World Premiere
In this personal documentary, Indigenous comedian Chad Charlie goes to participate in the Standing Rock occupation and has a transformative experience. The film takes us on Charlie’s powerful passage of self-discovery, from the irreverent jokester to the culturally aware poet whose powerful spoken word piece encapsulates his realizations at the close of the film. In this blend of cinema, vlog, and social media with tons of humour, Charlie uses a real mix of formats (phone streaming, news footage, fly-on-the-wall documentary style) very effectively, and doesn’t try to work in a huge narrative or have a tidy conclusion. Like many who were there and endured violence by police against their peaceful marches, Charlie is still working through trauma and mental health issues he experienced from it. In his case, this journey has left him with a greater awareness of the ongoing injustices that Indigenous people must still contend with.
Community Partner
USA
2022
English
Featured in:
International Shorts: Personal Journeys
The films in this shorts program are all about discovery. Beautiful and thought-provoking voyages of internal and external discovery that honour relations and history, while encountering stimuli that promote a new understanding of self.
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Nina Roza
Mihail, a contemporary art expert, has been living in Montreal since he left Bulgaria with his daughter almost thirty years ago. When he is commissioned to authenticate the work of an 8-year-old painting prodigy, he returns to Bulgaria for the first time.
Elephants in the Fog
In a remote Nepalese village, Pirati takes charge in the search for a missing girl belonging to her family of third-gender Kinnar women. A densely atmospheric thriller and a moving portrait of an embattled but resilient community.
Clarissa
Arie and Chuko Esiri’s Clarissa brings Mrs. Dalloway to present-day Lagos, with Sophie Okonedo playing the titular society hostess opposite David Oyelowo, Ayo Edebiri, and India Amarteifio in a Nigerian vision of class, privilege, and past lives.
Image: © Courtesy of Elevation Pictures
How We Stand
How We Stand follows three Indigenous sisters separated after their family relocates to Los Angeles under Native American Relocation Program in the 1950s. Twenty years later, they navigate identity, trauma, and very different lives.
Hearing
Bảo Lê makes a notable entrance with this lush, meticulously composed feature debut that unfolds as a series of film tableaux drawing on moments in the life of a middle-aged mechanic whose work involves installing decibel meters across public spaces.
In the Heart of the South
In the Heart of the South, from the director of Slash/Back, brings North of North co-stars Anna Lambe and Zorga Qaunaq together for a propulsive, psychological meta-thriller about an Inuk multimedia writer possessed by her own narrative.
Credits
Producer
Ben-Alex Dupris
Cinematography
Alex Goetz
Editor
Ben-Alex Dupris
Original Music
Terrance Sabbas
Director
Chad Charlie
Chad Charlie is an Afro-Indigenous filmmaker from Ahousaht First Nation. Beginning his career in 2008 as a stand-up comedian and spoken word artist, he now extends the same passion for poetry and humour in his writing for TV and film. He is currently a writer and actor for the hit television series Reservation Dogs (FX).