THE ART THEATER

Aanii | Hello!

My name is Cole Forrest, I’m an Anishinaabe Queer filmmaker and film programmer from Nipissing First Nation.

My pronouns are they/them, and I’m grateful to be a part of this edition of The Art Theater!

Chi-Miigwetch | Thank you

Film was never something I had imagined I would be doing, inherently it is a dream to be thinking about film every day of my life. Where I am now, as Cinema Programmer at The Center for Contemporary Arts in Santa Fe, NM, and a film programmer at international and regional film festivals in the US and Canada, has its beginnings.

A well-known Indigenous filmmaker came to my community when I was in high school to do a film workshop. Over a weekend, my cousin and I shot a small project, in the middle of winter, outside, on Lake Nipissing. The camera slowly moved closer and closer to me, and then behind my shoulder, where it looked from the cameras’ perspective, I’d walked into the frozen lake. I remember the shot being the white snow on the lake, the grey winter sky, and a sliver of orange over a Bon Iver track ( it was 2014, whatever ).

I felt something in my heart from that final shot. I knew I wanted to do something visual like that again.

The following Autumn, I was asked to be a main actor in an Indigenous college film, The Lost Warriors, made by a local Indigenous film student. It was all Indigenous cast, Indigenous director. I would go to school during the day, then shoot at night/weekends. It was one of the best experiences I had early on. I saw everything happen on set, the great, the good, the chaotic. The whole experience blew me away in how a film was made.

Going in to my first semester of film school ( a year later ), I’d been supported by a mentor to make a film, my first film, titled Braids. I had no idea what I was doing, but with my mentor’s support, and new friends in this strange world of film school ( and free film gear ) I shot a short with a car, physicality with weapons, and high drama over a day. There is a joy in not knowing what you’re doing as a filmmaker. What came of it was my debut short premiering at imagineNATIVE, where I also did the director’s lab ( I always think I was too young to really appreciate the lab ).

Looking back, now over 10 years into making films, these three experiences very early on were deeply influential on my path as a filmmaker and film programmer. I had family, I had community, and I had other Indigenous artists, young and experienced encouraging and believing in me. It took a long time for me, a young Indigenous person, to believe I was good at something, and it became filmmaking.

I write about these instances from early on in my life because as Indigenous curators/programmers our experiences influence the way we move through choice, art, exhibition and public presentation. It was engrained in me early on to understand who and what came before me, my own path, and how community moves with you in programming and curating.

Is it a general theme across filmmakers that our experiences influence the work? Yes, of course. Though, the interpretation and individuality of the way we work is special. And I do believe as Indigenous film people we have a uniqueness in how we are individual in an inherent community to guide us and move together with grace through film.

Nothing makes me happier than presenting Indigenous cinema on the big screen. As a curator and programmer, my philosophy is simple, we deserve to be on the screen, we deserve to tell our stories, and it’s my duty to honor and champion the hardworking Indigenous film workers across the film industry.

When I’m asked what the best part of the filmmaking process is, my answer is always the screening. A screening is a celebration. We fight and think our way through scripts, productions, edits, in hopes to reach to the other side of the process. When you see it in the bright lights, loud, and 50 feet wide, there is true joy.

When I considered what to share, it all relates to bringing films to the big screen. I wanted to share a few on the festival circuit ( coming to a screen near you ), a list of shorts you can watch right after this article, and one of my all time favorites.

Indigenous cinema in its current form is relatively new, making Indigenous film programming/in curation a relatively new adventure. Indigenous film made by indigenous people is about 45 years old (See: Merata Mita, watch all her films ). The Indigenous Cinema Canon continues to grow in incredible ways, which is making this festival season as compelling as ever.

I wanted to share four Indigenous films on the festival circuit right now. Currently, there are many amazing Indigenous films, feature-length and short, sharing our stories on the big screen across the world.

All four of these films explore culture in brilliant ways. Defining themselves through personal experience, sport, food, art, powwow, and inter-generational experience. The dynamic ways these film express themselves of Indigenous experiences is especially moving and deeply

impactful.

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screen these films here

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1. Remaining Native

dir. Paige Bethmann

As Indigenous teenager Ku Stevens aspires to go to the University of Oregon and become an Olympic-level cross-country runner, we learn of his family’s history through his greatgrandfather’s narrow escape from the horrible clutches of an Indian boarding school.

2. POW!

dir. Joey Clift

A Native American kid scrambles to charge his dying video game console at a bustling intertribal powwow.

3. Tiger

dir. Loren Waters

Dana Tiger explores the art of her father, legendary Muscogee Creek artist Jerome Tiger, as a way to know him, the richness of her culture, and her family’s artistic tradition.

4. Legend of Fry-Roti: Rise of The Dough

dir. Sabrina Saleha

A Navajo/Bengali niece kneads to find dough-mestic harmony when her aunties burst into a frybread vs. roti showdown. With all the ingredients of her culture, she must cook up her own recipe for belonging.

Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner ( dir. Zacharias Kunuk ) is one of my favorite films. If there is ever a chance to see it on a giant screen, you should.

Atanarjuat changed the way we think about Indigenous stories on screen. In our storytelling, traditionally, as Indigenous people, we do not follow a binary of linear and non-linear storytelling, we do not have to tell or show everything, everything is just the way it is.

There is a beauty in knowing our stories are our world. Atanarjuat is an expression of those beliefs. It’s an Indigenous epic, a traditional story laid true on the big screen.

This was the first film to to be fully an Indigenous language, with a completely Indigenous cast.

Atanarjuat is sitting with your elders, hearing their stories all day, leaving at the end of the night lost in thought, wonder, and belief in culture. When I watch Atanarjuat, I’m left in awe of the scale of the film, the seasons change in Atanarjuat’s journey, family members are murdered, the next generation is born, the community changes, time is both ethereal in a spiritual sense, and

grounded in the land and the people.

We are shown a way of life we may not have seen even as Indigenous viewers. And we are better for it, after leaving the cinema with The Fast Runner in our minds and hearts.

As a professor at The Institute of American Indian Arts, I teach cinema studies, and one of my favorite things to do is to put together a list of short films to screen at the end of the class, generally three shorts. After the lecture, we’ll watch all three and comment on them.

I want to share 3 Indigenous short films you should check out ( with links! :) ).

1. KATATJATUUK KANGIRSUMI

(Throat Singing in Kangirsuk)

dir. Eva Kaukai and Manon Chamberland

Eva Kaukai and Manon Chamberland practice the Inuk art of throat singing in their small village of Kangirsuk. Their mesmerizing voices carry through the four seasons of their Arctic land.

2. Sunflower Seige Engine

dir. Sky Hopinka

Moments of resistance are collapsed and woven together; from documentation of the Indigenous led occupation of Alcatraz, to the reclamation of Cahokia and the repatriation of the ancestors, to one’s reflections on their body as they exist in the world today, These are gestures that meditate on the carceral inception and nature of the reservation system, and where sovereignty and belligerence intersect and diverge. 

3. Jeremy Dutcher (Music Video)

Pomawsuwinuwok Wanakiyawolotuwok / ᐯᒪᐧᓱᐧᐃᓄᐧᐁᒃᐧᐊᓇᑭᔭᐧᐁᓓᑐᐧᐁᒃ

Featuring: Jeremy Dutcher, Tobique Annual Pow Wow & Wolastoqiyik Neqotkuk

Traditional Gathering 2023, Wabanaki Two-Spirit Alliance & International Gathering, the Lands and Waters of Unceded Wolastokuk & Mikmaki. 

I hope you walk away from reading this a bit more stoked about Indigenous Cinema. Indigenous Cinema is continuing to grow in powerful and exciting ways. Nothing fills my heart more than seeing us succeed as filmmakers and screening where we believe is best for our stories to be shared. We are here telling our stories of our communities, our people, on our land. We will always be.