[Qi,Ki and Chi (indigenous peoples) by Ketsa]
Yesterday, the First Nations Film Festival took place at Robert Crown Library. For an hour and a half, several Evanston residents and community members sat down to watch seven short films, all created by Indigenous persons.
According to First Nations Film and Video Festival Incorporated’s site the quote “mission of the festival is to advocate for and celebrate the works of Native American filmmakers.”
Co-director of First Nations Film and Video Festival Incorporated, Ernest Whiteman III said that the video festival
[ERNEST] – Is dedicated to showcasing films by Indigenous filmmakers, and trying to promote and elevate their voice in media because we have such a small representation in overall popular media. And the popular media that is there is usually of a historicized Native people, or it’s very conglomerative.
According to Whiteman III, the film festival tries to present films from across the country, so they can represent a diverse amount of tribes, languages and cultures.
[EW] Native people aren’t a monolith, they’re not just one single race of people. They’re like thousands and thousands of tribes.
Many of the films were also locally produced, featuring a wide range of topics. The film “Tiny” was made with clay like Tim Burton’s “Coraline”, while the film “Work Is Ceremony” featured a dancing duet between a man and a woman.
Evanston resident Phyllis Nickel watched the films with her husband.
[PHYLLIS] We were going to have go and see “Killers of the Flower Moon” today. And then I saw this and I thought, I can see “Killers of the Flower Moon” some other time. But I can’t necessarily see this. I wasn’t really familiar with this, I really like film festivals. And so we just decided, ‘hey, great opportunity for Sunday.’
I asked Nickel what her personal favorite film was – she had two answers. The first one is “Paddle Tribal Waters,” a short film focused on the largest dam removal project in history at Klamath River. A group of Indigenous youth learned to whitewater kayak there.
[PN] It’s such a great story about their collaboration. And the fact that they’ve been working all these years to get the Klamath River reclaimed. I thought that it was really, extremely well done as well.
Her other favorite was Rabbit Stories, a Cherokee series. The festival played the first episode titled “Granny Was an Outlaw.”
[PN] It had a lot of elements to it. It had the Cherokee language. It had the storytelling, what that means in indigenous cultures. And the artwork was fantastic. The dancing, you know, the various pieces of it. I thought they were really excellent. I’m hoping to figure out where to get the rest of Rabbits to watch it.
[music]
Looking ahead, the final day of the festival will be held on Nov. 10 at the Music Box Theatre in Chicago, where the film “Hey Viktor!” will be screened.
The next festival will be held for 10 days at the beginning of May. Whiteman III said he wants to raise as much awareness about Indigenous cultures as possible.
[EW] I think that sometimes people tend to forget. I mean, if you look at all the people walking past, those are the people that we really need to reach when it comes to talking about indigenous cultures because they’re not thinking about that. This film festival hopefully opens a door for people to start thinking about this.
[audience clapping]
From WNUR News, I’m Erica Schmitt.
