Two of the most compelling voices in Indigenous music and cinema meet for an intimate, unique, and unforgettable evening of intergenerational story and song featuring award-winning Wolastoqiyik tenor and composer Jeremy Dutcher and renowned Abenaki filmmaker and musician Alanis Obomsawin.
Wolastoqiyik song carrier Jeremy Dutcher performs with his trio, blending songs from his community of Tobique First Nation in New Brunswick with neoclassical, jazz, and pop influences. Obomsawin, hailed as “one of the most acclaimed Indigenous directors in the world” (NFB), offers a rare live performance of Bush Lady, her acclaimed and only album, originally released in 1988. Accompanied by an ensemble led by Montreal’s Radwan Moumneh, this will be only Obomsawin’s third performance of this music since Constellation Records remastered and re-released the album in 2018.
Two-Spirit composer, activist, and ethnomusicologist Jeremy Dutcher gained international acclaim for his 2018 debut album Wolastoqiyik Lintuwakonawa, which earned him the Polaris Music Prize and a JUNO for Indigenous Music Album of the Year. Dutcher also won the 2024 Polaris Music Prize for his album Motewolonuwok, making him the first artist to win the award twice. Alanis Obomsawin is one of Canada’s foremost documentary filmmakers and Bush Lady is the only music recording she ever made. This “unique, profound, magical record” (Constellation) has only been performed live three times since it was first released in 1988. For this rare VIFF Live performance, Alanis will be accompanied by an ensemble led by multi-instrumentalist Radwan Moumneh.
Co-presented with the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts, as part of the Chan EXP Series, in partnership with the Vancouver Art Gallery
Supported by
Media Partner
Community Partner
Oct 4
8:00 pm
Chan Centre for the Performing Arts
Book Tickets
Artists
Jeremy Dutcher
Jeremy Dutcher is a Two-Spirit song carrier, composer, activist, and ethnomusicologist from Tobique First Nation in Eastern Canada. He gained international acclaim for his album Wolastoqiyik Lintuwakonawa, which earned him the 2018 Polaris Music Prize and Indigenous Music Album of the Year at the 2019 JUNO Awards. His musical style blends the songs of his community with neoclassical, jazz, and pop influences, and has led him to collaborate with such iconic artists as Beverly Glenn-Copeland and Yo-Yo Ma. Dutcher’s work has taken him to the world’s great concert halls, NPR’s Tiny Desk, and the judges’ table of Canada’s Drag Race.
Alanis Obomsawin
One of the most acclaimed Indigenous directors in the world, Alanis Obomsawin came to cinema from performance and storytelling. Hired by the NFB as a consultant in 1967, she has created an extraordinary body of work—50 films and counting—including landmark documentaries like Incident at Restigouche (1984) and Kanehsatake: 270 Years of Resistance (1993). The Abenaki director has received numerous international honours and her work was showcased in a 2008 retrospective at New York’s Museum of Modern Art. “My main interest all my life has been education,” says Obomsawin, “because that’s where you develop yourself, where you learn to hate, or to love.”
Bush Lady is the only recording ever made by Alanis Obomsawin, who began her artistic career as a singer-songwriter in the 1960s. Amidst her burgeoning film career, Bush Lady was born of sessions sponsored by CBC Radio in 1984. Unsatisfied with these recordings, Obomsawin reclaimed the master tapes, remade the album, and issued it on her own private press in 1988. This unique and profound record had been out of print and gaining cult status ever since, until Constellation Records reissued a newly remastered version of the album in 2018.
Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre
Vivaldi and Me
Venice, 1716. Composer Antonio Vivaldi teaches at an orphanage for abandoned girls, and establishes a deep rapport with violinist Cecelia — but their collaboration is threatened by her impending arranged marriage.
Camp
Reeling from two devastating tragedies, Emily (Zola Grimmer) takes refuge at a summer camp for troubled youth, where she has been offered a position as counsellor. She finds friendship, but also something more unexpected, something truly troubling...
Rose of Nevada
This disconcerting film from the director of Bait and Enys Men feels like a message from another era: two men sign on to a Cornish fishing trawler, but when they return to port they are welcomed into the community 30 years before they left...
Three Colours: Red
Irène Jacob plays Valentine, a runway model living in Geneva, who crosses paths with a retired judge (Jean-Louis Trintignant) who's a bit of an eavesdropper. Initially repelled, she becomes intrigued by this man, as do we... Kieslowski's sublime adieu.
Whispers in the Woods
A luxuriant, healing immersion in nature with ravishing wildlife photography, this is the cinematic equivalent of "forest bathing," a trip deep into the Vosges, France, with photographer Vincent Munier (The Velvet Queen), his father and his son.