Spring 2024 Edition of the First Nations Film and Video Festival runs May 2 - 8, 2024.
NORTHEASTERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY
Angelina Pedroso Center for Diversity and Intercultural Affairs
5500 North St. Louis Avenue
THURSDAY, MAY 2, 6:30pm
Lets Get Stronger Together (20:13)
Awicha (16:37)
Living for Others (14:56)
The Politics (12:08)
Ozigwan (7:35)
Small Talk (3:46)
Total: 1:11:29
COMFORT STATION NOTE DATE AND START TIME CHANGE!
2579 N Milwaukee Ave
MONDAY, MAY 6, 7:00pm
Small Talk (3:46)
Ava Kuña, Aty Kuña: indigenous woman, political woman (25:00)
Mankewenüy / Amiga del Cóndor (1:03:48)
LA ULTIMA MOLA (Mor nabbi duggugi yolesad) (5:13)
Love Don't Bully (No Bloopers) (5:00)
Rosengold (13:04)
Total: 1:55:51
EVANSTON PUB LIBRARY
1703 Orrington Ave, Evanston, IL
FRIDAY, JUNE 21, 2:00pm
The Secret Love Of Nor A Miao (0:31)
Small Talk (3:46)
Living for Others (14:56)
Memoria de un pez (14:00)
LA ULTIMA MOLA (Mor nabbi duggugi yolesad) (5:13)
Kintohpatatin(Justice)-Chéng誠(Honesty)(Hui/Baedak,'24) (5:59)
Water, Star Medicine (with 15% NASA footage) (10:00)
The Electric Indian (57:00)
Total: 1:50:54
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SPRING 2024 FNFVF FILMS:
The Secret Love Of Nor A Miao (00:31)
This film is about how significance of identity implies meaning in filmmaking. The director has suffered from fraud and amnesia, so that her identity has been exploited both intentionally and unintentionally. The director does not find a thrill in secrets and thinks that her concept of aesthetics and beauty is good and should not have been diverted away from her own life and reputation as an artist. This diversion of identity has affected not only public comprehension of what she is about as a human being but it has separated her original family from the meaning of her life, without her will being involved. The disjointedness of the Kamloops survival experience comes into play as the director struggles to recover. The director loved the family that she was brutally taken away from very much and she has not been "allowed". This film could almost be entitled "the Secret Vision of an Object: since the director feels that she has been that restricted by the objectification that went along with the Kamloops experience.
This is a new film about architecture, music and the cosmos with how amnesia does continue relate to memory through horoscope. This film includes original and genuine footage of a meteor shower, as well as other images that images that depict concepts of flight, time and microcosm within macrocosm. There are clouds in the sky. Were there movies in prehistoric times? The director remembers that long ago she had been confused from being told that plastics are always new. There had been antiques made of plastic in her home that were hand blown of sand with oil. People tried to trick her to take things away that were part of her personal identity. What if there were ancient films? We had Super 8. Maybe we also had sand and oil with some minerals. There are stars in the sky.
Elizabeth A Kennedy (Tlingit and Seneca)
The Electric Indian (57:00)
Hockey legend Henry Boucha journeys from early stardom to crushing defeat to healing.
Leya Hale (Director): Sisseton Wahpeton Dakota
LA ULTIMA MOLA (Mor nabbi duggugi yolesad)(05:13)
BURSOB is the last indigenous woman of her ethnic group. After almost all of humanity became extinct due to a strange disease, she made a trip to her region that had also disappeared. Upon arrival she decides to dress in the last garment of her indigenous culture. A mole from her grandmother.
BURSOB es la ùltima mujer indígena de su ètnia. Luego de casi extinguirse toda la humanidad por un extraña enfermedad realiza un viaje a su comarca que también a desaparecido. Al llegar decide vestirse con la ùltima prenda de su cultura indígena. Una mola de su abuela.
Ornel Alvarado, Roberto Villafane (Guna)
Memoria de un pez (14:00)
Mario a forty-year-old man, is recovering in a hospital room after having tried to end his life. There he meets Andrea, a little girl who does not want to continue her medical treatment and just wants to escape with Pepe, her fish. Mario personal childhood story is intertwined with the lake where Andrea wants to take Pepe. But not only Mario and Andrea will have to reach the lake, they will also have to discover and forgive their human limitations in order to transform and see their loved ones.
Pato Alfaro Rivera, Cesar Alfaro (Nayarit - México)
AWICHA (Grandmother) (16:37)
The plot unfolds in two timelines, intertwining the life of Melchor, a child in the ancestral community of Sampaya, and his adult life as a baker in the city. Melchor is the last baker of his community, and his grandfather, also a baker in his time, passes down to him the ancestral secrets of the trade. In the past, we see Melchor's grandfather kneading bread in the community oven while experiencing mysterious visions. The grandfather teaches him the importance of connecting with their ancestors. In the present day, adult Melchor faces migraines and strange hallucinations in his bakery. Melchor finds himself in conflict against an unknown horror that only he and his grandfather know. He decides to stop worshiping this entity and rebels, paying with his life for this brave revelation.
