Angela’s Shadow is not just an entertaining, compelling, and beautiful movie. It’s also very important and something we all need to reflect on.
We had a chance to sit down with producer writer, and director Jules Koostachin before the big screening at the Vancouver International Film Festival (VIFF).
HNMAG: When are you coming up to Vancouver?
Jules Koostachin: We’re still doing our rounds with my documentary WaaPaKe, made with the National Film Board (NFB), so right now I’m in Parker Arizona, then I go to Ottawa, then travel to Edmonton, and then back to Vancouver for the premiere screening of “Angela’s Shadow” on the second of October.
HNMAG: Oh my God, that’ s a lot.That is a whirlwind, huh?
Jules Koostachin: Yeah, different temperatures, too.
HNMAG: You’ve got to bring layers. You’re actually promoting two films.
Jules Koostachin: WaaPaKe is now almost done its festival round.
HNMAG: Has an audience seen Angela’s Shadow yet?
Jules Koostachin: This is the world premiere and then we have another screening in L.A. in November.
HNMAG: Your history is pretty amazing. You grew up in a place called Moose Factory?
Jules Koostachin: No, I was actually born on the island of Moose Factory. They have a training hospital there. I grew up with my grandparents in Moosonee, as well as my mother in Ottawa.
HNMAG: You went back and forth from Moosonee to Ottawa?
Jules Koostachin: Yeah, we did. We went back and forth. Often. I was very young when we lived there, and then my mom moved to Ottawa, and then it was just, back and forth. I attended school in Ottawa.
HNMAG: Did you have to go to a residential school?
Jules Koostachin: Oh, no, no, no. I think that one up north closed.
HNMAG: Some of your family had survived that?
Jules Koostachin: Yeah, my mom went to St. Anne’s. My mom went to a few day schools. I didn’t even know this till last year. I didn’t even know my mom attended day school as well as residential school. They had her in two residential schools, I believe. She was gone from the ages of five to sixteen.
HNMAG: Were the day schools run by the church as well, or was that quite different?
Jules Koostachin: That’ s a really good question. I’ m not too informed about the day schools. I think it was a day school because I just found out my mom actually attended. I believe it was run by the church as well.
HNMAG: You went to UBC. That’s where you earned your. PhD.
Jules Koostachin: My undergraduate degree was in theater, at Concordia. Then I went to what is now TMU. I got my master’s in documentary media. Then a few years later, I applied to the PhD program at UBC, gender, race, sexuality, and social justice. At that time, UBC didn’t have a film PhD program. My focus was on Indigenous documentary practices and protocol.
HNMAG: You had a strong interest in Film before you were in university?
Jules Koostachin: Education was my way out of poverty, especially being a young mom. So, I just always thought, get a job, you know, so I worked in social services. I got a job but with one foot in the film world. That helped put my mind at ease because I was a single mom and it was challenging providing for my family and honouring my career as an artist.
HNMAG: This will be the first screening for your movie in front of a full audience.
Jules Koostachin: I’m very nervous. We had a test screening at Whistler in 2023. It was a work in progress back then. We organized that before the film was finished. That was really amazing. We got really great responses. We had a mostly Indigenous crew, which was great. And then we hired Mike Bourquin, cinematographer, who does a lot of documentaries. This was the first scripted feature.
HNMAG: It doesn’t look like a documentary. It’s a period piece, so it has that really authentic feel of capturing that world, which is quite different than shooting a documentary.
Jules Koostachin: He did a great job. I’m really happy for Mike. He was very worried. He was like, “I have never done this.” And I’m like, “We’ll be fine.” He’s a great cinematographer, and we’ve been working really well together. He’s excited about doing more scripted work as well. Also, want to add that Angela’s Shadow was co-written by Steve Neufeld.
HNMAG: Where did you meet?
Jules Koostachin: Steve and I met in New Mexico at an arts’ residence a few years ago before COVID, and then we stayed in touch. I’ve hired him a few times as my story editor, because he’s just amazing.
HNMAG: You have been working on Angela’s Shadow way before 2021?
Jules Koostachin: For sure, definitely yes! It’s very tragic, obviously but it makes it even more significant that people see this film coming out the revelations of what happened in Kelowna. Most of my stories are all connected anyway and based on lived experience or based on my family story, so I feel like everything that I do, unscripted and scripted is connected in some way.
HNMAG: In Angela’s Shadow, Henry has an experience that takes a bad turn. Is that because he is coming at it from the wrong approach, and it’s not meant for him?
Jules Koostachin: Yes, if it’s not your cultural practice then you should think twice about attending Indigenous ceremonies because we are so much in the spiritual realm in our day-to-day. My teaching is if you are not a believer or if you go in and you disrespect the ceremony in any way, it will probably turn out poorly for you. Henry, our antagonist in “Angela’s Shadow” was playing around and he was being disrespectful. He went into the ceremony and then he started seeing the truth within him. It was a dark truth that he couldn’t recognize at first. He was romanticizing Indigenous practice. Henry was very excited about it. His intent was not bad at first but when you start unpacking it, there is underlying racism that comes up which is obvious today, but not in 1930. In today’s context, it is the same, our ceremonies are not meant for those without connection to the landscape. It’s important for the audience to get more of a cultural context into what Cree ways of being are about and the hardships our people face.
HNMAG: There is a whole aspect of spiritual belief and corruption within trying to coerce spiritual belief, right?
Jules Koostachin: Exactly, yes you got it perfect.
HNMAG: What is your approach before you start a project?
Jules Koostachin: It is preferable to have storytellers from a place where the story originates, to have a connection to the landscape and community. I think this is where we are in the Indigenous community right now. I work a lot in documentary as well, and TV. So if I get hired, I like to visit with the community members first, then build relationships, and see if they accept me as the storyteller. Then we go from there. We are having a lot of dialogue right now in our communities about who gets to tell what stories. We agree that we need to be authentic in our storytelling.
HNMAG: How far was the Cree village from Ottawa?
Jules Koostachin: It was a long train ride in the film, but I don’t remember how long… It was around a day and a half by train. Far up north. It’ s a magical place, it a Cree community way up north in Ontario.
HNMAG: There is a strong bond with the Cree women in the film.
Jules Koostachin: That’s the other point that I wanted to bring up. The strength of Indigenous women in our communities and how they had to go underground because our ceremonies were illegal. That’s why you see that cave scene where the women are the ones gathering and making sure the language and culture stay alive. The ceremonies were still happening back then. I really wanted to show the strength of Indigenous women and the things that happened in our Indigenous communities. I wanted to highlight that strength. You see this in the film, the secret society of women, the church is trying to suppress our ways of being, and attempting to destroy the culture by imposing their own laws. In “KaTaWaSiSin (It is Beautiful)” my third film in the trilogy, which is still in development, we want to show the importance of our ceremonies, just like in the cave scene in “Angela’s Shadow”. The women are now spirits and are haunting that space in the third film. In “Angela’s Shadow” (2nd film in the trilogy) the spirits of children you see standing along the wall are the unrested. The women were conducting ceremony to help put those children to rest. On another note, when the residential schools were in full swing, from what I’ve heard from survivors and families is that, it was the haunting silence of no children in the community, the kids were all gone. Imagine a neighborhood with no children. It’s just so depressing.
Dr. Jules Koostachin is an accomplished filmmaker. She is very well-educated but lives in the real world, facing challenging endeavors. She is passionate about her culture, history, and future. She does a wonderful job sharing that passion through film and television. As viewers, we are entrained but walk away with more consideration and knowledge of the world we walk through.