Films and videos

Montreal producer Ian Boyd has accepted to preside the First Peoples’ Festival 2011 jury. At the official opening night filmgoers will discover La Nouvelle Kahnawake an off-the-wall documentary about the steadfast and die-hard Mohawk community next to Montreal, with an undercurrent of reflections on how the visual world has transformed the image of the Indian. By French filmmakers Patrick Bernier and Olive Martin.

As for feature films, Lénin en Maracaïbo presents a love story between a Wayuu Indigenous woman and a Chavista activist in revolutionary Venezuela; political cinema that avoids the trap of oversimplification; Nuummioq, a Greenland feature film that was a Sundance sensation will finally be screened in Canada: a man with terminal cancer embarks on a last sea voyage with his cousin who is also his best friend; small joys and great distress, an authentic human film. On the documentary side, Children of the Amazon lets us follow the footsteps of a photographer who returns to visit Amerindians he had filmed 15 years earlier; the carefree children had become adults who have to struggle against deforestation of their lands because in the meantime, a highway had brought “progress”. From Mexico, Sylvestre Pantaleon is an engaging look at an old Nahua man who seeks a remedy for his rheumatism from a healer. In the same vein at the other end of North America, Smokin’ Fish follows an Alaskan Tlingit man who seeks to make a fortune and suddenly decides to rebuild the old family smokehouse. But as nothing is simple in life, this young man will need all his optimism to overcome the problems that he faces on his way. Amerindian wisdom and rituals are also subjects for the passionate filmmaker’s eye: among the Huitchol people with Flores en el desierto, the Totonaks with Warriors of the Sun (a spectacular version of the Sundance on its way to extinction before the young generation brought it back to life), amend the Wiwa, Kogui and Arhuaco peoples of Santa Maria (Colombia) with Why do you attack coca? Traditional Inuit knowledge dialogues with modern science in Qapirangajug: Inuit Knowledge and Climate Change by Zac Kunuk (Atanarjuat, the Fast Runner). Canadian mining corporations are denounced in Le Business de l’or au Guatemala.

The Uluit, Champions of the North presents women athletes who are also mothers, sisters, teachers, midwives and community organizers. And a special evening at Blue Sunshine (a co-presentation with Fantasia), a retrospective of Mi’gmaq filmmaker Jeff Barnaby’s “gore” movies that will be a sight. Not to overlook the Wapikoni shorts – some of which come from Bolivia.

The jury

Ian Boyd

Ian Boyd est producteur depuis 1983. La recherche, la découverte et le témoignage des identités originales dans un contexte mondial de plus en plus complexe et l’envie de partager des réflexions avec un large public font partie des objectifs qu’il poursuit au quotidien. Fondée par Ian Boyd en 1997 Les Films de l’Isletravaille de concert avec les créateurs et artisans sur des projets de longs métrages, de documentaires, d’émissions de télévision et de nouveaux médias. La compagnie privilégie la recherche d’écritures originales et les regards personnels, afin de produire un cinéma contemporain et distinctif.

Parmi ses nombreuses productions, on compte notamment les longs métrages de fiction The Passenger de François Rotger, Yellowknife et Full Blast de Rodrigue Jean, Royal Bonbon de Charles Najman, et les documentaires La Savane américaine de Jean-François Méan et Ian Lagarde; Ullumi, réalisé par un quatuor de réalisateurs Inuits, Danser Perrault de Tim Soutam, et Gabrielle Roy de Léa Pool, tous sélectionnés et primés dans de nombreux festivals. Ses plus récentes productions sont les long-métrages documentaires Les états inventés d’amérique, produit sur la base des photographies de Pierre Guimond, et La route devant, un retour aux sources du réalisateur et director-photo bulgare, Stefan Ivanov.

Majdi El-Omari

Majdi is a Palestinian – Canadian filmmaker whose work has been selected for several international festivals. His films d’auteur tell stories that grow out of the existential situation of individuals living in a world that casts them in the role of victim. The focus is on their alienation, their desire to communicate, and their search for solace as they confront political or social forces that impose a state of inertia on them. Apart from producing his own films, Majdi has begun to collaborate with other filmmakers who share his perspective to produce films he believes need to be made and to be seen by a wide audience. He is executive producer of Juliano, a new documentary directed by Emtiaz Diab about the recently deceased Palestinian filmmaker and theatre director Juliano Khamis. Impressed with Tim Schwab’s knowledge of Palestinian film and his insightful approach to making a documentary about it, Majdi is very enthusiastic about producing Cinema Palestine. He is convinced that Tim’s perspective will open a new window on Palestinian cinema.

