
Barry Blanchard, an alpinist and mountain guide who lives in Canmore, Alta., was among 88 people appointed to the Order of Canada, one of the country's highest honours, late last year.
The Louisiana Department of Health said on Monday that a U.S. patient hospitalized with H5N1 bird flu has died, the country's first death from an outbreak of the virus that has sickened dozens of people and millions of poultry and cattle.
A new book chronicles the experiences of Northern Indigenous people at residential schools with a particular look at Grollier Hall and Stringer Hall in Inuvik, N.W.T.
New research shows the rate of myopia among children and teens worldwide has tripled over the past three decades, with a particularly steep increase noted since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.
Halton Healthcare and Conservation Halton announced in early December they were partnering with a B.C.-based foundation to offer nature prescriptions to patients for free access to the local conservation areas.
A worker digging up clay in a southern England limestone quarry noticed unusual bumps that led to the discovery of a "dinosaur highway" and nearly 200 tracks that date back 166 million years, researchers said Thursday.
It was a feat of determination, said Christina Lennox, who re-created a 1930s photo of their great-grandmother using 87,000 beads.
Michael Cheena says he gets emotional when he reads the names of the 18 residential schools that operated in Ontario on a monument in Spirit Garden in Toronto's Nathan Phillips Square. He attended two of them.
Every year, we get to experience not only the wonders of the sky, but also missions to space that expand our knowledge of our universe.
On Dec. 31, 2019, the World Health Organization first learned about what ended up becoming the worst pandemic in over a century.