Discoveries, encounters, departures: the road in front of us
With the words of ancient languages, millennial cultures take centre stage here and now, and front and centre, Montreal is once again becoming the cultural metropolis of the New World.
The starting signal has resounded. First Peoples Festival is unfurling its cultural celebration on our island, and beyond. For a week, myriad events, from gastronomy to cinematography, from poetry readings to electro concerts, from la Place des Festivals to the Kahnesetake pine forest, will provide many opportunities for discovery, meetings and sharing stories. We have to reinvent the world at every step. Going back to the wellspring also means spawning in the living waters of renewal. This is the map to the trail where the unexpected awaits us. Happy travels!
André Dudemaine
News
Films - Winners of 2012
Montréal First Peoples Festival unveils film winners of 2012!
Présence autochtone 2012
(Montreal, June 18 2012) The oldest, most deeply rooted and most longstanding resistance movement in the Americas invites you to its great annual event. A peaceful, joyous cultural event, drumming to the earth's heartbeat. With the words of ancient languages, millennial cultures live in the present time as Montreal once again becomes the New World's cultural metropolis.
From July 31 to August 8, 2012, First Peoples' Festival takes wing for the twenty-second time on the island, and beyond. With a wide range of events from gastronomy to cinema, from poetry readings to electro concerts, from Place des Festivals to the Kahnesatake pinewoods, providing a host of opportunities for discoveries, making friends and sharing experiences.
On the Loto-Québec stage at Place des Festivals, Florent Vollant, the world's most famous Innu, will star in a major show on August 2, while on the 3rd there will be a big electro concert, co-presented by MEG Montreal: the Ojibways of A Tribe Called Red will share the stage with two great Amazigh performers, DJ Mood and Foulane. On Sunday the 5th, young new performers will offer up a testing-ground concert co-presented with Musique nomade.
Cinema segment: several premieres
The opening film is Toomelah (Cannes, Un certain regard 2011) by the great Aboriginal filmmaker Ivan Sen. This is the first of a series of feature films from the South Pacific never screened in Montreal, followed by another Australian feature, Here I am, by Beck Cole (screenplay for Samson and Delilah, caméra d'or Cannes 2009), from New Zealand, Boy by Taika Waititi (who won an Oscar for Two Cars, One Night), from the Philippines, Busong (Cannes, Quinzaine des réalisateurs 2011) by Auraeus Solito.
From the Americas, We Still Live Here ( Anne Makepeace, USA 2011) and The Grammar of Happiness (Australia-Brazil 2011) about the rebirth of a language (Wampanoag) and the singularity of another (Pirahã). Granito hunts genocidal generals in Guatemala; a Canal D and APTN co-production. Apu ui Nepian (Je ne veux pas mourir), a world premiere, follows Montreal homeless people in a healing process in the forest. Finally, Tropico do Saudade (France 2011) follows the footsteps of Lévi-Strauss in Brazil, as the closing film.
The awards ceremony will take place on August 5 at McCord museum, announcing prizes such as Rigoberta Menchu, Teueikan and Coup de cœur Télé-Québec.
Poetry takes the stand with Joséphine Bacon, Natasha Kanapé Fontaine, Rita Mestokosho and Manon Nolin, four Innu women poets in an evening titled Le Nitassinan dans mon rêve, co-produced with BAnQ and presented at the Grande Bibliothèque on August 6. Recent artworks by Christine Sioui Wawanoloath at the Canadian Guild of Crafts while two young Mohawk printmakers will be showing at Oka and Kahnesatake. The Revisionning the Americas through indigenous cinema conference returns, while a citizens' forum is creating a Trust Circle. L'Autre Montréal is featuring an Amerindian tour, the McCord Museum a discussion of Inuit art, and Le Contemporain restaurant is serving up Aboriginal menus (Pre-Colonial Mexican cuisine and New Innu Cuisine).