Skip to main content
Fish War film image; black and white photograph of ships on ocean

Fish War

Insights

This event has passed

International Premiere

This deep dive into the contentious history of fishing management in Washington State proves richly rewarding. It’s a compelling film that opens up important conversations around Indigenous treaty rights, the extent and limitations of federal and state jurisdiction, colonial racism and hypocrisy, activism, cooperation, and conservation, to name just a few.

The film finds its centre in the Boldt decision of 1974, a pivotal legal hearing in which a Nixon-appointed judge decreed that treaty rights granted local Native American bands — including the Makah, Quinault, Skokomish, and the Nisqually — 50% of the catch, up from the 2% they had been permitted previously. The ruling was transformative economically, but also politically, and Washington State spent the next decade attempting to have it overturned.

Fish War is buoyed by an abundance of colourful archival footage and lively interviews with many of the leading figures in the fight, and cleverly threads the difficult needle of the ongoing crisis confronting all of us who care about the salmon: the bands were catching more fish at 2% of the yield in 1970 than at today’s 50% allocation.

 

Oct 2 & 4: Q&A with directors Charles Atkinson, Jeff Ostenson & Skylar Wagner and producers Kari Neumeyer & Ed Johnstone

 

Media Partner

Community Partner

Directors
Featuring

Willie Frank III, Russell Hepfer, Ramona Bennett, Lisa Wilson

Credits
Country of Origin

USA

Year

2024

Language

English

Links
Content Warning

Coarse language

PG

Open to youth at SFU Woodwards

19+

At Fifth Avenue

79 min
Documentary Human Rights & Social Justice Indigenous Cinema Q&As at VIFF
North Forty Productions, Northwest Treaty Tribes Media

Book Tickets

This event has passed.

Credits & Director

Executive Producer

Ed Johnstone, Justin Parker

Producer

Kari Neumeyer, Jeff Ostenson, Charles Atkinson, Tiffany Royal

Cinematography

Charles Atkinson

Editor

Skylar Wagner

Original Music

Black Belt Eagle Scout

Jeff Ostenson headshot; Fish War director

Jeff Ostenson

After being a mental health therapist and working with his family’s fruit packing and shipping business, Jeff Ostenson found his way to filmmaking in 2006. Since then, he has primarily focused on the project management and business end of making films, ensuring that every project delivers on time, on budget, and in a way that the client and production team enjoy, and that the created media exceeds the project goals. Over his 17+ year career in film, he has continually engaged deeper in story development and driven each member of North Forty’s creative team further to hone their craft. To date, he has directed and produced hundreds of short films, most about forest health or salmon restoration, including 11 short films in partnership with Northwest Treaty Tribes Media.

Charles Atkinson headshot; Fish War director

Charles Atkinson

Charles Atkinson is a filmmaker out of the Pacific Northwest. He studied filmmaking at Biola University, and after 6 years in Los Angeles, he couldn’t resist the call home – back to the snow and the heat of central Washington. Atkinson’s favourite thing to do is connect audiences with new ideas using filmmaking. He spends most of his time focused on the visual language of projects and believes that every film he works on can deliver a powerful visual story. Atkinson has shot hundreds of short films and several feature-length documentaries in his 13-year career.

Skylar Wagner headshot; Fish War director

Skylar Wagner

After graduating in 2010 with a cinema and media arts degree from Biola University, Skylar Wagner entered a 12-year career as a reality TV editor. He worked on a wide variety of dance competition, travel, nature, and docu-drama shows for national cable broadcast and was the lead and finishing editor on many of those. During that time, Wagner collaborated with North Forty Productions on many projects, including a regional Emmy-nominated doc short and a feature-length documentary. In the past year, he took a VP of Post position with North Forty and serves as lead editor on all of their projects.

Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre

Love

Dir. Dag Johan Haugerud
119 min

This warm, thoughtful piece offers shrewd comic observations on modern dating as it trains a quizzical eye on the trysts of a female doctor, Marianne (Andrea Bræin Hovig), and her colleague, a gay male nurse, Tor (Tayo Cittadella Jacobsen).

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

No Bears

Dir. Jafar Panahi
106 min

Dissident Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi plays himself in this ingenious meta-fiction about the making of a film, and the unmaking of love story.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Sex

Dir. Dag Johan Haugerud
125 min

Two chimney sweeps living in heterosexual marriages find their views on sexuality and gender challenged by a series of unexpected events. In a set of sharply scripted conversations, both men confront heretofore unexplored aspects of their identity.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

3 Faces

Dir. Jafar Panahi
100 min

Iranian filmmaker Panahi and actress Behnaz Jafari, both playing themselves, receive a video in which a distraught teenaged girl, whose acting dreams have been quashed appears to kill herself. Panahi and Jafari decide to investigate...

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Dreams

Dir. Dag Johan Haugerud
110 min

The third installment in the Sex/Dreams/Love trilogy is another rich, absorbing tale. 17-year-old Johanne writes a confessional about her flirtation with a (female) teacher. But the writing is too good to stay private...

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre
Transit
Transit film image; woman leaning her head against a man's back

Transit

Dir. Christian Petzold
101 min

Trust the director of Phoenix and Barbara to re-imagine a WWII romantic intrigue into something unsettlingly contemporary. With occupying forces closing in, a German refugee (Franz Rogowski) assumes a dead writer's identity and flees to Marseille.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre