Notes from a programmer

Transformative Imaginings at the Royal Saskatchewan Museum

By Dianne Ouelette

I envisioned Transformative Imaginings over several years as a curated collection of films looking at the themes of colonialism, Truth and Reconciliation, spirituality, hope, and visualizing a better future. The idea came to fruition this past winter at the Royal Saskatchewan Museum, where the screening attracted a diverse audience, with more than 170 in attendance. These films transform traditional narratives of what was and what is, helping to construct an imagined future, and offer some optimism for a better world. 

Transformative Imaginings raises awareness of current global perspectives from varying cultures, with each filmmaker telling a unique story. Terril Calder's (Métis) poignant film, SNIP shares a story of survival, reflecting on Canada's genocide of Indigenous children who were forced to attend residential schools. The film opens with a church bell ringing and the lettering on the cover of a holy bible being ripped and replaced with the film's title, SNIP. As crows fly from the bible's words, beneath the open spaces created by the newly formed letters, the words fall away and children appear to be looking through the gaped letters. The film continues as a children's book opens to different cut-out scenes created from its pages. Through this cut-up animation process, main characters, Annie and Gordon, travel back in time to save two children, Charlie and Niska who are trapped in a residential school, designed to exterminate their culture. This stop-frame animated film captivates and transports the audience to the characters’ brutal colonial reality in the barren space where the children are confined. Charlie doesn't survive, reflecting the reality that many children did not come home from these schools. Annie and Gordon are able to save Niska. As they escape the school, Gordon throws a match given to him by Charlie, igniting the school in flames. We hear a drum beating, and the narrator explains that the three characters dance in the light. Manitous (ancestral animals) join them from the forest as Charlie’s spirit watches from atop a tree. The children's escape from the school becomes an anticipated end as feelings of anxiousness and hopefulness are brought to the fore. Although, Charlie walks with the ancestors, sadness prevails as both children did not survive.

It’s Like That, by The Southern Ladies Animation Group (S.L.A.G), is an harrowing story of refugee children in Australia. The film was completed over many months, with each artist in the collective contributing small animated pieces. The stop-motion bird characters, representing incarcerated children, generates a motif through the varied styles that each artist brings to the film. It's Like That,uses recorded voices of three refugee children, who were interviewed in 2002 by Australian journalist Jacqueline Arias. At the time, the children were being held in mandatory detention. The innocence of the children, portrayed as vulnerable little birds, comes through in the harsh reality of their confinement, pulling feelings of melancholy and hopefulness for their freedom. 

Jacqueline Michel’s (Anishnabe/Kitcisakik) live action short, Mahiganiec illustrates a fable of a wolf-child and a woman who assumes the child needs to learn the ways of a human. Michel works with themes linked to the history of the Anishinaabe Nation, and her storytelling here captivates as we anticipate the wolf-child's release, realizing she cannot, nor should be changed.

Jonathan Thunder is a filmmaker from the US. His mesmerizing film, Walk in Dreams, takes viewers on a journey to an imaginary world inhabited by fantastical creatures. As a painter and filmmaker, his exquisitely hand-painted dreamscape explores the dynamics of its eerie characters. The film opens with a quote from Edgar Allan Poe, "All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream” and sets the tone for the haunting film that follows. Mesmerizing creatures are morphed into peculiar beings. A tiny tadpole-like creature and a giant snail have the heads of a rabbit, flowers float in empty space and then on land, a rabbit with red eyes, and another with spinning blue eyes appear to be hypnotized into a dream-like state. Another rabbit with sad green eyes holds a bottle, seemingly drunk. Moving into the drunken rabbit's eyes, turtles float in space with grass and trees growing from their backs, revealing the same rabbit standing in front of a tree. The enchanting lullaby-like soundscape entices us as Thunder beautifully renders this imagined nightmare-world of walking in dreams. This film haunts us not because of the ghostly creatures and tone, but because his message of a lulling peaceful dream reveals turmoil, reminding us that these beings live in a colonized world.

Amanda Strong, a Michif interdisciplinary artist, employs stop-motion animation in her film, Biidaaban. The story follows a young Indigenous gender-fluid person and Sabe, a 10,000 year-old Sasquatch shapeshifter, who appear to move through time. They are continuing the ceremonial traditions of their ancestors by harvesting sap from sugar maple trees in urban Ontario areas, memorializing traditions and ceremonies. The characters transcend time and space, as they witness past ghosts. Motifs of ghosted ancestors include, caribou, wolves, and Anishinaabe people as they materialize, reminding Biidaaban of what once existed. These imagined visuals are reprisedthroughout the film, as we witness the past and present coming together, stepping us fluidly through time. Strong decolonizes through the lens and shows us traditions as Biidaaban experiences internal conflict while guided to continue their ancestors work on colonized lands. 

Danis Goulet is a Cree/Métis filmmaker who grew up in Saskatchewan and now lives in Toronto. Goulet draws from the Weetigo (from a Cree oral story) in her short live action, Wakening and projects a futuristic vision of a time when the environment is devastated, and society is under military control. She creates a world where all citizens live under occupation and need to fight for their survival. Weesakechak, a Cree woman who carries a bow and arrow, combs a destroyed city. She is fighting in the resistance against military occupiers in this devastated world. As she wanders the zone, she comes to face the Weetigo in an abandoned theatre. The Weetigo, who is traditionally known as a boogeyman used in Cree stories to keep children from wandering too far from home, adds to the suspense of the film. By bringing the Weetigo into this futuristic film, she reflects on the cultural genocide of Indigenous people, their lands, and traditions. As the Weetigo overtakes soldiers in front of Weesakechak we see that the characters have joined in the resistance. In this apocalyptic world, Goulet gives hope that they will survive as the Weetigo turns from the archetypal boogeyman to an ally assisting with the fight. The Weetigo, like Weesakechak, will continue to exist as long as they fight to be remembered.

Hazhir As’adi’s Blows with the Wind, captivates viewers with this story of a scarecrow who transforms into a human. Difficult decisions are made in the scarecrow's new human life, and this breathtaking film considers the way life is lived and struggles are endured. Echo Henoche’s delightful animated film, Shaman,retells an Inuit legend of a ferocious polar bear turned to stone by a Shaman. The screening wrapped up with Tara Audibert’s (Wolastoqikyik) visionary animated film, The Importance of Dreaming, reinforcing the program’s themes of love and faith. This beautifully constructed forbidden love story between a white owl and a red fox leaves us with feelings of warmth and a smile. Yet, this love story reaches back through time to the personal story of Audibert's parents and how, through the Canadian Indian Act, her mother, an Indigenous woman, married a non-Indigenous man and lost her status. The fox is shunned by her family to follow her owl love and soon has fox children who learn from both parents. The fox's family comes around eventually to meet the children, bringing everyone together. As time passes, Owl does not want to forget this beautiful life and soon flies to the sky and becomes a glimmer, a memory. The message of, ‘do what you want and be who you are’ prevails, leaving us feeling empowered with hope in a time of reconciliation. 

Collectively, these films express optimism by sharing stories about overcoming the seemingly impossible, and ultimately envisioning a better future.By opening my mind to these works, I’m absorbed by the imagined realms of this talented group of filmmakers. Sharing this collection of films not only allows these filmmakers’ perspectives to shine, but helps to cultivate ideas, increasing knowledge and understanding through a multiplicity of stories with universal themes, bringing together a diverse group of filmmakers and audiences.

Transformative Imaginings screened at the Royal Saskatchewan Museum on March 8, 2019

This article appeared in the Fall/Winter 2019 issue of Splice