19 Days, a short (half-hour) documentary about refugees at at the Margaret Chisholm Resettlement Centre in Calgary, is streaming free at the NFB site, the ever well-informed Eric Volmers of The Calgary Herald reports. The NFB also has an interview with the filmmakers, the Siad sisters Asha and Roda, who came to Canada as refugees themselves in early childhood. You won’t see them in the doc itself, as Volmers notes — they “took pains not to insert themselves.” It’s always tempting for a documentarian.
19 Days began streaming yesterday, in honour of World Refugee Day. Today is National Aboriginal Day, and with that in mind . . .
Mittimatalik, a short film about two Nunavut high school students’ voyage through Lancaster Sound, will screen tonight at the Banff National Film and Book Festival’s National Aboriginal Day event. CBC News’ Elyse Skura writes that students Savannah Killiktee and Krystal Nutarak made the film, sponsored by Oceans North, to raise awareness of their region. Now they need as many venues as possible to bring it before the public. The short advocacy film Tallurutiup Tariunga was also based on the teens’ trip.
(Via CNW) “We had so much to say about the issues but only one minute,” says Shane Belcourt, director of the two newest Heritage Minutes, “Chanie Wenjack” and “Naskumituwin (Treaty)“. Those issues being residential schools for First Nations children (Chanie died at age 12 while running away from his school) and, of course, treaties — Treaty 9 in this case. Belcourt hopes the Minutes, produced by Historica Canada and Toronto-based Wabunganung Film Company Ltd., will ” lend themselves to a larger dialogue.”