Malcolm Fraser

Malcolm Fraser is a writer, musician and filmmaker based in Montreal. He has made two long-form documentaries: Everything's Coming My Way (2005), made in collaboration with Stacey DeWolfe, a biography of 95-year-old New York singer Gordon Thomas, and Corpusse: Surrender to the Passion (2010), a portrait of Montreal-born musician/performance artist Corpusse, as well as several short films. Malcolm is currently the Film Editor at the Montreal Mirror, as well as a musical entertainer under the name The World Provider.

Odile Joannette

Odile Joannette est la co-présidente du RÉSEAU pour la stratégie urbaine de la communauté autochtone à Montréal et agit à titre de représentante de l’Assemblée des Premières Nations du Québec et du Labrador au sein du comité directeur. Elle est d’origine Innue et Québécoise, membre de la Première Nation de Pessamit et mère de 2 garçons âgés de 11 et de 4 ans. Après avoir complété un baccalauréat en Communications spécialisé en relations publiques, elle a travaillé pour l’organisme Femmes Autochtones du Québec, et ce, à titre d’agente de liaison, aux communications et comme directrice générale intérimaire. Ensuite, à son compte, elle a développé une entreprise de production télévisuelle et cinématographique Première Nations et a accepté des mandats contractuels à titre de recherchiste documentaire et/ou conseillère en production. En 2008, elle contribue à l’établissement du premier Centre de la Petite Enfance à Montréal. Depuis décembre 2009, elle est heureuse de faire partie de l’Assemblée des Premières Nations du Québec et du Labrador à titre de Responsable des communications pour la Commission de développement des ressources humaines des Premières Nations du Québec.

Devora Neumark

Interdisciplinary artist Devora Neumark is a faculty member in the MFA-Interdisciplinary Art Program at Goddard College (Vermont) and co-Director of Engrenage Noir / LEVIER, a Montreal-based non-profit community art and humanist activist art advocacy and funding organization whose initiatives are intended to stimulate artistic creation addressing the systemic causes of poverty. As the representative of LEVIER, Neumark has been a founding member of the Montreal Urban Aboriginal Community Strategy NETWORK's ART • CULTURE working committee. She has been involved in the planning and coordination of the Agir par l’imaginaire project and associated AGIR: Art of Women in Prison exhibition in collaboration with Aleksandra Zajko of Société Elizabeth Fry du Québec. Neumark is also currently a SSHRC-funded Humanities Ph.D. Scholar at Concordia University’s Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies in Society and Culture.

Shira Avni

Animation filmmaker Shira Avni has been creating animated shorts with the National Film Board of Canada since 1997, and is a new full-time faculty member at Concordia University. Avni's films address questions of disability, sexuality, bereavement, and social justice in ways that gently break down the viewer's habitual barriers. Her studio practice involves photography as well as clay-on-glass animation and painting, back-lit to create the shimmering effect of stained glass in motion. Presented in a cinema or darkened gallery space, the work engages the spectator in a highly personal, emotionally cathartic experience. Avni's recent films, Tying Your Own Shoes, John and Michael, and From Far Away have garnered over 30 grants and awards, including the prestigious DOK Leipzig Golden Dove, and have screened in over 90 festivals worldwide, as well as on CBC, PBS, and TV5 television networks. Her current research explores the intersection of disability, identity, and independence through a combination of animation and documentary media. 

Frank Sanna

Frank Sanna is a 1st generation Canadian (Italian dual citizen) whose hybrid-genre fiction and documentary films have played at festivals in Asia, Europe, and North America. He has worked for more than 15 years in the film and television industry as Art Director, Photographer, and in various roles, and has most recently taught Film Production at Concordia University. Active as an independent artist and director-producer (GammaFilm), Sanna's personal and creative worldview are concerned with society, culture, and the poetic resolution of paradox.

Lesvia Vela

Lesvia Vela is a founding member of the Guatemala Support Committee and the Quebec-Guatemala Accompaniment Project. She is the representative of the Rigoberta Menchu Foundation in the field of indigenous film and video and she has participated in organizing cultural, artistic and public education activities to build awareness about the human rights situation in Guatemala. She also helps organize tours for representatives of Mayan social movements and communities. She was a member of the Montreal 1992 Coalition marking 500 years of Indigenous Resistance and participated in the cross-Canada campaign supporting the candidacy of Rigoberta Menchu, a Maya-Quiche woman, for the Nobel Peace Prize. Lesvia is also a Aj’qu’ij maya, or spiritual guide.