The 18^th First Peoples’ Festival is returning in 2008, from June 12 to 22. At the heart of the event, a big, free public concert will star Richard Desjardins (aka Richard Guétare) and Innu author-songwriter-performer Kathia Rock. This show is set for Saturday, June 21, National Day in Solidarity with Aboriginal Peoples, and will take place at Place Émilie-Gamelin, the venue for the festival’s outdoor events. Kathia Rock will be accompanied by Jean-Frédéric Messier, better known as a director and playwright, but moonlighting as a guitarist.

The show starts at 7:00 p.m. and will be followed by an open air screening of the documentary Le Peuple Invisible, by Richard Desjardins and Robert Monderie. This film will have been screened in New York during the seventh session of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues.

The multidisciplinary First Peoples’ Festival is an annual 10-day showcase for the best in creativity from the First Peoples of the three Americas, featuring a wide range of events encompassing visual arts, film, video, literature and performance arts.