Marcelo Javier Ajpi (HUARI) (Aymara)
Kintohpatatin(Justice)-Chéng誠(Honesty)(Hui/Baedak,'24)
Commissioned by TMU CERC in Migration & Integration #WhereWeStand Project 00:05:59 Synopsis: “Kintohpatatin(Justice)-Chéng誠(Honesty)” is a collaborative Indigenous-settler co-created short film borne out of friendship, respect, understanding, and trust. Through juxtaposing stunning natural and experimental split-screen visuals, auto-biographical haikus and reflections on Indigenous natural law, we explore principles of honesty and justice amidst the realities that impact our lives as Indigenous and migrant peoples on Turtle Island. We invite viewers to examine their stance on past, current and future Indigenous-settler relationality.
Logline: Co-created through textural auto-biographical haikus and justice-seeking storytelling, "Kintohpatatin(Justice)-Chéng誠(Honesty)" compels viewers to examine Indigenous-settler relations encompassing the historical, relational, socio-legal, political, environmental and the self. Audio and Visual Treatment: This collaborative visual bricolage offers stunning natural and experimental visuals and split-screens, which are paired with Indigenous drumming by Baedek, which signifies the heartbeat amongst many Indigenous communities, and original composition by Stephen Laing.
Christian Hui, Andrea Baedak (Maskekon Cree-Michif)
Rosengold (13:04)
A story of two big name execs looking to find a new host/hosts for their show which has been on the decline as of late, coming across two superstars with a show that's already been built up, by the name of. "Rosengold". These superstars are International King (Sebastion Ross) and Dr Ross (Sienna Ross). Will they be the talent their looking for, or just yet another fluke? "Written, produced, directed, filmed, & edited all in one week by Sienna & Sebastion Ross"
Sienna Ross, Sebastion Ross (Cherokee)
Mankewenüy / Amiga del Cóndor (1:03:48)
Maria Manzanares María (Mapuche)
The Politics (12:08)
Lamenting her loss of community, a travelling Métis Woman encounters two unknown and bizarre personality in a lonely bus station.
Len Morissette (Mistawasis First Nation)
Ozigwan (Tail of Serpent) (7:35)
A grandmother-grandson fishing trip unleashes the serpent people living at the bottom of the lake.
Cole Stevens (Nipissing First Nation)
Water, Star Medicine (10 minute version with 15% NASA footage) (10:00)
Dr. Lisa Spencer assigns her Santa Fe middle school students the study of water. They traveled to sites to explore the Rio Grande, drought in New Mexico, and farming in the desert by early Pueblo peoples. Interviews were conducted that include the research of New Zealand Māori Scientist, Veda Austin. This film also explores water beyond the science realm to include the emotional, historic, and spiritual power of water. It also explores water being from outer space, perhaps from asteroids, and the study of water on Mars. About 10% of the footage is from various NASA stock footage. This film won Audience Choice Award for middle school films in New Mexico.
MESA/ Turquoise Trail Middle School Students (Apache, Hopi, Puebloan, Diné, Yu'pik)
Love Don't Bully (no bloopers) (5:00)
MESA/ Turquoise Trail Middle School Students (Apache, Hopi, Puebloan, Diné, Yu'pik)
Ava Kuña, Aty Kuña: indigenous woman, political woman (25:00)
Ava Kuña, Aty Kuña; indigenous woman, political woman is a poetic approach to indigenous Brazilian women's political resilience. A portrait of the Kuñangue Aty Guasu, an assembly of Guarani Kaiowá women, the short documentary mixes the impressions of a white woman with an originary woman's explanations about this meeting.
Julia Zulian, Fabiane Medina, Guilherme Sai (Kaiowá Guarani)
Let's get Stronger Together - Juntos nos fortaleceremos (20:13)
In 2019, a new government set foot in Brasilia promoting the dismantling of rights and encouraging the occupation of indigenous territories by miners and agribusiness. At the same time, indigenous peoples from different peoples of Brazil mobilized and occupied the roads, streets and avenues, resisting and claiming their right to exist and to their territories, promoting the largest indigenous demonstrations in the world, such as the 2022 Terra Livre Camp. This film shows the strength of these mobilizations, in which the collective body of the original peoples acts transforming mourning into struggle, resisting together to strengthen their traditions and ways of existing.
Cristian Cancino (Mapuche)
Small Talk (3:46)
A music video for the song Small Talk, from the debut album of the same name by Copeland James.
Simone Hile-Bassett (Anishinaabe: Fond du Lac Band of Minnesota Chippewa)
Living for Others (14:56)
Told in a nonlinear order, a woman about to move to Berlin for her husband's work has a bizarre nightmare, and meets a stranger with an eerily similar experience.
Simone Hile-Bassett (Anishinaabe: Fond du Lac Band of Minnesota Chippewa)
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