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| Kawennáhere Devery Jacobs in Rhymes for Young Ghouls |
The programme of films for the annual edition of the
Asinabka Festival was recently
released. The Ottawa film and media festival looks to be expanding impressively
as it grows in its third year. Asinabka celebrates Indigenous film and media in
the Algonquin territory by programming films by local, national, and
international Indigenous film and media artists. The festival opens on
Wednesday, July 23 with an outdoor screening of
Rhymes for Young Ghouls (review
here,
and Top Ten pick
here) with filmmaker Jeff Barnaby in attendance. This
is a great chance to engage with a film that marks one of the landmark First Nations films in Canada. The pay-what-you-can screening
happens at Victoria Park, which served as a the base camp for Attawapiskat
Chief Theresa Spence during the heat of the Idle No More movement, and will be
preceded by an assembly organized by the Indigenous Peoples Solidarity Movement
Ottawa.
The festival closes with the Canadian premiere of the drama
Drunktown’s Finest, which opened to
strong
reviews
at Sundance earlier this year. The complete programme includes a range of shorts, docs,
dramas, and features. Films at Asinabka include programmes devoted exclusive to
Canadian programming while others favour the international. The complete
package aims to situate these films and stories within a global perspective,
though, to reflect cultures, and to both entertain and engage audiences with First Nations
stories.
